Character

In screenwriting, there are a few things one must grasp in order to tell a good story: plot, pace, mood, emotion (closely tied to mood), dialog, description, structure and character, among others.

By character, one means those people or things in your story. Notice “things.” In storytelling, even non-living things can play a part. In Volcano, Tommy Lee Jones as a protagonist is fighting the antagonist, a … well, volcano. In The Edge, Anthony Hopkins’s main enemy was a bear. Then environment played a pivotal role in Cast Away with Tom Hanks.

With the human variety (although an argument can be made for the other varieties as well), there are two further sub-concepts, if you will: characterization and character. Characterization are the surface attributes. How the character dresses, the manner of speech, their point of view, etc. Character however is the more important, what's beneath. In other words, character is what they do which might be and usually is different from what you see (characterization).

With complex, interesting people, characterization is seldom ever their character. James Bond's flashy getups and general foppishness belies a steely (and dangerously skilled) resolve to rid the world of Bad Guy du jour. Suddenly, the dandy is gone and Bond's deadly inner character shows up, definitely the opposite of his characterization.

Boring, uninteresting people are their characterizations. As shallow as inches of water, what you see is what you get. In real life, provided those characteristics are generally positive, this is a good thing. In a story, it's dead ass boring, except maybe in a minor character. Maybe.

In politics, would that were the case! It'd certainly help to see Democrats for the assholes they really are. ;-)