Research: developing the character of my protagonist Kate

I will be working on developing Kate's character over the next few weeks. I am starting to create my character now, to provide me with a lot of time to form several drafts of  my script, as well as making additional changes to the character Kate, so its fitting with the story.

***NOTE: What I marked in  RED are details that I have changed later on in my script development process.

10/03/2016- 1/04/2016

Kate's story (as it currently stands) 

• She suffers from anxiety, whereby she feels overwhelmed in busy places and struggles with day to day interactions.
• She is governed by her critical and toxic inner voice

In order to effectively develop my character, I will be adapting Syd Field's technique of separating the character's life into two basic categories: interior and exterior. 

Interior- birth until the film begins 

• Kate is born in London. 
• She lives within the crowded city. 
• She is an only child brought up by a single mum, who is overly critical and emotionally distant. Her mum wasn't affectionate enough. 
• During primary school, she has started dancing as an extra-curricular activity. She became very enthusiastic about it and performed in a few dance shows at school.
• As a child, she regularly missed out on other kid’s birthdays and sleepovers.
• Her mother died at a young age, when Kate was 12 years old. 
• As she was getting older, she became more introverted. 
•  As the years progressed, she has developed stage fright and eventually stopped dancing.  
• Throughout school and college, she spent a lot of her time reading in her room and remained detached from other people. 
• Whenever she was picked on to speak in class, she would break out in sweat and go blank. She sometimes missed class to avoid giving speeches and never addressed this issue. 
• As a teenager, she didn't enjoy socializing and having night outs like other people her age. 
• She hasn't been in any romantic relationships and generally struggles to form connections with people. 
• As a child, she regularly missed out on other kid’s birthdays and sleepovers.

 Exterior- the moment the film begins to conclusion (including the need of character, action of character)

• Kate is 25 years old, living in London. 
• She lives alone in a singe bedroom apartment. It is extremely tidy. 
• Kate works from her apartment for a financial company. 
• She travels by public transport: bus and train. 
• She attends private dance lessons. 
• She has OCD- regarding cleaning 
• She suffers from insomnia. 
• She suffers from generalised anxiety disorder
• She has an ongoing unconscious worry that she will do something wrong. 
• Kate is at a low point in her life. She feels like she has wasted many opportunities and is deeply unhappy.
• When Kate acknowledges her anxiety as a problem, she seeks to overcome it. 

REFLECTION: 

Whilst reading Syd Field's book 'Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting', I realised that even if a detail may appear to be trivial, it may actually be of value upon writing the screenplay. For example, certain facts might be unbeknownst to an audience, however, for a screenwriter these minor details are significant in terms of determining how the character behaves or speaks. I found that forming the backstory (the interior aspects) for my character were especially useful in this regard.