Creating Character Emotions (Paperback)

by Ann Hood (Author) "It always strikes me as funny that in our daily lives we pass through a whole spectrum of emotions and show them in many ways,..." (more)
Key Phrases: apathetic character, coyote woman, fresh language, New York, Stay the Night, Amy Hempel (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Creating Character Emotions will help writer s find vivid ways to express emotion in their fiction. In 36 lessons, Ann Hood sheds new light on love, hate, fear, grie f, guilt, hope, jealousy and other emotional states. '

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Story Press; 1st edition (February 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1884910335
• ISBN-13: 978-1884910333
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #103,067 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not Great. Not Horrible., January 5, 2001

By	FictionAddiction.NET - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

Creating Character Emotions is broken up into different sections like Anger, Happiness and Love.

It's easy to flip to the section you want and read that particular chapter. Ann Hood offers a "GOOD" and "BAD" example of writing on that particular subject. There are even exercises at the end of each chapter so you can try your own hand at creating emotions.

However, the sections are short and don't offer a complete explanation to give you the writing edge. It really just touches base with the emotion and how to write about it without offering a deeper sense of "creating character emotions."

39 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Like Nasty Cough Syrup, December 10, 2005

By	B. Abernethy "Writer Wannabe" (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The last few books I bought and read on writing from Amazon.com were excellent and I started this with high hopes. Unfortunately, I started skimming about three-fourths of the way through and ended up skipping the last couple chapters.

This book has a fault I have noticed with others. When they quote another work, it always falls flat. The quotes are taken out of context, we are missing all the author had to say about the character in the previous hundred pages or so. What this means, is the "good" examples she gives us seem, well, so so. Of course the bad examples stand on their own and are bad, something anyone would do with little thought.

Rather than so many chapters on each individual emotion, I would rather see more extensive general work. I would like to see many, many examples of good emotions written by the author herself, and not a quote from a book, but a paragraph written that stands on its own. Hood tries to set up the "good" examples, but it can only be done imperfectly.

Bad emotion writing are cliches (mad has a hatter, hungry as a horse, etc.) and miss identifying the emotion, anger instead of fear.

Good emotion writing accuratly and freshly describes the emotions the character feels.

In conclusion, like cough syrup, you have to take this, but could it just taste better? Worth reading, perhaps, but put it down in your priority list.

PS My short list of must reads:

The First Five Pages, Noah Lukeman
Writing the Breakout Novel, Donald Mass
45 Master CHaracters, Victoria Lynn Schmidt
Dialogue, Gloria Kempton
Description & Setting, Ron Rozelle
Scene & Structure, Jack M. Bickham
You Can Write a Novel, James V. Smith Jr.

PPS My short list of stinkers that slipped through:

Creating Character Emotions, Ann Hood
Writing Dialogue, Tom Chiarella
Theme & Strategy, Ronald B. Tobias

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great Intro to a not so great book, March 4, 2000

By	Curtis Lane (Orlando, FL USA) - See all my reviews

I purchased this book after reading a very good article on the topic of character emotion by the author published in Writer's Digest. I found that the article was actually the introduction to Hood's book, and the only valuable part. If you missed that particular issue of Writer's Digest and can't get a back issue, I'd advise reading the introduction as a valuable resource, but the rest of the book simply was not worth it. It listed a lot of emotions alphabetically (most of which authors would include without really thinking about--I generally don't stop to ponder upon the fact that my character is anxious; I just do it and move on.) The lists are very repetative regurgatations of each other, and very simplistic. Those that aren't so simplistic don't make much sense at all--there are a few instances where she claims to be describing one emotion, but in fact is citing examples of a totally different emotion all together. Read the Writer's Digest article, or read the Introduction in a library or bookstore, but otherwise the book's contence simply does not justify the cost.