Previous week here.

This week's homework is to write a full character sketch, with 1-2 characters driving the action (such as Matt Foley). Write 4 pages at the max, set the pattern on the first page, go from grounded to crazy town. Start with an outline, make a list of hits and then build.

Notes on characters:
* Extreme representations of what we already know. “I kinda know someone like that.” Caricatures.
* “I am person that does X because of Y.”
What is their name, physical attributes, clothes, posing, how do they speak.
* “We always know what to expect from this character.”
* Then who would be their opposite?
* Get ideas from conversations you overheard. “The real world is so funny on its own.”
* He said that the SHS sketches have gone through 3-4 rewrites by the time they’re performed and then the writer is probably still not happy with them.
* Listen to what people laugh at in a monologue and write down ideas from it.

We had to do monologues on something and then write down ideas from them. Some of them involved donating blood to go into a haunted house for free, doing medical testing…I forget the rest, I talked about being sexually harassed by the cat.

Anyway, the character ideas I came up with after that were “Fashionable Fiona,” a messy costume designer that has glitter all over the place, combined with her businesslike cousin Olivia who’s staying at her place for a job interview and would like to get the glitter off her black suits, please.

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