Create a Character Weekend!

To those loyal readers who soaked in all three "Best Of" articles this week - How's your brain? Does it hurt? How do you feel? Good, I hope. We're a tough bunch. (BTW - I haven't even shared half of the articles I wanted to share. So on Sunday, we'll do the usual Screenwriting News and then we'll continue this "Best Of" series next week because I'd really like to get into characters and dialogue.)

Do you remember that scene in Wonder Boys when Professor Grady Tripp (Michael Douglas) was in the Hi-Hat Club with James Leer (Tobey Maquire) and Terry Crabtree (Robert Downey Jr.)? They noticed a funny-looking guy across the hall and played a game in which they tried to imagine his life's story. They drummed up the name “Vernon Hardapple” and a tale about him being a jockey who fell off his horse, which is how he got his scar, and now he’s addicted to pain killers, and can't piss standing up, etc.

We used to play that game on the weekends. Remember that?

So tell me - who is this crazy girl pictured above? What's her story? Why does she look like this? What kind of funny contradictions would she have in her character?