Friday, Aug. 13

Eavesdrop on Your Characters

Mr. August offers up a short exercise to bring life to your characters:

If you’re having a hard time finding a character’s voice, get him talking about something unrelated to the scene at hand. Let your hero knock back a beer with his college roommate. Have your corporate spy meet-cute a potential suitor at a ski lodge. Pick situations that couldn’t possibly fit in your actual movie. You just want to get your character talking so that you can eavesdrop.

I never do this because I’m too interested in how the characters interact with the plot from a structural standpoint. But since John August has a reasonable amount of success and David Milch suggested the same process, perhaps it wouldn’t be such a bad idea!