283 | The Art of the Character Introduction

In this special craft supercut, we gather wisdom from recent guests on one essential question: how do you introduce a character?

From subtle entrances to defining first actions, writers including Sharon Horgan, George Saunders, Dana Fox, and Akiva Goldsman share how they think about character, voice, and point of view from the very first moment.

Featured writers:

• Sharon Horgan (Episode 225)

• Clint Bentley (Episode 230)

• Malcolm Washington & Virgil Williams (Episode 237)

• Dana Fox (Episode 239)

• George Saunders (Episode 240)

• John Henion (Episode 242)

• Carla Banks-Waddles (Episode 245)

• Rob Spera (Episode 247)

• Sheila Hanahan Taylor (Episode 253)

• Sylvia Batey Alcalá & Mac Smullen (Episode 255)

• Kaz Firpo (Episode 261)

• Akiva Goldsman (Episode 264)

Episode Transcript

Lorien: Today we're sharing a super cut of answers to the craft question that we've been asking our guests over the last year. What's your approach to character introductions? Choosing how to introduce a character can be tough. You have limited space and every detail has to count. Let's see how some of the pros approach it.

Meg: We always ask, we're starting to ask our guests the same two craft questions 'cause we just wanna hear how different people approach things. So we'd love to ask you about character introductions and how you as a writer approach character introductions.

Sharon Horgan: You mean when I'm introducing them to the person who's gonna be paying to make my show or when I introduce 'em to the audience?

Meg: on the page!

Lorien: You mean your wonderful coffee meetings?

Meg: No. On the page! On the page. No, on the page. So you're on the page. You've gotta introduce Fiona Shaw's character. Or you have to introduce a character to the audience. Here she is. Do you approach that in any particular way or thought?

Sharon Horgan: I do. I always feel that stuff kind of gets scaled back a lot. You know, I, I sort of, love to get fairly descriptive. You know, like something about how they look, something about their character, and then sometimes something funny. You know, I feel like I, I like to even, you know, in, in my stage directions as well, I like to, you know, introduce something that's, you know, a physical thing that they do that might tell you who they are, how they walk, something like that.

Sharon Horgan: Luckily with, I mean, with our Bad Sisters characters, we got to sort of introduce some of them in a different way, which is to, you know, call them the prick or the wagon, you know? So in a way you kind of get to tell an audience just that little bit more you tell 'em how important they are by sort of, you know, giving a stage direction that their name will appear on screen.

Sharon Horgan: A lot of that happens in posts, but like, some of it is not some of it is like you know, a choice. Although I was talking to a writer today and he said a really interesting thing. Roddy Doyle, he said, I don't like to give character bio, his character descriptions, because he said if someone asked me to write a character discussion myself, I wouldn't know where to start.

Sharon Horgan: And I was like, oh, that's. So brilliant and so insightful. 'cause I feel exactly the same. How would I describe myself? I wouldn't know. I wouldn't know what to put down, you know, in two lines or three words or whatever. So, you know, I think the best possible thing you can do is to immediately find their character in a gorgeous piece of dialogue that tells you who they are, you know, that way.

Sharon Horgan: Yeah, I thought that was interesting,

Meg: I'm the same. Character descriptions. I'm just like, but look what they're doing. Look what they're saying. This is who they are.

Meg: on the page when you're writing, how do you think about character introductions?

Clint Bentley : Oh, man, that's a great question. You want it to be great, right? You gotta think about, and that's such a soft term and I know that, but like, I'll get a little bit more specific. You want it to be great.

Clint Bentley : You want to get your character at least like, you want the audience to understand who this person is in the starting place immediately. But that you almost have to write the rest of the character first before you do that, because it needs to be specific to that character specifically in this one where you've got, you know-

Clint Bentley : Divine G is delivering this incredible monologue. His character introduction is on the stage by himself, kinda surrounded by darkness, but in this pool of light, delivering this incredible Shakespearean monologue beautifully. And then the next moment he's being put in prison greens and called a number and told to get back to cell beat, you know-

Clint Bentley : That gives you who that is. Clarence Divine Eyes, like the character Divine eye being somebody who is really the king of this yard, this prison, and is hustling down somebody and shaking out 500 bucks from this kid and then all of a sudden turns around and. Just off the cuff quotes King Lear or because he accidentally, or the, he accidentally found the book and just, you don't know what to believe about this character and what he's gonna do next.

Clint Bentley : You know, just finding that right character-

Meg: I’m so Intrigued! 

Clint Bentley : Yea!

Meg: You don’t know what he’s gonna do, but that's part of why you love him!

Clint Bentley : That's part of and why you wanna lean in and be like, what is this guy gonna do next? And what is he or what isn't he gonna be into? And that I think like.

Clint Bentley : With just finding the right one for your character, that gives you that and sometimes you gotta write it last.

Meg: So character introductions. Do you have any insight into character introductions?

Malcolm Washington: I love character intros. I don't know if I have any insight. Well, you know what? I think so what we were talking about earlier, understanding intimately the story you're trying to tell. Really understanding who that character is and their wants and their obstacles, like really simply and straight to their core.

Malcolm Washington: And then you put that in the character introduction. Like that's like, that helps you get to, how do I introduce 'em? You know what, for boy, Willie, like we talked a long time about what his opening a long time.

Virgil Williams: A long time about that!

Malcolm Washington: A long time. Like what, when we see adult boy Willie, like how are we gonna introduce him to the world?

Malcolm Washington: How are we gonna introduce him to, first as a kid

Meg: How did you get to what? How did you get to the choice that you made? What, for you, why is that the perfect introduction for him?

Malcolm Washington: We introduce him as at first I in, we introduce him as a kid wearing his father. His dad gives him his hat. You know, that's a legacy he has to live up to.

Malcolm Washington: But when we really see our boy Willie John David Washington and what he's after in this moment we saw Boy Willie as a character who was just, had so much drive. What could. Bang his head through a wall to get what he needs and what he wants. So we wanted to see him in action. We wanted to see him like we introduced him, trying to push a truck that won't move, that won't budge.

Virgil Williams: He's struggling against the machine when we meet Poor Willie. He's pushing the fucking machine. He's pushing the fucking system. He's pushing this thing that's gonna carry him to freedom. Full of fucking watermelons and it's not starting and he's and he is doing it anyway.

Malcolm Washington: Yeah.

Meg: I love it

Malcolm Washington: That's who he is.

Virgil Williams: Yep.

Malcolm Washington: That's who he is. In a sweat!

Meg: And you hit the bar of, as Andrew Stanton says, I fucking love him because he's trying and he's not gonna take no for an answer. Yeah. And he's gotta fucking get it. And so you're right with him. You're just like with him, I'm getting on the truck with you.

Meg: I'm in the story.

Malcolm Washington: I'm that, and I might question your tactics. But I know what you're after, and you know what? It makes sense. It makes sense what you're after.

Meg: It makes sense.

Virgil Williams: We meet Bernice and she's asleep. We meet Bernice and she's sound asleep because that's exactly what she's doing. She's ignoring her history.

Virgil Williams: She's content to let it sit downstairs quietly. But we meet Avery. He's, you know, got his Bible and Strutt through the neighborhood trying to, you know, charm, congregants. We meet Dakerr and he is taking care of that house he's in and about that house. Everybody that we meet, we were intentional about how we met him.

Meg: I love it. And Doaker on the porch, isn't he? When we meet him?

Virgil Williams: Doaker's inside. 

Malcolm Washington: He's inside. Yeah.

Meg: He's the kitchen. He's in the kitchen.. Because it's about his house. Yeah. Yeah, you guys, I love all of that so much. I can't even tell you. Like my brain is spinning right now in terms of this, in terms of this pitch.

Meg: How am I gonna meet them? I have to know them better.

Meg: Wicked is such a wonderful example. Character introductions. We're gonna meet your lead. They're gonna walk on for the first time. How do, what advice are you gonna give emerging writers about character introductions?

Dana Fox: I mean, don't try to do them when you're starting the script. That should be one of the last things you do.

Dana Fox: Because you won't know who the person is fully until you get to the end of the script. So put in something that serves for a minute, lives there placeholdery for a minute, and then as you move forward in the script, you're gonna start to. Really feel who that person is, and you're gonna know, okay, that's how you have to meet this person.

Dana Fox: In order for us to be the most juicy, excited about who this person becomes we should meet them like this. I never try to do a character introduction at the beginning. 'cause I'm like that, that, to me, a character introduction is like, when I was asked to write essays about myself to try to get into college, I was like the person who is the least qualified to write an essay about me is me.

Dana Fox: What are we talking about? I dunno, how do that, I dunno how to do that. So like, I would get people to help me. I'd be like, what do you think of me? What do you think I am? You know, like, I don't, it's crazy. So to me, character introductions, they should be something that emerged way later in the process.

Dana Fox: And like with, you know, I remember with Elphaba, we, you know, I spent a really, I was like. Obsessed with that shot of her hand on her hair, where she puts her hand behind her head and moves her hair to the side. And everybody kept being like, why are you dying on this weird hill about this hand and this hair?

Dana Fox: And it was like. I felt really strongly that we should see as many pieces of her as possible before we see the green skin. So it was like you see her feet, but they're boots and so her skin's covered down there. You see her back, but she's wearing black and so you don't see the skin. You know, it's like, so I wanted to delay the green skin as long as possible, but then also I felt like once we cast Cynthia, I thought it was really important that she was a black woman.

Dana Fox: I thought it was really extraordinary that we were allowed to, that we were encouraged to cast a black woman in this part. I mean, it's incredible. Cynthia's extraordinary there. Like once you see her, do you know once we saw her audition tape, it was like, well, everybody's gone like goodbye. Like, 'cause she's just, you can't she, you know.

Dana Fox: I leave Earth when I see her do her thing, I just, I float off of earth. That's the best thing in the entire world. I love her so much. But the hand with the hair, I thought it was important to see her hair, to be like, this is a black woman because ultimately she's covered in green, but also she's a black woman.

Dana Fox: And I just thought that was so wonderful and extraordinary and I just thought like, well that would be great to see that. So it's weird things like that for character introductions that tend to. Like get stuck in your head that you're like, I just have that hand on that hair. You know, like, I don't know why, but it just felt important by the time we got to the end that should be the thing.

Dana Fox: But yeah, I've written 97 versions of character introductions.

Lorien: We'll be right back. Welcome back to the show. Can you talk about your approach to character introductions?

George Saunders: Oh. I've never been asked that. I, again, this sentence, you know, like, I need, you know, Jeff to get in the room. I just say, you know, Jeff walked in and then sometimes you say Jeff walked in and immediately sat down on the loves.

George Saunders: Letting out a tremendous fart. Then I'm like, oh, actually Jeff doesn't have to come in the room. Jeff's already on the loveseat. Don't actually, Jeff just farted on the loveseat. Jeff farted on the loveseat. There we go. And you don't have to, you don't know who Jeff is yet, except, you know, he just farted on a loveseat and then we get to go.

George Saunders: What does Jeff say next? You know, he could, like, he could say like a kid in my grade school, we are taking a test, and he let one rip, as we say. And this poor guy, he was so sweet, he goes, and nobody knew who it was except he goes, excuse me. And then he was nailed. So maybe Jeff does that suddenly, you know?

George Saunders: You know, so I don't really, I don't do a lot of, I don't worry a lot about you. You mean like the first time the character is in something?

Meg: Yeah, like if we were writing in our script. You know, Jeff enters, right? But what I love is your intuitive, brighter brain made an action happen. It didn't just start to describe him, right?

Meg: IIt said he's walking in, which is already a choice to walk in. He's sitting down, he's farting like a meet- Action! Action! Action! tells us more about him than, you know, his height and his, you know, all of the other stuff that people think. A character introduction is.

George Saunders: Right. I, yeah. And again, I'm not a good screenwriter, so I don't know about that.

George Saunders: But I, in fiction, if I tell you that a guy is controlling, I get zero points for that. Jeff is controlling, eh? Okay. Prove it. That's the first thing that the readers think, prove it. Okay. Then you make Jeff do something. Well, he is, I guess he's not controlling if he's farting on the loveseat but, you know, the first action is character.

George Saunders: So in, in a and in secondary thought is character, but mostly action. So I just let a person sit there until they do something and then I go, oh, okay, we're on the trail of character here. Jeff, for example, just told Steven to shut up. He was talking, huh? And then two more times, Jeff interrupts Steven and puts him in his place.

George Saunders: Now we already, we have a lot of character there that you could probably have taken pages to get to. So I'm kind of a fan of action as character. And, but of course what that means is, in my story is a lot of times so there will be a lot of explanation before the first action happens. And then there's that difficult moment you go, oh crap, okay, I don't need any of that.

George Saunders: I'll take it out. And then you just boil down to the action.

Meg: Yes, we do that too.

Meg: What do you think about, or what would be for you, a great character introduction, which is interesting 'cause you just talked about you realizing you had introduced this character. So what's a great character introduction for your kind of storytelling?

John Henion: It's probably very similar. To yours in the mechanical sense of like one that re alleviates the need for lots of exposition.

John Henion: So it's like a scene where you can just drop in and it's like, you kind of know what this character's all about by that singular moment. And oftentimes that becomes like the cold open to the first episode of a series or a future doc or something because you learned so much.

Meg: Do you find that it's, do you find that-

Meg: it’s them in behavior or like is there a pre, and maybe there is no answer to this, but is there a predominance of, you know, when somebody's doing something, making a choice, having a problem, and responding to it, you know more of who they are versus them just kind of in a situation, a scene. At least that's how I kind, I try to approach it from a-

Meg: When you got it created out of nothing. Do you see any similarities in a great character introduction in terms of what they're doing or how we're meeting them?

John Henion: I mean, in terms of what they're doing, I would say it should have some sense of surprise. Like I can give you an example, have you ever heard of the documentary film Undefeated?

John Henion: Which is about this Memphis high school football team that didn't win for a million years, and they got this coach and I forgot the name of the filmmakers, but they're very talented. So, you know, it's this scene. It's a feature doc about this Memphis high school football team, inner city, you know, all black team, white coach.

John Henion: This one player gets picked on or bullied and he literally leaves a team meeting and jumps over a fence and goes home. And the filmmakers go home with him and he is behind his house and he’s got pet turtles and he is playing with one of, he is talking to the off camera producer, which I actually really love.

John Henion: Cause I don't like to try to pretend like the camera's not there. I love that conversation behind the camera, even if you have to keep the voice in. 'cause that's, that is part of the reality in that moment. And this always makes me cry, but he's like, turtles are a lot like us, you know, like. You know, they got this hard shell, they gotta be so hard all the time, but deep down, they're just soft in their skin and bones.

John Henion: And it was like such a perfect metaphor for the situation that kid was going through. But not only that kid, but all of these kids in this inner city environment that they were growing up in, they had to just like be tough, but on the inside they're like kind of soft and you know, he was hurt because he was being picked on and bullied.

John Henion: And so there's a level of like metaphor that I think is like a perfect character introduction because again, like you don't want it to be exposition, you want it to be lyrical. So I always felt like that moment was such a perfect character introduction or a way to get to know someone, especially when they speak in.

John Henion: In metaphor, it's like easily digestible and also lets the audience interpret it in a way that resonates the most with them. So I'm always looking for those moments

Meg: and I love that character because he's so insightful and he's so honest and he's so vulnerable and you know that he opened up, you know, that you just love him.

Meg: I like, I love him right now, just hearing his story and I wanna know what happens, right?

John Henion: Yeah. You wanna give him a hug?

Meg: I do. I wanna give him a hug and see what happens, I wanna make sure he is okay.

Lorien: Character introductions, do you have a philosophy or strategy to really, how are you introducing your characters on the page?

Carla Banks-Waddles: On the page. So not in a pitch, but in a pilot situation?

Lorien: Yeah, like in a pilot or you're introducing a new character, like episode seven, someone comes in. What is the way that like you make me like, I love them, I hate them. I can’t wait to watch them?

Carla Banks-Waddles: Oh yeah. I mean, I think it's like, what is the most fun way to introduce them? Like knowing who they're gonna be and their meaning to the series and their meaning to the characters on the show. Like what is the most fun way to introduce them? And just speaking of the one character that I was talking about, her name is Erica on Bel Air.

Carla Banks-Waddles: The soapy story with Aunt Viv the sorority sister who slept with Phil back in the day the way we introduced- you don't know who she is. But just finding fun ways to introduce them. And in her case, Phil was working on a case, a client had been poached, and he was gonna go have a meeting with the other firm that poached his client.

Carla Banks-Waddles: And when he sits down, he's waiting, and Erica sits down and no, doesn't even sit down, walks past his table and is just like, oh, Phil. Funny thing. Oh my God, Erica, I haven't seen you in years and. She says, you know, what are you doing? He's like, I'm just waiting for a client.

Carla Banks-Waddles: They're waiting for, you know, to have a meeting. And you realize she is the meeting. She is the meeting. Ah, she's the one who took the client. So it was just like a fun way to introduce her

Lorien: Again, poaching, right? Isn't that her character

Carla Banks-Waddles: Poaching!

Lorien: She's so right. She's so, so it's like being consistent with who they are.

Lorien: And then when we find out the past, we're like, oh, well that tracks.

Carla Banks-Waddles: Yes. 'cause that's who she is.

Lorien: Yes. No, I love that. It's like finding the now version of who she was, but it's like the consistent Yeah. Me showing character. Yeah. Right. Behavior.

Carla Banks-Waddles: Yeah.

Lorien: That's great.

Carla Banks-Waddles: It's like the meet cute, everybody. You know, what is the meet cute with this new character?

Carla Banks-Waddles: What's the best way, the most fun way to introduce them, that makes the audience look forward to, oh, this is gonna be fun.

Meg: What for you as a writer, director? What is a great character introduction?

Rob Spera: Oh boy. What in general?

Meg: Yeah, just if you were like, that's great, like, something that will help our writers who've we've gotta introduce our characters, right? Like as a director or what, you know, actors like, or any even small insight would be helpful.

Rob Spera: I think to make sure you're not relying exclusively on what they say in that moment, right? So much can be done. We're expecting for that character to have an impression on us. And the worst thing we can do is leave it so that the actors have to generate all that, right?

Rob Spera: So making sure that we're using all of the elements of storytelling, right? Especially how we treat deep space or flat space for them, but when are we introducing them. If we have a character who's introduced after a first act of all flat space photography.

Rob Spera: And then this person appears for the first time in deep space, that's going to be right. That's going to have a really powerful effect and make an imprint right on the viewer. So looking to make sure all the tools are in play all the time and not just relying on the dialogue to do that.

Meg: So how do you and working with different writers on all these different versions and as a producer working on other projects. Yeah. Just to open it up a little bit, have you noticed anything that particular writers do in introducing a character that immediately you care about them? Is it that they have a problem?

Meg: Is it to save the cat? Like, 'cause you're you without ensembles, boy, you gotta do it fast, right? Yeah. I gotta meet the character. I have to know who they are. I have to know so much just in their behavior. Right? Often these are the last scenes that you can find, right? Because you don't even know them as a writer until you write it a lot of times.

Meg: Do you have any insights into that in terms of what you've seen the great writers do?

Sheila Hanahan Taylor: For us when we have to do these big ensembles, obviously it is. It is like a ridiculous math problem. The thing that we've realized is in introducing someone very efficiently and very quickly, we use the television pilot rule, which is if you look at the excellent TV pilots, those characters show up, but they don't have a problem yet.

Sheila Hanahan Taylor: They don't have a lot going on yet. We just need to meet everybody at the workplace or meet everybody at the hospital, whatever it is. They all come in with a very clear point of view. So less about problems, more about attitude. Who is grumpy, who's energetic, who's seeming like the life of the party, who's coming in.

Sheila Hanahan Taylor: You can tell with something else on their mind and they walk in and if you've done it well, it's in like one or two lines of dialogue like you're in and that's a constant conversation we were having like years and years ago. I worked at the Fox TV lab forever and my co-teacher there is a woman named Kelly Kolchak.

Sheila Hanahan Taylor: And she came up through some of the greatest writers' rooms ever. And she was like going back to some of those benchmark TV shows that sort of started the change of excellent television. So if you look at things like Taxi or Cheers, when they were at the pilots, they would walk in and have one line and you would know exactly who they were and what their world point of view was.

Sheila Hanahan Taylor: So for us, that's our rule of thumb.

Meg: God, I love that. Now I wanna go back and study those pilots.

Sheila Hanahan Taylor: Yes. I can tell you

Meg: Just 'cause that line of dialogue.

Jeff: I also noticed, Sheila, that like the convention of using a family to tie this story together, I think did a lot of work and provided shorthand for us as an audience as well.

Sheila Hanahan Taylor: When we came into this movie in particular, our master plan. Early on was, and John Watts had this, so he came in and he was like, you know, the person who's been best at introducing families in his film Lexicon, and he is a little younger than I am, is he grew up with all the Spielberg movies. And he said, you know, when you walk into a Spielberg house, it's always crazy.

Sheila Hanahan Taylor: There's like somebody using the blender, there's a golden retriever barking, there's somebody like racing around trying to find their basketball shoes. Like it's always hectic, and he was like, if you can introduce us. Into that family in a Spielbergian way. It just does everything we're talking about, which is they don't have to come in with a problem necessarily, but they do come in with a point of view.

Sheila Hanahan Taylor: In this case, we made missing Paco the sort of the problem, which then allowed everybody to ping pong off each other. But then we had, you know, the old Western trope of like a stranger arrives. 'cause none of them have seen Stephanie in so long. So we gave them a point of view about her right away. And so in our math, every line was counting to like, and we barely trimmed that actually.

Sheila Hanahan Taylor: Like that was sort of how it unpacked from the day we shot it, to be honest. So I don't know if that's answering your question, but to me it was all in that intro. The whole thing hinged on that essentially.

Lorien: We'll be right back. Welcome back to the show.

Lorien: How do you introduce your main characters when you're writing a pilot? That will be a spec, like a sample. What is the way you grab your audience and make sure your character introduction is powerful? If that's how you approach your, how do you introduce a main character in a, like a spec sample or a pilot that you're being paid to write?

Lorien: I get that same thing, right?

Mac Smullen: Yeah, I mean, this is a tough question. I mean, I, you know, personally, I think. People respond to action. Absolutely. Like to introduce your main character, doing something that is definitive for them. And it's not just about, you know, describing what they're wearing and the like, the little look on their face or whatever.

Mac Smullen: And introducing a character. The moment you only get that one moment, you know, to introduce a character who theoretically, you know, is gonna be so interesting in TV that you wanna spend. You know, hours and like days of your time with this person. And I think, yeah, I don't, it's something that I still struggle with, but I think that for me it is all about what they're doing and how that defines them as a character and how that can immediately kind of click with an audience.

Mac Smullen: To know, okay. I get it. I know who this person is. I like them. I'm interested. They're kind of cool. Let's see what they're doing next. Like that is like all you could do, I think.

Lorien: Okay. So easy!

Sylvia Batey Alcalá: Yeah.

Lorien: Sylvia?

Sylvia Batey Alcalá: Yeah.

Sylvia Batey Alcalá: I tend to, I mean, I do always try to introduce them with a moment that encapsulates something about them.

Sylvia Batey Alcalá: Ideally it encapsulates them or their essence. I also find that for me, I had never thought about this until you asked this question. I've been kind of rolling through my brain. I actually, once I'm actually sitting down and typing and I've broken the story and I know what the moment is and I know what the opening scene is.

Sylvia Batey Alcalá: I also spend a lot of time on the opening shot.

Sylvia Batey Alcalá: And what the first visual is on the page, because I do feel like. In success, there is a direct correlation between the visual story and who that character is, and it doesn't necessarily have to be, you know. She's Barbie, so it's pink. In that case it works very well, but it doesn't always have to be that one-to-one.

Sylvia Batey Alcalá: It can be a landscape that tells us something about where this character's emotional journey might go, for example. But I do think I really try and drill down on who are they and what are they going through, and am I telling that from the very first thing that the reader sees when they watch the show-

Sylvia Batey Alcalá: Of their mind and then extrapolate that out into the moment when we actually see the character and interact with them.

Lorien: Yeah. I've never done, well, I mentioned at the beginning, I'm writing this pitch with it's a show and its format I haven't written it before, and so I really wanted to set like tone, genre, world, character, and the kickoff of the pilot.

Lorien: 'cause I don't like to write ex like, it's like it's happening right now. And this is the pilot and off we go. This, the inciting incident is in the first like minute of the pilot. There off we go through character choices. And I realized I had to, I'm building it now. So that's the first thing I pitch.

Lorien: And that for me, once I figured that out, was like - Ah, right. It's introducing her world, her choices. It sets the whole show in motion, her in the world. And I was like, I figured it out and now, you know, I just have to rewrite the rest of it. But I, we asked this question of people on the show and I didn't have an answer for myself until I figured out for this particular show that's what's gonna be, 'cause it's action, it's, you know, I want it to be a little violent.

Lorien: I want, you know, I have to show certain things so that you watch that first two minutes and you're like, okay, I'm in, or I'm out. So I have to be really clear about what it is. No hedging. And so that's, I've been then applying that to other things I'm doing, which I've found really powerful. And it's just like, okay, if I just watched these two minutes, would I be able to know what the show is about?

Lorien: And hopefully yes.

Lorien: And hopefully yes. But I, you know, and I've been writing for a long time and I'm still sort of trying to figure this out. So like, I as everything, right? I mean, if you guys know the answers, please tell me.

Mac Smullen: No, I, everything you're describing is extremely difficult, like everything that we've just talked about is very hard to do, I think personally.

Meg: If I say character introductions,

Kaz Firpo: I'm always trying to think with character introductions of moments that reflect somebody's inner life. Even better, maybe their moralities or their belief systems in one condensed, complicated interaction. You know, the basest version of this is to save the cat, right?

Kaz Firpo: It's like when somebody sees somebody that needs saving and they save them, then you, it tells you a lot about that person. Like, this is where we really get to the show, not tell, which is a universal rule. That took me, frankly, I'm still learning how to do that. That's the hardest thing about screenwriting, frankly.

Kaz Firpo: How to take behavior and turn it into dramatic action. And so with character introductions, half of it is like. Just first out figuring out the, like, alchemy and the equation of like, who is your character and what are you trying to reveal about them? And once you've done that, frankly, difficult math, you know, I could come up with an example of like, an angry young man who's a surfer, right?

Kaz Firpo: Well then in that version of events, if he gets into a fight the first time you see 'em, you're gonna, it's gonna create an understanding of who that person is because of their behavior. Like. I'm accidentally launching into a whole speech about reading people because it's supposed to be a lightning round, but please bear with me, all the time.

Kaz Firpo: As people we are reading other people, artists certainly are fascinated by human behavior. And so if you're listening to this and you're thinking about your introductions, like go into the world and just watch how people behave. You know, like if you have an interaction at a coffee shop and they don't have what you want, there's a micro expression on somebody's face when they experience-

Kaz Firpo: The disappointment of not getting their mocha frappuccino, and then they have to come up with something else and they're, are they flustered by having to come up with a new order. Like this is a micro expression of what we do in cinema, which is to put it on a grand scale. So what behavior, what physical action would tell me that the dramatic action, how a person feels, believes, or thinks about themself in the world.

Kaz Firpo: And obviously the more fun and brief way that you can do this, the better, you know, and frankly, you're gonna keep working those moments over and over. I just think it's important that a. You have fun writing it because people will have fun reading it. And that you're trying to think of a way to put them in a situation that reveals some inherent truth about them and all the better if it's flawed because we're all flawed.

Lorien: I love that. I think the coffee order is a great writing exercise to do. I do. The one I do trader Joe's.

Lorien: At Trader Joe's someone's crashed their cart into them and the one thing they went there to get isn't there and the store is closing in five minutes. How do they interact with the person who crashed into their cart that is gonna, do they run away?

Lorien: Do they fight? Do they burn the place down? Do they cry? But it has to be a reaction and then a response. It can't just be, I'm crying, are you kind?. Are you kind, apologize, help them find their thing. So that what you're talking about, and then you take that and then you make it bigger and apply to your, if you don't know, it's a way to explore that.

Meg: How do you approach character introductions?

Akiva Goldsman: So when I am working on a script myself, or when I'm working with another writer and I'm producing a script, I always have a litmus test. What do you want them to feel in this moment? Not what do you want them to think? What do you want 'em to feel?

Akiva Goldsman: Because that's the delivery system within which the rest of the content is gonna be carried. So there are certain places where your emotional real estate is larger, right? The impact is greater. Because the weird truth about screenplay, I think this is true of a lot of narrative objects, but really screenplay is-

Akiva Goldsman: You are creating a set of questions and then answering them, and some of those questions are simply a priori and they come with the audience walking in or the reader. And those questions often are, who's this about? Who's this story about? And so when you meet a character, it's the first answer to that question right there.

Akiva Goldsman: There are very few questions you can be sure they're bringing in. Right. A lot of them you have to generate over the course of the object. Right? Your first actor. But this one, you know, they're gonna want to know who's this about? I mean, I saw Brad Pitt on the poster, or I'm opening the first page.

Akiva Goldsman: Who's this about? So that's a very powerful moment. When you bring your character in, you don't, they have no idea what to expect, what not to expect. And so what you do with that reveals not just character, but you as the writer, as the script, as the author, as the narrative voice. And I would say to you that it is very similar to back before there was the internet.

Akiva Goldsman: Going on a date. Like what do you see there and how do you feel about it in that first moment? Who is he? Who is she? What are they doing? Are they beguiling? Is it interesting? Are they sexy? Are they funny? Are they paying attention? Are they not? All those same questions come up in that scene. So I think they're a fun opportunity for direct, misdirect.

Akiva Goldsman: Or sort of slightly askew introductions.

Lorien: I love that way of looking at that as if the audience is on a date, because you're asking yourself too, do I trust this person? Do I wanna keep seeing this person? Do I wanna follow the like, what are you doing tomorrow? Like, it's all those things you do ask when you're on a date.

Lorien: Thank you for listening. Hopefully hearing these perspectives helps you unlock your own approach. This episode was edited by our fantastic intern, Melanie, so a huge thank you to her.

Meg: The Screenwriting Life is produced by Jonathan Hurwitz and edited by Kate Mishkin. Head to thescreenwritinglife.com to check out transcripts of our recent episodes, TSL merch, like our I Love Getting Notes notebook or some really cool coffee mugs, and our premium membership workshop.

Meg: TSL workshops. We have a growing library of prerecorded workshops that cover all sorts of craft related topics from character want to outlining a feature. We also have two live zooms a month, Lorien and I with you, where you can chat to us directly about the projects you are working on.

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Lorien: So give us a follow. We have links for all of the above in our episode descriptions, and if you have any questions, you can email us at thescreenwritinglife@gmail.com. Thank you for listening, and remember, you are not alone and keep writing.