I have roughly 28 hours to get half a dozen key characters worked out for my ScriptFrenzy story. (it's not fantasy, but the rules of character development still apply!)

I have no clue how I am going to bring them to life in such a short timespan. I have my world, I have my plot mostly worked out...I simply have no personalities, no defining characteristics besides "the rebellious one" and "the perfect one - older sister, of course", etc.

What can I do? Please help!

Thanks!

Extreme fractalling and essence mapping is your only hope!

Describe each character in one sentence, capturing their heart's conflict and apparent goal.

Then figure out an internal motivation for each person (different from a goal: i.e. I want to win the race to please my mother).

Then figure out an external goal for each person (a bigger one than little steps to get to it, then figure out some of the steps).

Then make an essence map for each one (doesn't need to be big, just enough to get the juices going).

Then pick one question out of each of the seven stages of my character fractalling system and do just that one for each character.

Go on from there, you should have a good grasp of them by then. And it should only take a couple hours depending on how many characters you have. Shift into brainstorming mode!

I have some of that already, actually. I did the Snowflake system. (I'm working on Step 5) I have the motivation and external goal, a one-sentence version of their plots, how they change over the course of the story...hmm, what else was in that??? oh yeah, what keeps them from their goals. I love fractalling systems. (I use one for the plot - Snowflake system - and was intending to use your character one eventually but was concerned about running out of time because there are some beats in my story that are missing)

I'm still figuring out this essence-mapping thing. ::makes face:: I read some of the other people's on here, and was trying to figure out how they started.

Guess it's back to those articles on essence...

Thanks!

Ah very good!

Yes, essences seems to be the key you need at this stage.

I would suggest picking one stage to do with each character (preferably one of the earlier ones), or something like that. You get one part very well developed, and it doesn't take so long.

Am I allowed to post the essence for my MC after I get it done? Even though it's not really fantasy, it's scifi speculative...

One stage of the fractal or one stage of the essence?

Either way, going to plug away at it quite hard today. All I need is to fill out my 40-beat beat sheet and get the character development down, and it should be ready for tomorrow.

Go right ahead!

One stage of the fractal. Though you could do one stage of the essence too, but it takes some advanced understanding of it to make it work as well.

Have fun!

Thanks!

Hmm, can I ask something? I read this thread here: viewtopic.php?f=33&t=262 and you said that the greatest power of the essence map was for writing descriptions.

In a spec script, we do not have descriptions - only actions. I don't even get to tell people what my characters look like (which is quite sad, but I do refrain from doing so).

Is essence still applicable?

You can describe the people, the actions, and the plot with essence. Essence is very applicable.