This craft tip is immensely helpful indeed! I firmly believe that story starts with character and the further we dig into them, the more shining diamonds we'll find. The upcoming course on character is very tempting especially since I'm developing two fresh ideas and will be starting a rewrite very soon. I think I'll be seeing you there as well :)

Marija, there are countless reasons why writers should focus an abundance of time and effort in immersing ourselves in the world of our story's characters. I don't have time to go through the many I have in the forefront of my mind, but the main one is this: It's their story. Who would know it better? So obviously, we need to ponder them... consider their possible personal histories and backstories... engage them directly through a variety of writing exercises... dig into their wants, needs, conscious and unconscious goals... explore the nature of their interrelationships. Out of all THAT, I believe, the plot emerges. In my mind, this is SUCH a preferable path than plugging holes in some rote formula of this many beats or that many plot points. That represents OUTSIDE-IN writing. Much better to do INSIDE-OUT writing where we look to the story's characters to indicate where the narrative should go. We get into ALL of that in my Character Development Keys class. I hope you join us!

Great advice, I usually use the interview technique, I pretend I meet with my character in a coffee shop or some place out of their ordinary world and conduct an interview. Questions like 'why do you think your story is worth telling' or 'Why might audiences dislike you?' are some of the ones I ask. However, Scott, I have a question. When you do an exercise like this, at what moment in the character's life do you do the interview/monologue/sit-down. The character changes throughout the screenplay and an interview at the beggining might be (and it should be) very different then at the end of the story. I'm just wondering which one would be more useful ?

Alex, that's a good question and just generally, the subject of interactive character exercises. How about I take it up as a Reader Question?

Great! Thank you, Scott!