Good Characters?

I've done a small scale fleshing out of four characters. I haven't done anything rock solid yet, but I would love it if someone would see if these are good characters to continue with and if any of them are weak. Thanks!

The main character, James Saylor, is a male music teacher aged around 25-28. He spent his teenage and early 20’s playing guitar with absolute certainty that he would be a rock star or end up playing backing guitar in an LA studio. He used to depend on Cannabis, and has little knowledge on the dangers of drugs other than ‘Somehow they’re going to kill me, but I’m going to put up one hell of a fight’. He is a regular smoker, but doesn’t touch drink. He would hate being out of control, ironic considering he is dependant on nicotine. He blames all his problems on cigarettes and the early way he was introduced to drugs, but he feels no malice to the drugs themselves, but purely for his mother for not ‘protecting’ him enough.

The second character, Vicky Stall, is a female RE teacher. She always wanted to be a teacher, but when she did she discovered that the teenagers she was forced to teacher (she wanted to work in a primary school) were completely disobedient and don’t want to learn. She has therefore thrown herself into the business end of teaching, avoiding any face time with the actual students,

The third character, Lyle Park, acts as a ‘big brother’ to both the students and his fellow teachers. He is an English teacher, and even though he has failing grades in all his classes, he manages to keep a cheerful face on things. He’s the first to defend his teachers, and the last to pick up the next round of drinks.
The forth character, Kathlene Lawless, is the deputy headmistress. She controls the teachers with an iron fist, but has a terrible rapore with the students. They hate her, but she thinks they like her in a weird way. She is deluded to the fact that everyone she’s ever met wants to stick a knife in her back and would pay for the privilege. She is purely business, and acts as a demonic mother to Vicky, who is the only one who looks up to her.

Any good?

What you need to do is throw them in to a room together and see how they react with one another.

Quote: earman2009 @ May 6, 2007, 12:38 AM

What you need to do is throw them in to a room together and see how they react with one another.

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The Staff Room?

It's difficult to know if something is good or not from what you write. It seems strong enough, but it's how it actually comes across in the writing which ultimately matters. You couldn't put all this into a synopsis, certainly not for comedy, you'd have to demonstrate all this in situ.

Many writers have great charater breakdowns like this; but it's used to flesh out how the people would speak / act, not as an actual proposal.

I am writing a thing about a beleagured music teacher as well, but I tend to let things grow organically until I know or have reasonable knowledge through the process of how those people act. Consequently, I am always refining things because I have no real working structure...I'm lazy like that.

It appears you are not lazy so I would read this, work out how these people interact and write a few scenes and then post them up and see what response you get.

Thanks! I'll start with some small 'throwing into a room' bits and see what comes out. I just needed to check that I hadn't a) stolen them from somewhere (I do that a lot) or b) made everyone fall into a coma with the blandness of the characters.

Cheers!

What kind of school are you setting this in?

We really should have a thread where we talk about our current projects (without posting work for critique).
Except I think I'm too paranoid to discuss mine.

There probably are sunconsciously bits from Please Sir (if you were alive then), Teachers or even Waterloo Road but just write it and see how it works. It's difficult trying to think up original situations. Just add your own slant to it.