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NOTE: I WROTE THIS ARTICLE A COUPLE YEARS AGO. IT EXPANDS ON WHAT I WROTE IN "WRITING A SCREENPLAY - 1ST 10 PAGES"
Showing Character
By Matthew Terry
I know that this may not come as a surprise to most of you but film is a VISUAL MEDIUM. That seems, surprisingly, simple but writers often forget this and end up "TELLING CHARACTER" as opposed to "SHOWING CHARACTER."
What is the difference, you ask, between showing character and telling character? It's very simple. Imagine if you will that you're writing a scene where two people are supposed to meet. One is a Doctor, the other a Hooker. Just by saying those two titles, you automatically have placed visual clues into your brain. Doctor wears a white coat, name-tag, stethoscope, etc. Hooker wears fishnet stockings, short skirt, revealing shirt, too much make-up, hair frizzed out, etc. So place those clues into the description - such as:
EXT. BACK-ALLEY - DAY
A Doctor, wearing a white lab coat with the name-tag: DR. WHITEHEAD over the left breast pocket, slips out a back door in the alley. He cautiously looks both ways, takes the name-tag off and slips it into a pocket where a stethoscope sticks out.
A Hooker, wearing a short mini-skirt, a shirt that has a glitter "Playboy Bunny" logo, and more bracelets than you can imagine - stands posing against a far wall at the end of the alley.
Now you've set the scene and started the questions, or interest, running in the audience. "Who is the doctor?" "Who is the hooker?" "Why is he meeting with her?"
Telling character is when you have two people in a room DISCUSS who they are. This is a common practice in Television pilots (when they NEED to do this).
The best films SHOW character throughout the film but most of the time look at the first few minutes. Ask yourself the question: "What am I learning about this person?"
These films do an EXCELLENT job SHOWING character: "REAR WINDOW", "THE BIG CHILL", "THE BREAKFAST CLUB", "ADVENTURES IN BABYSITTING". With these films, in particular, you get to know pretty much everything about the characters VISUALLY then having people speak about the characters.
What other films do an outstanding job?
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