I picked up what I thought would be a rehashing of old material covered in other books on the same subject, but The Great Fiction series of books continues to impress and surprise.
So many books on creating characters speak to their physical description, wants, motives and give the character a background. This book goes a step further and tells you how to do those things and hits the key point of showing emotion.
In addition, chapter Eight titled "Talking About Emotion -- Dialogue and Thoughts" was worth the price of the book alone.
Other great topics were "Showing Change in Your Characters" and "Frustration -- The Most Useful Emotion in Fiction."
Like the other books in the series, Appendix A recaps the author's critical points. Thus for the impatient reader, jump to this appendix and read what the book is about. For those of us who enjoy the journey of the reading the previous 200+ pages, the appendix is a nice summary.
Overall, this felt like the first book that brought all the concepts of characterization into one place and provided me with an easy to follow roadmap to creating, deepening and SHOWING my characters off in my story.
My recommended characterization plan:
1) Read this book as a guide on how to breath life into your characters and what you are trying to accomplish with your characters. (Characters are not there by accident!)
2) Pick up The Marshall Plan of Novel Writing by Evan Marshal or First Draft in 30 Days by Karen Weisner. Both of these books take many of the concepts listed in this book and put them into templates and forms you can fill out to plot your novel
3) Write. Write. Write.
Don't do what I did and spend the last ten years reading more on writing than actually writing. Get that first 1 million words written asap!!
While you are doing it, read this book, which has found a permanent place on my book shelf as a handy reference and reminder of what makes a successful cast of characters.
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