The Writer’s Digest Sourcebook for Building Believable Characters (Paperback)

by Marc McCutcheon (Author) "Most writing how-to books give the opinions of only one writer..." (more)
Key Phrases: deriving sexual pleasure, broad variability, Lonesome Dove, New Orleans, British Isles (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Using this reference, readers can create characters who think, hope, love, cry, cause or feel pain, save the day - and seize readers by emotion. Mark McCutcheon eases the process of building convincing characters for stories and novels. He starts by conducting an inspiring and informative roundtable where six novelists reveal their approaches to characterization. Next, he provides a character questionnaire more detailed than the nosiest survey. Readers will fill it out and they'll know fictional people as though they'd grown up with them. Finally, there is a thesaurus of human characteristics - physical and psychological. Fit them together artfully and characters will climb right off the page.

About the Author
Marc McCutcheon is the author of The Writer's Guide to Everyday Life from Prohibition through World War II, Roget's Superthesaurus, and The Writer's Guide to Everyday Life in the 1800s.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Writers Digest Books (October 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582970270
• ISBN-13: 978-1582970271
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #434,723 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Useful but limited, December 27, 1999

By	Gwen Kramer "gwenhwyvar" (Tehachapi, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Writer's Digest Sourcebook for Building Believable Characters (Hardcover)

This is a wonderful book for nailing down a charcter's appearance and their basic personality. I loved the thesaraus of noses, eye color, etc. The personality index can really be a motivational tool.

However, the facial expression section is at times simply laughable. "heart wrung with pity" is simply terrible and "lump in one's throat" is older than the hills. Avoid copying anything from this section.

Another complaint is the accent section, as the reviewer below pointed out. A writer's book I once read said that accents are to be avoided "as they are not read so much as translated". I completely agree with this opinion. "Oi Loik to avoid accents, mite"

All in all, buy this when worrying about very general character creation, it can be a real help

25 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Padded and disappointing, February 21, 1998

By	R. R. Richardson III "Word Geek" (San Diego, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Writer's Digest Sourcebook for Building Believable Characters (Hardcover)

Supposedly a "thesaurus" for character development, McCutcheon's book seems like a sure-fire guide to creating cliched, stock characters. Chapters cover topics like personality traits, facial expressions, and dress, but they are simply lists of words anyone could extract from a conventional thesaurus or dictionary. Worse, his phrases are stale and hackneyed. For example, under "Personality/Identity (Happy/Jovial)", he lists chestnuts like "face aglow with good cheer" and "eyes are like mirthful crescents." Since most pages are simply lists of words, averaging about 30 words per page, there is a LOT of white space. Most disturbing to me was his listing of "Dialects and Foreign Speech." According to him a Southerner would sit in a "cheer" and "drank" some "Co-Cola" or a "bare." Or a Cockney would say, "Bloody well roit, mite." If you were an ethnologist you might transcribe speech in this manner, but this dialect style has been passe in fiction for 50 years. Overall, I found the book to be of little value and a disappointment compared with some of Mr. McCutcheon's others books.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Writer's Bible for Characters!, November 25, 1999

By	Brian (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Writer's Digest Sourcebook for Building Believable Characters (Hardcover)

If you are a beginning writer, you NEED this book. I've critiqued a lot of manuscripts, and without exception, the authors could benefit from this book and did, once I suggested they buy it. Of the three writing books I keep beside my computer, this is the most used. I love it!