A Writer's Guide to Acting: Putting it All Together

Setting. Relationship. Conflict. What the scene is really about. These are the first four building blocks to creating a believable character. Once you understand how to incorporate these four components into your acting, you will be amazed at how you ever tried to act without using them. Remember, however, to incorporate them one at a time and in order. It’s not that there’s any magic involved that requires absolutely that you use them in this order. In fact, once you get the hang of things, you may find yourself changing the order around. But for now, as you begin to learn how to use them, it will be much easier and effective if you add them in this order.

Setting, relationships, conflict and figuring out what the scene is about. Each of these components is important by itself, but all must be combined in order to fully flesh out your performance. Your job now is to put those components together. The location of a given scene helps to determine your emotions and behavior, but that behavior and those emotions will vary depending upon the relationships you have with the other characters. In addition, those relationships can vary depending upon who you care about the most and what you want most. Often, you may find your character conflicted about what he wants the most and why. And the intensity of the scene varies depending upon what changes within it.