Freewrite about your characters to discover who they are and what it is they really want.
Writing compelling characters for the stage is extremely challenging. You have to know your characters well --- their secret hurts, flaws, dreams --- and how they would act in a variety of circumstances. You have to give your characters a clear goal, something they want in a big way, and you have to show their pursuit of that goal through action. Sometimes you start writing your play knowing your characters and their goals in advance, and sometimes you discover who they are and what they really want during the writing --- and rewriting --- process. Either way is fine and will lead you to creating compelling stage characters.
Instructions
1. Discover your main character(s). Write a character bio, drawing on your own life experience or that of people you know or stories in the news. Freewrite about the character, putting her in a variety of circumstances and see how she reacts. Freewriting is a discovery process where you write whatever comes to mind as you think of the character without being critical or stopping to rewrite. Keep writing until you have a better idea of who she is and what she really wants.
2. Define your character's goal: a want, a need, an objective that he has to have. This is the spine of the play. Find a way to express that goal early in the play, through compelling dialogue, action and visual images. Compelling means forceful and demanding attention. If your character is wishy-washy about what he wants, the audience won't care much either. And if you don't supply a clear goal in the script, the actor may come up with a strong goal of his own --- and it may not be what you intended.
3. Focus on what your character does to get what she wants. People judge a character by what she does, not what she says. Action equals character, and action means choices and decisions, not necessarily movement on the stage --- although that can happen as the result of a decision. Choose actions that lead to further actions, one connected to the next, so the audience continually sees the character making choices as obstacles arise --- and these actions will reveal the true nature of the character.
4. Know all your characters. Consider who or what is the obstacle to your main character's goals, and find out who this person or entity is. Write character bios for all your characters and freewrite to discover as much as you can about them, just as you did for your main character. Then, go about clearly defining who they are by the actions they take in pursuit of their goals.
