Characters, who do they think they are?

There are no hard and fast rules for writing interesting characters for the stage, but if actors are to have something to get their teeth into they need to be fully rounded, said the writer Amanda Whittington at a recent Year of the Writer workshop at the University of Nottingham.

Whittington, who's play include Amateur Girl and Be My Baby, said that writers should ask themselves three questions about each of their characters: Who does the character think they are? Who do other characters think they are? And, who does the audience think they are? 

The different answers to these questions should reveal dramatic tensions and character conflicts that can help writers create believable and complex stage personalities. She said that another way that writers looked at character development was to track the journey that each person in a play travelled. "All characters should fundamentally change on their way through the story," she said.

Participants were asked to write some dialogue - then rewrite it as a parody. Surprisingly, the more exaggerated writing seemed more believable. "What you get is rhythm and truth when you push your writing to extremes," she said.