Let’s get back at basics. Every movie starts with a screenplay.
“What an archetypal story does is introduce you to a central character – the protagonist – and invite you to identify with them.” (Yorke, 2019) This is what John Yorke starts of his article called “What makes a great screenplay?” and it puts everything into context. Every story has the same thing, a protagonist.
This is the character you want your character to get attached to and watch throughout the movie. Without a well-rounded character, you haven’t got a good script. Characters are the most important thing, just like real life. If you’re a boring person no one is going to want to be friends with you, so scriptwriters have to make sure they are creating an interesting character to keep the audience engaged.
As someone who enjoys writing scripts, I understand how hard it is to create a relatable interesting character. This is something I hope to improve on and I believe as I continue to write screenplays, this will become second nature to me. When writing scripts currently, I try to get into the mindset of the characters I am writing and I feel this makes it easier to write something natural.
If I don’t enjoy what I am writing why should I expect other people too.
Yorke, J. (2019). What makes a great screenplay?. [online] The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/mar/15/john-yorke-best-screenwriting
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