How to Write Active Characters

Passive characters are a very common problem in writing, especially screenwriting.

Passive characters are a very common problem in writing, especially screenwriting. In prose, the writer has the luxury of space, endless dialogue-free paragraphs that can explain, in as great of detail is needed, a character’s every thought and feeling.

In screenwriting, this is not an option for the writer. An audience is unable to read a character’s thoughts, and therefore, we must be able to discern what a character is thinking as we observe their actions.

One of my day jobs has been to read scripts and provide feedback to the writers for Pipeline Media, an organization in the entertainment industry that seeks to match the best undiscovered screenwriters with mentorship and representation. Of all the notes and advice I give to emerging writers on their scrips, one of the most common is to make their characters more active.

At its core, having a passive character is an understandable problem. The truth is, most of us see ourselves as average, not-extraordinary but not-terrible people who just exist and roll with the punches as life continues to bring us unexpected challenges. The constant malaise of working, paying bills, running errands, and fulfilling obligations for others tricks us into thinking we have little agency in our decisions…and to be fair, the relentlessness of late-stage capitalism does often trap us in a hamster wheel of responsibility. So, we don’t really feel like active characters in our lives, and therefore, we don’t tend to put active characters on the page.

The problem: passive characters are boring. We don’t really want to watch a movie or a TV show about people who go to work all day and then stare at their phones all evening. We want to watch characters make tough decisions in the face of shocking and unexpected challenges. We want to see them overcome the obstacles in front of them. We want to see resilience and growth. We want to see what’s possible for our fellow humans when our backs are up against the wall.

In my humble experience as a writer and artist, here are some tips on avoiding a passive character when writing a pilot or a feature screenplay:

Exercise: what do you DO when you feel a certain way?

There are a lot of ways to express oneself that are much more interesting than saying “I feel sad.” Start by making a long list of actions that tell us when someone is having a certain feeling. Most adults have been trained to repress their emotions, so it helps to think about kids and how they react to big feelings, especially before they’ve developed the ability to express themselves with words.

Angry? Some characters might slam doors, some might scream into a pillow, some might book it down the highway on a motorcycle, some might beat the crap out of a punching bag at the gym. Excited about good news? Some characters would dance around the room, some might text everyone they know, some might throw a party, some might call their arc nemesis to rub it in their face. Ambitious? Some characters might manipulate others to do their bidding, some might get hyper-organized and put themselves on a grueling work schedule, some might cast magick spells for prosperity.

Really define your character’s personality

The question is not “what would I do in this situation?” The question is, “what would THIS PERSON do in this situation?” It’s not a huge leap to say that Norma Desmond and Tyler Durden would react VERY differently to an unexpected challenge. When you really define who they are – their sense of humor, their level of loyalty to those around them, their defensiveness, their core wounds – it’s much easier to predict what they would do if their house burned down or if they woke up in a hotel room in Singapore with no memory of how they got there.

Raise the stakes from the beginning

One of the best pieces of advice I heard while working for Sundance Collab was in a Master Class with Glen Mazzaro, writer and co-creator of The Walking Dead. For TV writers looking to grab attention in the industry, he said, “Don’t just tell me what the character wants. Have them GET what they want, and then screw it up.” Walter White in Breaking Bad makes his decision to start selling meth in the pilot and ends up in a broken down trailer in the desert without any pants by the end of episode 1. Our three protagonists in the show Good Girls, each with very clearly defined personalities, decide to solve their financial problems by robbing a grocery store, then discover after the fact that the store was a front for a drug cartel – and that’s who they just robbed (oops!). In both cases, we don’t need half a season of our characters planning out the perfect crime, executing it, and leaving the fallout for the season finale. We want to get to the fallout right away – that’s where the real drama lies.

Some great examples of active characters:

·      Michael Corleone, The Godfather

o   One of the most fascinating characters in the movies, Michael spends half the movie taking precises and deliberate action to avoid becoming his father – then the other half actually becoming his father.

·      Ted Mosby, How I Met Your Mother

o   The hopeless romantic never fails to put himself out there in the quest for true love.

·      Emily, Emily the Criminal

o   Trapped in a cycle of debt and a brutal job market, Emily sees an opportunity, takes the wheel, and chooses her own best interest at every turn.

·      Saul Goodman, Better Call Saul

o   Saul Goodman is a great example of a character who might not always make good decisions, but decisions are made nonetheless. Every time Saul encounters a situation, he takes a specific action that moves the plot forward, consequences be damned.

·      Maxine Minx, Maxxxine

o   Maxine takes the initiative to squash the demons from her past by any means necessary when they threaten her dream of Hollywood stardom.