Something New
Today’s topic is from our friend Jeff Cauthen. He suggested that we talk a bit on the subject of Character Development.
This is a subject that we have addressed before, but it has been several years since we did so.
The first thing that you must do for any character that you have is write a biography about the puppet. Where did the puppet come from? What kind of family life did he/she have? How many siblings (brothers and sisters) did he/she have? What were their names? How far did your puppet go in school? Who were his/her best friends? What were his/her favorite subjects? Who were his favorite and least favorite relatives? Why? Were his/her parents strict or easy going? In the puppets town/farm or wherever, what were some of the interesting things that he has memories of?
You get the general idea. Create your puppets background. Tell all about his/her life both today and growing up. Know about the things that he/she finds funny or sad. Did he/she have favorite teachers in school? What was the most wonderful thing that ever happened to him/her? What was the sadist thing? Are his parents still married or are the either divorced or passed away?
The more of a character that you can create for your puppet, the easier it will be for you to write dialogs for you and the puppet.
He can have a trademark slogan such as “Uncle (so and so) always used to say __________”.
Work on that. You can add a whole lot more than just the few things we have mentioned here. The more you know about your character, the more easily you can “sell” him/her to your audience. As you come up with things, write them down. Much harder to forget them if you are not relying on your memory.
That’s all for now. We will talk more next week.
Steve and JET