Making characters live and breathe—everyone's got skillz

Even after having taken several graduate writing classes, I struggled with creating real characters. All of the dialogue sounded the same. The writing I did at work was much easier—writing about dentists, students and housekeepers. It was fascinating interviewing and writing about young patients and families who wanted to share their stories.

But creating characters who have never lived or who have lived but who I'd never met seemed unattainable.

One evening at USC I was waiting for feedback from Irvin Kershner about a few pages I'd written about my father's mother. During a break he took me into the hallway. He was holding the pages I'd written, and he was so angry I remember the pages shaking in his hand as he tore into me. "This boy, his mother, his father. They are like no one whoever lived, or who will ever live. You've need to show that and if you can't, you don't have anything. And right now you don't have anything."

The semester would be over in a few days, I was working full-time, and I was certain I'd fail. Even worse, I was afraid I would disappoint him. Every day I woke up before my alarm and rewrote the story. I passed the class and the resulting first-draft screenplay was a finalist in a screenwriting competition.

Another breakthrough came more recently, when the electricity was out in my bathroom and hallway. I'd been stung by a wasp near the fuse box, and the area had become overgrown with mint. My fearless sister visited and became frustrated at the lack of lighting. She found a pole that can be used to prop doors closed, and went out onto the back deck. It was too short to reach the fuse box and so she glanced at it, pulled out a pin, lengthened it and reset the circuit breaker. All of this took less than a minute.

I thought about the pole and how I would've struggled with it, trying to figure out how the pin worked, probably pinching my fingers and then I realized, even within the same family people have unique skills. Sister is a physical therapist and works with walkers, canes, crutches every day. She could've adjusted the aluminum pole blindfolded.

As Kersh often told me, the dialogue is often the least important thing in a scene. "Always listen," he'd say. "Observe. Watch people. People who do this are better writers." He loved doing this himself.

I remember bringing chocolate chip cookies to work. A friend took a bite and told me, "you got skillz." It was the highest compliment he could give.

Notice talents / skills people have. It's what makes every person unique. The skills they have are often why they love what they're doing, or why they hate what they've chosen.

As I write, I consider what skills each character has. As they show their skills they become real, they begin to breath. They show emotion. And I can work with that.