But if a writer is to conjure great characters on the page, they first have to model them vividly in their minds, and that means defining them precisely. They should be able to ‘see’ how they’ll behave in any dramatic situation and try to control the drama that flies at them. To do this, it helps to pin a character’s origin damage down to an actual event, as the writers of Citizen Kane did, even if it’s only hinted at in, or excised completely from, the final draft.
