Screenwriting 101: Amy Berg

“At the end of the day, the only thing that really defines a person is the choices they make. The characters in your scripts should be no…

Screenwriting 101: Amy Berg
Photo by Yusuf Evli on Unsplash

“At the end of the day, the only thing that really defines a person is the choices they make. The characters in your scripts should be no different. And not just protagonists and antagonists. Every character. If you go through your script and find characters populating it who don’t make any choices for themselves… they’re not characters, they’re window dressing.

You have to take your characters through obstacle courses. If you’re relying on dialogue alone to distinguish them, that’s not going to work. The way to create characters who are their own person is to force them into situations that require them to be opinionated and make choices… then having them make different ones.”

— Amy Berg

From Go Into The Story interview, June 2018

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