Story, Character, Audience Demographics

From Syd Field Q&A’s: “SETTING UP CHARACTER AND STORY, PART I”

From The Art of Visual Storytelling Webinar Archives

Q: So Marianne asks, “Does one expect there to be a particular single character to identify with or will different audience demographics relate to different characters within the story?  Is that something TV writers try to achieve?”

A: You are telling a story, and in that particular story, you have a character, Marianne, who is acting or reacting to the situation and dramatic premise of the storyline. And TV writers? It doesn’t matter. You have the main characters of your TV episode.
And, again, audience demographics, you either write to your storyline or forget it. If you start writing for character demographics, you are not going to achieve anything in terms of a dramatic and effective and entertaining storyline. So the answer is: You must know your character, and it deals with the context of the story, not the demographics.