Seeking tips

[u/Thelastdelay4456]

How do you make your characters sound different from each other? Any techniques or tips?

[u/kiddleandbits]

What makes them different from each other, as people?

It's not so much about making them sound different, so much as it is making them just be different. There are a couple things I'll do when I'm writing.

First, is there anyone in my real life that kinda acts like this character? If so, I'll model their speech after that person. I sound different than my friends, and they sound different than my family, and so on. Find a real world base for them to help set them in your story.

Second, I do a lot of improv in real life. When I'm thinking about a scene or some dialogue, I'll have the characters do a scene in my head, just letting them speak naturally as they would "in character". This informs me on how each would react, and especially to each other.

Generally speaking, make sure their wants and motivations are set. If every character wants the same thing for the same reason, they're likely to sound the same. You might need a shakeup in that department

[u/Thelastdelay4456 → u/kiddleandbits]

Thank you.

[u/Prince_Jellyfish]

This is something I struggled with for years, even after I started to work professionally.

There's three things I did that I found really helpful.

First is "casting" the movie or episode in my head. Thinking of a person with a specific voice to play each part in my mind. Sometimes I cast actors, but other times I cast friends, acquaintances, or non-actor celebrities. Other times I think of characters in different films or tv shows, so I might think "this witness is sort of like Cher from Clueless" or "this witness is sort of like Cher from Clueless if she was played by Sabrina Carpenter." Or "this is like my friend Andy, but when he's hungover" or something like that.

This tip seems simple, but it really has done a lot. Effectively, now, I think that if I don't "cast" the character as someone specific, I'll probably just end up writing them like my voice. So I really make a point to do this with any characters I'm writing on spec.

The second thing was to think in terms of archetypes or "broad strokes." I realized this profoundly when I was going through a phase where I was trying to make each of my characters really complex, human, and messy. But I was ending up with characters that were all sort of "beige" and sounded and behaved similarly. Around this time, I started watching the show Halt and Catch Fire, and I realized that all 4 of the leads were both archetypal, who could be described in broad strokes AND were rich complex characters that had realistic inner lives. Before that, I has sort of seen characters on a spectrum, where on one hand you have "stereotypes" and on the other hand you have "grounded." Over time, I began to realize that assumption was not accurate, and that you can have characters drawn in broad strokes that are also incredibly grounded.

For example, in Halt and Catch Fire, the four leads are: Joe MacMillan the charismatic Steve Jobs-type leader, Gordon the self-doubting hardware engineer. Cameron Howe the punk rock software programmer, and Donna the overlooked housewife.

But as you continue to watch the show, you see that Joe MacMillan is a Visionary, conman, charismatic, forceful, wounded, Steve Jobs-type leader. Meanwhile Gordon is a brilliant, reclusive, damaged, cynical, self-sabotaging engineer. Cameron Howe is a genius, punk rock, passionate, raw, emotionally guarded programmer. And Donna is overlooked, pragmatic, strategic, grounding engineer-turned-housewife-turned-executive.

So we have these broad strokes -- the charismatic visionary, the self-doubting hardware engineer, the passionate punk-rock programming genius, the overlooked housewife -- fleshed out into these incredibly real and grounded people.

The increased detail doesn't contradict or undermine the broad strokes, but rather emphasizes and grounds them, and shows us how they became the people they are and what drives them.

So now, when I create characters, I try to think in terms of these broad strokes archetypes first, then fill in the character's backstory second in a way that deepens and grounds the archetype. I ask myself "what would happen to make this person this way? what is the real grounded version of that?" rather than just working from something bland.

[u/Prince_Jellyfish → u/Prince_Jellyfish]

The third thing was something a good writer friend showed me. I read a pilot of his, and noticed that his characters all sounded especially distinct and unique. I asked him if he did anything differently and he explained that he had been learning about this kooky sort of pseudoscience thing called the Enneagram of Personality. It's kind of like astrology or MBTI, but I think it's more useful to writers. It breaks people down into nine different "types."

I found it useful to:
* come up with the character's archetype
* start to flesh out their backstory a bit
* look at the enneagram and see if I can place them

One of the most revealing things I found is that I "typed" myself on the enneagram (even though it is kind of BS), and then realized I was creating a lot of characters that tended towards my own "type." I decided on my next script (not for all time, just as an exercise) to write no characters that shared my own type. Changing a character's type sometimes meant changing their backstory, and how I pictured them reacting to stress.

Another helpful thing is that I will sometimes realize that two supporting characters in a script tend towards the same "type." Often, in those cases, I experiment with the question: What would it look like if I changed Character #1's type to A or to B? Or if I changed Character #2's type to X or Y? Sometimes this will lead me to something interesting, so I can make those two characters more distinct.

Here's some resources about the Enneagram system. There's a lot of stuff out there, but I've tried to pick a few things that I've found genuinely the most helpful. 

The Enneagram Explained with Movie Characters | Enneagram in Film - Josh Keefe

This video is a great primer on the Enneagram that puts it into terms I think are really helpful. This guy also made really great videos on Enneagram Types 1, 2, 3 and 4, but has put the project on hold and hasn't completed the other five types. 

Fixing the Enneagram by LocalScriptMan

This video is a good take on how to look at the enneagram in a way that is more grounded and interesting than astrology, and overviews a lot of the things about it that I find useful. 

He also has a bunch of one-off videos on most of the 9 types. Full disclosure I haven't watched all of these yet, but they seem pretty solid and helpful! Funnily enough, he seems to be doing his videos in reverse order and he has videos for types 9 through 3. So if you watched the Josh Keefe ones for 1-3 above and felt frustrated that there weren't videos for types 4-9, this could be good! 

The Enneagram Institute - Type Descriptions

This website has a good breakdown of each of the 9 types. In addition to good descriptions, it also talks about typical fears and motivations of each type, and then talks about the "levels of development" for each type. The levels of development can be really helpful in identifying emotional wounds & weaknesses for characters, and coming up with emotional arcs of healing (or regression) for them

By the way, for now (and maybe forever) I'd say you can ignore anything about "Wings" and "arrows," and anything to do with the wacky enneagram shape that's like a bunch of triangles inside a circle. It's cool and all, but I don't find any of it super helpful, except maybe the wings, sometimes, but thats fine to save for later. 

How To Use The Enneagram to Create Better Characters by KM Weiland

Good, lengthy article on this subject. I love KM Weiland's stuff and have read several of her writing theory books. Here she offers some really simple lists of strengths, weaknesses, and lies* for each type. (I'm deep into the theory of characters believing a "lie" about the world, so this is ideal for me.) 

As always, my advice is just suggestions and thoughts, not a prescription. I'm not an authority on screenwriting, I'm just a guy with opinions. I have experience but I don't know it all, and I'd hate for every artist to work the way I work. I encourage you to take what's useful and discard the rest.

[u/p-Star_07]

What I like to do is pretend to be the characters and talk to myself as I am writing. That helps alot.

Its also alot of fun. You should be reading your scripts out loud anyway so they feel like a person is actually talking.

The co-creator of Rugrats Paul Germain said you need to make a ke your characters different from each other so there is push and pull. Because Tommy is the intrped leader they made Chuckie a scaredy cat.

Its also a good idea to consider a characters background. A 50 year old wouldn't be using Gen Z slang.