ABSTRACT
These characters deliver our message, make our arguments, present our puzzles, and give voice to the humor, drama, perplexity, and mystery of what it means to be human. Our characters allow us to make our, the writer’s, concerns and insights theirs, the audience’s. Creatures of our imagination and human research, they are our representatives, our conduits. As such, they must be believable, interesting throughout, and do what we need them to do so the audience will understand, in the way that we want them to understand, our reference points, at any time in the story. They are going to walk around and say the things that we put in their mouths to say. If the audience cares about your characters, you will engage them and they will follow you for two hours. If your characters are weak, no matter how dynamic the action on the screen is, the audience may follow you, or leave you, but they certainly will not care.
