SAMPLE OF CHARACTER STUDY ESSAY 

Working in your group, make a "chart" like the one we made in class that explores the characters you will be creating for your screenplay.  Remember, you are creating a PROTAGONIST, an ANTAGONIST and a B STORY CHARACTER.  If you have four people in your group, you must have 2 B CHARACTERS.

The more detailed you make your "charts" the better your characters will be.  Take your time as a group creating these charts.  Push yourselves to take the extra steps and ask questions that will carry your details to more than just a surface depth.

POINTS TO HIT:

• Dramatic need (what does your character want and what is motivating the character)

• Point of View (what has brought your character's personality to this point in life)

• Attitude (what is it that motivates your character to make choices)

• Transformation (what is the major personality change your character will be experiencing and what has created this transformation

Your essay should be double spaced, written in 12 pt Courier font.

BECKY

     Becky is a 19-year-old high school drop out.  She lives in a run down apartment in a run down part of Los Angeles near the garment district.  While she grew up in an upper middle class neighborhood, her current living conditions were brought on by her own choices both good and bad. Becky has just discovered that she is pregnant and is unsure of the father of her unborn child.

     Becky began her life with her parents who raised her with high academic expectations.  Although Becky is intelligent, the constant pressure of her parents to bring home only A’s began to wear her down.  By the time she was in her junior year Becky’s grades, always excellent, had begun to slip. The ease of cutting class, of doing the bare minimum and hanging out became less an occasional occurrence and more a habit.  Before long Becky’s parents decided that they had to clamp down on her, taking away privileges, grounding her, removing her from activities she enjoyed.  Believing that this would force Becky to stay home and study, her parents felt they were doing the right thing.  Sadly, Becky saw this overt concern as oppressive and instead of stepping up; she stepped out and continued with her inappropriate behavior.  By the time she was in the last part of her senior first semester, Becky had lost so many units that she had no hope of graduating and she dropped out of school.  This choice to drop out was not met with joy from her parents. They gave Becky an ultimatum…get it together or get.  Becky chose to get out.

     When she first moved out from her parents’ home, Becky moved in with her friend Amanda’s family.  This was a situation that ended in disaster. Becky’s habits of coming and going as she pleased, not having a job and taking Amanda’s family’s generosity for granted cost her friendship with Amanda as well as her living arrangements when Amanda’s mom demanded that Becky move out. 

     In order to afford a place to live, Becky has resorted to living in a “group home,” meaning that a bunch of young people who can’t afford their own places are “clown house living,” four people to a room in a 2 bedroom-one bath apartment.  Eight of them share this apartment along with the two others who camp out in the living room.  Unable to get a job that will pay her bills, Becky has employed her ample intelligence to create “characters,” she plays during the day as she hustles the citizenry for money.  One day she is a mentally challenged girl, the next in a different location she collects money for “the children.”

     Becky, in the meantime was dating several young men.  Because of her lack of understanding of consequences, thinking that she would “never get caught,” Becky discovers she is pregnant and is unsure of the father of the child.  There are two young men who are possibilities, neither of who knows about the other.  More and more Becky is frustrated with the results of her decisions and now she is beginning to understand that her most recent lifestyle choices are now going to effect more than just herself but also an innocent child.

     Becky’s struggles now include not only living in a “clown house,” having no job, no medical insurance but also having to admit to two young men she truly cares about that she has been dishonest and immoral.  She is at a turning point in her life where she realizes any choices she now makes are truly life changing.  She finds that she must face not only the two young men and her family with the results of her choices, but she must also face her own future and decide which road she will take.