Editing Neil Simon (section)

=== Characters ===
Simon's characters are typically "imperfect, unheroic figures who are at heart decent human beings", according to Koprince, and she traces Simon's style of comedy back to that of [[Menander]], a playwright of ancient Greece. Menander, like Simon, also used average people in domestic life settings, and also blended humor and tragedy into his themes.<ref name="Koprince" />{{rp|6}} Many of Simon's most memorable plays are built around two-character scenes, as in segments of ''California Suite'' and ''Plaza Suite''.

Before writing, Simon tried to create an image of his characters. He said that the play ''[[Star Spangled Girl]]'', which was a box-office failure, was "the only play I ever wrote where I did not have a clear visual image of the characters in my mind as I sat down at the typewriter."<ref name="McGovern" />{{rp|4}} Simon considered "character building" an obligation, stating that the "trick is to do it skillfully".<ref name="McGovern" />{{rp|4}} While other writers have created vivid characters, they have not created nearly as many as Simon did: "Simon has no peers among contemporary comedy playwrights", stated biographer Robert Johnson.<ref name="Johnson" />{{rp|141}}

Simon's characters often amuse the audience with sparkling "zingers", made believable by Simon's skillful writing of dialogue. He reproduces speech so "adroitly" that his characters are usually plausible and easy for audiences to identify with and laugh at.<ref name="McGovern" />{{rp|190}} His characters may also express "serious and continuing concerns of mankind&nbsp;... rather than purely topical material".<ref name="McGovern" />{{rp|10}} McGovern notes that his characters are always impatient "with phoniness, with shallowness, with amorality", adding that they sometimes express "implicit and explicit criticism of modern urban life with its stress, its vacuity, and its materialism."<ref name="McGovern" />{{rp|11}} However, Simon's characters are never seen thumbing their noses at society."<ref name="Johnson" />{{rp|141}}