Screenplay Characters

This is a character from a screenplay I have not written but for which the story is known, albeit unresolved. I'll describe this character as he first appears in the screenplay. If the character develops during a story it seems to me to be useful to have snapshots of the person as they are at selected points. It can be a way to check your story does not include information the story itself does not know.

This man is in his late sixties, a child of the end of the 1960s and all of the 1970s. He is not a fit man, truth is he is a self indulgent fellow and his body shows it. For most of his life he has run a string of moderately successful businesses, most of which he has sold off and moved to a new idea. Now, he owns a smal distribution company, buying goods from mostly Asian suppliers and selling them to resellers. The company consists of him and a woman who does all the administration but he tends to give the impression that it is bigger than that.

Most importantly at the start of the story he is looking for someone and he is not telling the truth about his motivation.

Actions in the story –

• Tooley commissions an acquaintance, John Sparnon, to help him find a long lost friend, Fraser Kilmartin. Tooley’s attempts via the web have been fruitless.
• When the search reveals a suspicion that he is partly and indirectly to blame for a murder, and he is confronted about it, he gives a little truth and a lot more lies.
• The target of the search aggressively warns the acquaintance off, and Tooley disappears, only to reappear in a couple of days at Sparnon’s door. This time he tells mostly the truth.
• In his youth he and three friends, including Kilmartin, carried out a crime that netted a large sum of money. Tooley ran off with all of it and has been hiding ever since. He says he wanted to find Kilmartin because he was afraid Kilmartin was looking for him.
• Kilmartin arrives at Sparnon’s business and reveals the real issue is a bigger betrayal

Actions in the story

• Commissions an acquaintance, John Sparnon, to help him find a long lost friend, Fraser Kilmartin. Tooley’s attempts via the web have been fruitless.
• When the search reveals a suspicion that he is partly and indirectly to blame for a murder, and he is confronted about it, he gives a little truth and a lot more lies.
• The target of the search aggressively warns the acquaintance off, and Tooley disappears, only to reappear in a couple of days at Sparnon’s door. This time he tells mostly the truth.
• In his youth he and three friends, including Kilmartin, carried out a crime that netted a large sum of money. Tooley ran off with all of it and has been hiding ever since. He says he wanted to find Kilmartin because he was afraid Kilmartin was looking for him.
• Kilmartin arrives at Sparnon’s business and reveals the real issue is a bigger betrayal.

Wants and Needs

Tooley’s are few. He is afraid he going to be murdered and he wants to be sure that Kilmartin does not know enough to give him away.

He needs to be sure he is safe, still hidden since he disappeared 40 years ago. He does not want Kilmartin to find him. If he is not safe he needs to disappear again.

Characteristics

Tooley is intelligent but not an intellectual. He is a competent businessman, but a selfish person and has never shared his minor wealth. Once a good looking and fit youth he has become a classic pot bellied man in a suit. He has no guilt for having betrayed his friends. 

I'm not convinced this worth much. I was following an outline from elsewhere and was not comfortable it was producing anything of use to me as a writer that I wouldn't get from a narrative.