I find research to be a lot like Back story. It helps to know it but don't get stuck giving TMI.

My favorite is when they try to over explain and get something wrong. Happens quite often actually. I generally do as much research as possible as a litmus test of how bad I actually want to do something. A lot of times the research gets it out of my system and I end up on something I really care about.

On a side note, this is my first post and maybe this is the wrong place but I had a question: In stories with a small cast (two or three), how do you juggle protagonist/nemesis/attractor/etc. relationships? Should the characters play double duty or do you just kind of pick the essentials and throw out the rest? Or is it just a bad idea to try something like that?

@JLBeck: First off, welcome to the wonderful GITS community. Some really sharp people here.

Re your question: I have talked about this somewhere on the blog. Perhaps it's archived in GITS Reader Questions.

Short answer: In a small cast story (2-3), out of necessity you need to think about each of your characters changing 'masks.' That is from scene to scene or sequence to sequence, they can take on the function of this archetype or that. A Protagonist may act like a Trickster here, a Mentor there. And so on with all the characters. These shouldn't be arbitrary decisions, but rather reflections of the metamorphosis of each character based upon events and interactions.

But even then I would think that in most stories, a Protagonist remains a Protagonist, a Nemesis is a Nemesis, their primary narrative function does not change. The masks they wear may change, but not their narrative function.

@JL
I definitely agree with Scott. You can't make up what you're making up so to speak.
That's where I think outlining is invaluable. It's a much more "malleable" substance and allows you to look at scenes that fulfill the various archetypal functions as relating to a limited amount of characters.

I tend to look at character as their usual dialog, so that once you determine each character's active\reactive roles, you can build scenes that maximize the emotions.

@Scott
Thank you very much for the advice and I'll definitely look through a bit more thoroughly for the main post. I looked around a bit but not deep enough I suppose. I figured I'd have to do something like that but didn't know how far to go, your advice really helps and is definitely a cool way of looking at it.

@Christian
Definitely, I've done a few outlines for this one but just haven't found one the clicked. I think my main problem is that it's my first real screenplay, I'm a film student and usually do shorts, but with such a beautiful summer break I figured it was time for the "write pages" bit. Best way to get good at something is to do it wrong a few times, right? Working off dialogue sounds like a cool approach, I'll have to play around with that.