Cody and I met in a class at our University taught by one of my favorite professors. I’m incredibly grateful for that class, not just because I met Cody, but because of how much it taught me about developing a script.
As we were making our treatments, our professor asked us if our characters had started talking to us. I really thought, “This guy is crazy!” What a weird thing to say!
I understood later in the semester, when a classmate recommended that I write my main character to do something, and I found myself thinking, that’s not who she is – she would never do that. Fundamentally, I understood her and everything that she was. I had a rough backstory for her, of course, but her personality, her quirks, and her morals had developed as if I learned them about a real person.
When I was fortunate enough to live in LA for a summer during my last internship, I had the opportunity to talk to a showrunner. He asked me many questions about what I was writing, just as a friendly gesture to get to know me. But minutes later, he suddenly began to rapid-fire questions at me.
“Does your character go to the grocery store with a list? Or does she just walk through all of it?”
“She gets in the car and notices that an eight dollar coupon she had didn’t come off the total price. Does she go back into the store to ask about it?”
They were such mundane questions that probably wouldn’t show up in a script. Just things that were defined by the characters personality and their background.
I was so glad my professor asked us that question a year prior. If I hadn’t thought about it before, I don’t know how easily I would’ve been able to answer the showrunner’s questions. But instead, I knew her. Knew how she was different from me, how she was similar. And it was a great reminder for me to chat with my characters.
-Kait
How We Write 
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