5 Ways to Inspire Your Writing: Part II

2. There’s no such thing as Normal. Or Crazy.

Professor: So who’s this main character?

Student: Oh no one, just a boring guy with a boring life. A businessman.

Aside from the misinformed and very un-American way of thinking of “normal,” this is another student afraid of truth. The truth is, there’s no average, no normal, no boring. Are some people boring to me personally? Absolutely. Are they boring to the ones they love? To themselves? Probably not. In life, the punk thinks the businessman is boring and the Satanist thinks the punk is boring. The businessman watches weird porn and the punk eventually has kids and goes to Bar Mitzvahs.

When we call characters “crazy,” we’re doing an even larger injustice. Great screenplays are about interesting decisions and experiences. When we call characters (or any human for that matter) “crazy,” we’re really saying they have no belief system or motivation.

The most interesting “crazy” characters have very specific belief systems. Norman Bates believes he is his own mother and therefore should be jealous of any woman he himself desires. Travis Bickle believes murdering pimps and johns at a brothel will save the soul of a young girl and in turn, impress the girl who dumped him. Tony Soprano believes the Mafia men he kills are in fact soldiers entering a do or die agreement, not civilians.

Does this mean there are no people with mental disabilities or particularly disturbing psychological disorders? Of course not. This is very much so a reality. If you choose to write a character like that, however, be prepared to do your research and treat it with care. For every One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, there’s five Radios.

For Practice:

A)   Write 5 interesting beliefs or facts about a friend or family member.

B)   Write 5 interesting beliefs or facts about a famously “crazy” person (serial killers and TMZ celebrities make fun choices).

C)   Freewrite for 10 minutes in which your friend or family member commits a crime.

D)   Freewrite for 10 minutes in which your “crazy” person sits in a dentist’s office and commits no crime.

You should be able to find even the most “normal” can make mistakes and even the most “crazy” have to live life under normal laws. 

Stay tuned… Part III coming tomorrow. 

Ben Cohen is a Brooklyn-based comedy filmmaker and Screenwriting Instructor at the New York Film Academy. He studied at the Upright Citizens Brigade Comedy Theater. He co-wrote and directed the “Godamsterdam” web-series and wrote and directed the short film, “Is It Because of My Penis?” He performs improv and sketch in New York with indie groups, “Diddler on the Roof” and “2 Single Guys.”