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Linda N. Edelstein

Linda Edelstein

The Writer's Guide to Character Traits: Includes Profiles of Human Behaviors and Personality Types Hardcover – October 15, 1999

by Linda Edelstein (Author)

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Writer's Guide to Character Traits
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Provides profiles of dozens of mental, emotional, and physical personality traits and types to help writers create original characters

Print length

288 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Writers Digest Books
Publication date

October 15, 1999
Dimensions

6.5 x 1.25 x 9.75 inches
ISBN-10

0898799015
ISBN-13

978-0898799019
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Stereotypes exist for a reason; usually, because there's an element of truth to them. With The Writer's Guide to Character Traits, psychologist-professor Linda Edelstein has created a kind of Psych 101 for Writers. Her goal is a "friendly reference" for writers who want "to create believable characters and need accurate information about personality and behavior." Sure, disparage it if you like. But wouldn't you like to know which of your protagonist's offspring is most predisposed to warming up to their new stepfather? What kind of criminal is likely to have a religious mother? The traits of people who commit suicide? Edelstein has included more than 400 lists: of traits associated with child development, psychological disorders, criminal styles, sexual styles, love and marriage, life-changing events, physical problems, career, and so on. "Even when a writer's imagination soars to places more fascinating than reality," says Edelstein, "characters must possess an internal cohesiveness; they must make sense." And let's face it: "People," she adds, "are more consistent than not." (With real-life character anecdotes from Edelstein's own work and a huge character-trait cross-referencing index at book's end.) --Jane Steinberg

About the Author

Dr. Linda Edelstein has been a practicing psychologist for more than 15 years and is also an associate professor at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology. She is the author of two books on psychology and has written and presented more than 40 papers at national and regional conferences. She lives in Chicago, Illinois.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Writers Digest Books; First Edition (October 15, 1999)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0898799015
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0898799019
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.42 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 1.25 x 9.75 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,263,014 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,718 in Research Reference Books
- #5,256 in Writing Skill Reference (Books)
- #914,912 in Literature & Fiction (Books)

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36 ratings

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Linda N. Edelstein
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Linda N. Edelstein, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist. She has authored "Maternal Bereavement" (about grief and adaptation), "The Art of Midlife" (about life transitions and resilience) and 2 editions of "The Writer's Guide to Character Traits" (hundreds of lists of personality traits so that novelists can create authentic characters. She is very excited about her new book, co-authored with Charlie Waehler, entitled "What Do I Say? The Therapist's Guide to Answering Clients' Questions". "What Do I Say", published by John Wiley & Sons is about clinical practice, designed for early career clinicians. Please check it out! She has also written a mystery novel about therapy, but it has not yet found a home with a publisher.
Dr. Edelstein's books invite her readers to gain insights into psychological concepts. Her writing is warm and friendly without sacrificing depth.
As a psychologist with more than 30 years in the field, she knows that most people are interested in learning about themselves and others. Her writing gives psychology away to all her readers. You can check out her website, TherapyEvanston.com and her blog, LifeAintForSissies.com.
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Linda Edelstein
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Linda N. Edelstein
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David Cook

Amazing book if you know to use it.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 29, 2011

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Many of the negative reviews of this book are so because the expectations of the writer using it are different than the intentions of the author. The information is well researched with citations for all of it from a wide variety of academic sources so that you can go learn more about the specifics if you need to. This is not a book out of which you can just pick a canned character and give her a name and start writing. This is a reference book that can do two things really well.

First it can help you verify that a character is believable from a psychological point of view. The book is not arranged in sets of whole psychological profiles, but instead lists and diagrams of behaviors and traits associated with personalities of various kinds of victims, criminals, careers and so on. You have to cross reference the lists and develop the profile from different parts of the book, and see if your character makes sense. For instance, I am writing my first mystery novel, (a journalism career in the past) and my detective is an eccentric gay male investigative reporter. This character has been robustly developed by having been in several short stories that were heavily workshopped. Of course there is not going to be an entry for "eccentric gay male investigative reporter." The way you use the book is look up "homosexual male," "eccentric," "investigator" and "writer." It is uncanny how close it was, even down to a line about writers drinking more after age 40, but that part said as much about me as it did about the character, and for a split second I took it as a sarcastic personal insult until I remembered I was reading about it in a reference book.

The second thing the book does really well is help break writer's block. Wandering through the book can trigger many "well, I never thought of that" kind of ideas to give dull characters a bit more zest.

The one problem I have is the way the index is constructed, in categories that you almost need another index to use. However I can see her reasoning because it is arranged in sort of sub indexes about criminals, careers, personalities by age and gender and so on. I'm sure I'll get used to it like I did the AP Stylebook. I suggest finding yourself a used, previous edition of an introductory psychology textbook as a companion to this book because there isn't any elaboration on any given thing in this one.

6 people found this helpful

Helpful

Excellent, but don't get fooled

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 15, 2001

Verified Purchase

It's very important you understand what the function of this book is. This is not a book written to advise you on how to write characters. This is a book to help you create extra depth to your characters. That may sound like a contridiction, but I assure you it's not.

The book offers straight forward profiles of various personality types. It covers normal personality types, abnormal types, types connected with various occupations, etc. These profiles are presented in an easy to read and understand manner.

Use this book to create personality profiles for your characters. The book won't show you how to bring those traits out. It won't show you how to develop characters or add subtext or any of those things. What it does is give you a foundation on which to build your characters. It helps you keep your characters real and plausable.

It's excellent within its intended function. I highly recommend it. Just don't think that it's a cure all for character issues.

----

UPDATE (5/30/2013): I want to mention that my original review is of the first edition. I also have the second edition and do not like it nearly as much. The organization is different in the second edition. The first edition seemed a lot more intuitive and the information was laid out better. I am not saying the second edition is bad, I just don't like it as much. My rating is for the first edition, for the second edition it would be three stars.

I actually would recommend anyone interested in this book try to get one of the used copies of the first edition.

132 people found this helpful

Helpful

R. Luzetski

Lots of great info, poorly documented and structured

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 26, 2003

Verified Purchase

This book includes a lot of very useful and interesting information. It's all there, everything they say is true: personality summaries, sexual abnormalities, profiles of murderers, etc. If you are the target audience for this book, you will probably benefit from this information. (FYI: I bought it for characters to create in games.)
However, I found it incredibly difficult to actually use this book. Everything is listed in a bullet-like format, so each point is incredibly brief and usually incomplete. You don't get an understanding for these concepts, you get a summary. This makes it difficult to actually put the content to good use.
On to the nit-picky issues:
There are a number of times when the use of headings in the book made it difficult to tell what I was actually reading. I would be in one section, and suddenly I was reading about a completely different topic - the section had changed, but there had not been a heading to indicate the transition. You learn quickly to ignore the formatting of the headings, as it doesn't seem to actually be useful.
There are a number of typographical errors in the book, also, far more than I would expect from a book that actually gets published. However, it isn't an extremely expensive book, so this isn't a major complaint. If this kind of thing bothers you, keep it in mind.

3 people found this helpful

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@Earthatone

Reference Library Necessity

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 27, 2020

A writers tool!

Chapter 14 Missing From Kindle Edition

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 3, 2011

Verified Purchase

I bought the Kindle Edition of this book, only to discover that the last chapter is missing. Chapter 14. Very disgruntled. Don't buy the Kindle Edition if you're looking for the entire book.

One person found this helpful

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Carl Amazon

Cool beans

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 12, 2015

Verified Purchase

2nd time I've bought this; love it so much gave away 1st copy to a friend. Nifty book.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 4, 2014

Verified Purchase

I got it used and it warned me that there could of been a little damage to it. But it is in absolute perfect condition.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 14, 2015

Verified Purchase

Horrible! Sorry to say. Textbook examples at best. Lacks heart and soul. I would steer clear of this author in a professional capacity as well, if I were in the market for a therapist. It went into the trash and believe me, I'm a book lover.

One person found this helpful

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