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The Complete Writer's Guide to Heroes and Heroines: Sixteen Master Archetypes Paperback – October 20, 2013
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- Print length214 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateOctober 20, 2013
- Dimensions6.14 x 0.49 x 9.21 inches
- ISBN-10061590811X
- ISBN-13978-0615908113
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- Publisher : Archetype Press (October 20, 2013)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 214 pages
- ISBN-10 : 061590811X
- ISBN-13 : 978-0615908113
- Item Weight : 10.9 ounces
- Dimensions : 6.14 x 0.49 x 9.21 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #592,987 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #186 in Editing Writing Reference (Books)
- #1,236 in Writing Skill Reference (Books)
- #1,830 in Fiction Writing Reference (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the authors

Caro LaFever writes sexy contemporary romance in a cabin in the woods. She's friends with a raccoon, some wild turkeys, and occasionally, a bear. Oh. And she has a few human friends as well.
Join her reader's group now and receive freebies and so much more! Yippee! Go to her website at: www.carolafever.com and sign up.

Tami Cowden lives and writes in Las Vegas, Nevada. Her first novel, Cruising for Love, won a Golden Heart from Romance Writers of America, and was published initially by Avalon. It is now available from Montlake Romance.
Tami is also the coauthor of The Complete Writers Guide to Heroes and Heroines: Sixteen Master Archetypes, a guide to characterization for writers. Tami has presented writing programs on characterization, plotting and scene building at more than 100 writing conferences and retreats, as well as online. Due to popular demand, she also authored a follow up book, Fallen Heroes: Sixteen Villain Archetypes.
A lawyer by day, she is now working on a mystery series about a divorce lawyer who inherits a Las Vegas wedding chapel. Tami lives in Las Vegas with her husband, two basset hounds, and four cats.

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Sue Viders, with a B.F.A. degree, began writing in national art magazines to help artists market their creative endeavors, but then switched over to teaching writers, around the world, how to better organize and write more effectively so their books would sell better. Her most well-known nonfiction book often called the Bible of building characters, is THE COMPLETE WRITER'S GUIDE TO HEROES and HEROINES, SIXTEEN MASTER ARCHETYPES.
Approaching the big Nine 0, and having survived numerous bouts with cancer, and other interesting medical problems, along with raising five children and assisting her attorney husband with her typing skills, she is proud to present her essay book. It all started with her newspaper articles, which gradually morphed into the OUT-OF-THE-BOX ESSAY book, containing 44 short thought-provoking and humorous comments on life and living.
However, she also has other numerous nonfiction books, WRITING A NOVEL, CREATING A GREAT VILLAIN, and a card game, DEAL A STORY, THE WRITER'S TOOL BOX, for aspiring writers available with several more writing workbooks on the drawing board.

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Could the book be better? Absolutely but I still give it five stars.
--Need more film and book references to match the characters. Agent Booth in Bones is a Warrior, etc. There are several examples in book but can you really have too many examples?
--It is missing villains. Okay, duh, read the title but still. I actually use 45 Master Characters , my second favorite writing book, to flush villains out. 45 Master Characters goes into more depth and talks about gods--I love when we get back to Greeks. The 16 archetypes line up perfectly with the 45 Master Characters. Okay, you may have a point: 16 is not equal to 45 but I'll let you read them to see what I mean.
--I find the archetype interaction fairly uninteresting as this seems to have just as much to do with plot as personality.
--It would have been cool to have archetype conflict resolution approaches and dialog. Situation: my dog got hit by a car. Warrior reaction: "The guy who did this going to pay. I will beat him to a pulp."
--Three virtues and flaws is great, why not have more? Sure there is a core three, but it would be to have options, almost like a creative kick starter.
As for my quibbles, the references to existing characters are a bit dated (I was surprised to see this had been revised in 2013), and if there was any information given on how archetypes can be either gender, I don't remember seeing it. I went into this book already having that information, but new authors may feel a bit pigeonholed if they believe they're limited to only 8 options because of their character's gender. Something to consider for future revisions.
As an aside, I also appreciated that I could purchase a physical copy, as that way I can keep it at my desk and avoid the distractions of the internet.
Another book I like that offers the same idea as this one is 45 Master Characters, Revised Edition: Mythic Models for Creating Original Characters by Victoria Schmidt. It not only has a character archetypes, but a complete breakdown and worksheets for charting the different adventure paths for males vs. females. Also recommended is The Virgin's Promise: Writing Stories of Feminine Creative, Spiritual, and Sexual Awakening by Kim Hudson, which focuses on a step by step guide to creating feminine adventures vs. male ones (but a slightly different system than in 45 Master Characters). Both 45 MC and VP provide an easy to understand breakdown of Maureen Murdock's The Heroine's Journey , which itself is a feminine version of Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces (The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell) (the Hero's Journey; theory of mythic storytelling structure used in Star Wars, The Lion King, etc., which Christoher Vogler breaks down for writers in The Writers Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers, 3rd Edition ).
And not just for its screenplay advice, but because it is easily adapted for novelists, I recommend My Story Can Beat Up Your Story: Ten Ways to Toughen Up Your Screenplay from Opening Hook to Knockout Punch by Jeffrey Schechter. It espouses a Jungian theory of a "unity of opposites," so both the hero and the villain and their teams will be mirror images of each other and be out to prove the opposite (or some more reasonable compromise) of the story's theme (such "faith vs. technology" in Star Wars). It provides great examples of this theory from blockbusters like Star Wars, Star Trek, the Dark Knight, etc. If you go to the author's website (with the url link in the book), you can download a cut chapter that extends the mirror image theory not just to the characters, but the first half and last half of the story. So some action that happens in the first half is repeated in the second, only on a larger scale with more dramatic results, which readers like because of its circularity.
Unfortunately, not all of the archetype books mesh well with each other's systems (nor do all the story structure ones), so you might want to pick one to get you started. What's nice about The Complete Guide to Heroes and Heroines is it has the villain sequel, however, that doesn't mean these are the best books on the subject. They're a perfectly good choice, and deliver exactly what they promise, but I love getting the mythic hero/heroine journey story structure help and find myself referring far more to those books throughout the writing process than books that solely provide archetypes.
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This beautifully formatted book contains helpful and informative guidelines for beginner and experienced fiction writers. Well worth buying the printed version.
It's incredibly helpful as a writers resource. Highly recommended.








