Writing your main character with a specific actor in mind can really help you get the larger picture of your story.
My wonderful student, Jeff, is writing a marvelous romantic comedy with a late thirties heroine and he’s almost done. In his imagination, he uses the actress Sandra Bullock as a reference point for his character and he uses what he learns about her to expand his own character and story.
He recently read about how her latest film, The Blind Side in Entertainment Weekly. It has a spiritually uplifting aspect – the story deals with a trivial person becoming important by helping someone else. Jeff realized that he needed to add this dimension to his story which concerns the heroine making a decision that will alter the world as we know it. His insight will allow him to create the kind of screenplay I talk about in my latest book, The Four Magic Questions of Screenwriting – the New Adventure, in which, the character can fulfill or forfeit a dream and continue their journey into a new kind of third act where the character both realizes his or her dream and pursues a new one.
