ABSTRACT
The not-so-easy task is to create flesh-and-blood characters who will come alive on the page and the screen. Generally, screenwriters explore and develop the Character Checklist, the 3-D ID, the “I want” speech, as well as a passionate speech about the character’s values, opinions, beliefs, and a brief character bio to create backstory. All these remain useful tools, but a deceptively simple list of questions can be added to them to answer about a main character in a screenwriter's long short screenplay. Knowing what a character must be connected to will help a screenwriter define who she is, where she is, what she does in the screenplay. When a screenwriter drafts and redrafts the scenes for a long short screenplay, he/she should ensure that the dialogue works harder for him/her. He/she should give it greater richness, irony, and levels of meaning, and make it memorable.
