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How To Write Relatable Characters in Your Screenplay

By Eric Owusu · October 23, 2014

Honesty is in fact the best policy when writing characters in a screenplay. What would they say? How would they say it? How would they lie? What truth about them can they convey as they lie?

When creating characters so relatable that your audience swears they’ve met them before, these are a few of many questions writers must answer.

Your characters have to be more than interesting. Characters that speak their mind, or expose their motivations and intentions to the audience, will be viewed as the most relatable. It all starts with the screenwriter, penning them in ways that make them similar to people we know and love.

Every one has some sort of motivation. People are go-getters. Some are couch potatoes. Some people like going for gold sometimes and sitting back and planning things out other times. But with all these various types of people, they are motivated to do things for themselves, or to keep their way of life going. In order to effectively convey relatable characters the writer has to make them do positive things. The characters must do things that advance their cause.

As Steve Kaplan has said, characters that do positive things are in pursuit of their own happiness. Positive actions aren’t necessarily nice or virtuous. It just means that the character is actively working towards a goal. If a character does nothing but complain and it doesn’t bring them closer to their goal, then they are doing a negative thing in the screenplay. When you create characters who do positive things, the audience automatically sees them going after or trying to maintain what they want and relates to that.

We all want different things and we can relate to someone doing whatever they personally deem necessary to get them. You audience will be on board, but you as the screenwriter have to present active characters that will bring them on board. And your characters’ activities shouldn’t only be things they do.

Give your characters honest voices. Make them speak their minds and want to achieve their goals, saying things real people would to achieve their goals. In every movie ever, the characters we are introduced to don’t just bite their tongues the whole time. If they did, movies would be uneventful. Characters speak in order to pursue their goals and conflict usually ensues.

If there’s a main character that hates spending time with his or her parents, they should be written in a way that spells that out for the audience to see, understand and relate to. They should roll their eyes, sigh, and be noticeably less happy when they’re around their parents than when they are not. They should argue with their parents, disagree, criticize their parenting, or throw a temper tantrum, all to exhibit their honest feelings in regards to their parents. Scenarios like the parent-disgruntled child one are a reality to a lot of people. If you can effectively give honest voices to your characters, audiences will relate to them.

These are all ways to not only show how relatable characters in screenplays act and express themselves, but also to show familiar human traits. So even in the most tumultuous screenplay, throw some of your characters a bone and let them experience a victory. In watching a character that they’ve connected to and empathize with, the audience loves seeing them get a win. It shows how these characters react when they get a win, which is something everyone can appreciate. When any of us has a bad day or gets thrown into an unwanted situation, we hope and pray for a break. And when we get one, we couldn’t be happier. So show your characters break from their antics (if they’re ridiculous) to appreciate the win when you decide to give them one. Your audience won’t be able to help but relate to them. Honestly. 

 

Who is one of the most relatable characters you've seen onscreen?