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3.65 AVERAGE
3.65 AVERAGE
Crafting Unforgettable Characters by K. M. Weiland is a free e-book that I'm glad I read. It reminded me what a good character is made of during a much needed time in writing the rough draft of my novel. It describes itself as "an introduction to bringing your characters to life." That said, it's short. So don't expect Weiland to go into major detail.
Instead, you can expect a good number of chapters on various techniques for bringing your character to life: the classic character sheet, the character interview, the dichotomy technique, the doing away of likability, etc.
Now, for the real question: Is this a good character guide?
Yes. Out of most of the character guides I've read, this one is a good one, and contains many familiar tips I've seen in other books neatly packaged into a short e-book. K. M. Weiland's done her research. She knows what she's talking about.
So if that's you're kind of deal, get it over at www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com. It's free.
However, this would not be the only guide on character I would get. In order to truly understand character, one should study intensively. I would not call this book an "introduction" to helping bring my characters to life, as that would get into the nitty-gritty of how characters are formed in fiction and rationalized for the writer and the reader. In this way, I don't consider it an introduction, but I consider it a very good tip book for the value.
Instead, you can expect a good number of chapters on various techniques for bringing your character to life: the classic character sheet, the character interview, the dichotomy technique, the doing away of likability, etc.
Now, for the real question: Is this a good character guide?
Yes. Out of most of the character guides I've read, this one is a good one, and contains many familiar tips I've seen in other books neatly packaged into a short e-book. K. M. Weiland's done her research. She knows what she's talking about.
So if that's you're kind of deal, get it over at www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com. It's free.
However, this would not be the only guide on character I would get. In order to truly understand character, one should study intensively. I would not call this book an "introduction" to helping bring my characters to life, as that would get into the nitty-gritty of how characters are formed in fiction and rationalized for the writer and the reader. In this way, I don't consider it an introduction, but I consider it a very good tip book for the value.
This is a quick read with some handy little tips about some basics you can do before writing your book to flesh out your characters. If you're a fan of putting together character interviews and outlines, this will help. If not, there are still some good ideas to gather from this guide, including some very helpful book recommendations for naming characters and why a name can be make or break when it comes to crafting an unforgettable character.
Crafting Unforgettable Characters is a list of insightful thoughts, great quotes, helpful exercises, and interesting resources for creating characters.
informative
fast-paced
I got this book as a freebie when signing up for the author's newsletter. I bought another book by this author as well. As I am interested in what she had to say about characters. Sadly this book didn't work for me. Something about the tone and writing style didn't really resonate with me. And there are some sentences that rubbed me wrong. There are some good pieces of information, but there are a few small points with lots of text around it that doesn't clarify or add to the point. It just felt like a lot of words for very few pieces of info.
I thought some of the points she made were great, like getting to know your characters, or giving your characters flaws or that characters don't have to be nice, but something about how she explained those points or her reasoning behind it just didn't quite work for me. The examples were all from books I hadn't read and didn't clarify the points much for me. And I didn't really care about all the quotes from other authors about characters, a quote here and there is fine, but there were quite some quotes here and they didn't really add to the content for me. I found the exercises not as interesting either.
To summarize: something about this book just didn't quite work for me. It has some good advice and tips for creating characters, but the writing style and tone didn't quite work for me. I also found there were only small pieces of information in lots of text. All in all this wasn't for me, but I plan to give one of the author's full length books a try to see if I like that.
I thought some of the points she made were great, like getting to know your characters, or giving your characters flaws or that characters don't have to be nice, but something about how she explained those points or her reasoning behind it just didn't quite work for me. The examples were all from books I hadn't read and didn't clarify the points much for me. And I didn't really care about all the quotes from other authors about characters, a quote here and there is fine, but there were quite some quotes here and they didn't really add to the content for me. I found the exercises not as interesting either.
To summarize: something about this book just didn't quite work for me. It has some good advice and tips for creating characters, but the writing style and tone didn't quite work for me. I also found there were only small pieces of information in lots of text. All in all this wasn't for me, but I plan to give one of the author's full length books a try to see if I like that.
Characters are (one) of my weak spots. This book has been pushing me in good ways to ask the hard questions, knuckle down, and get to work. :D
A fun quick read to get your creative juices flowing when considering a new character
Crafting Unforgettable Characters may only be 61 pages, but I got a lot of great tips out of it. I really wasn’t expecting to get as much out of it as I did.
Here are a few sections in particular that I loved:
• Utilizing Character in the Beginning
• Naming Characters
• Describing Characters
• What Dickens Can Teach Us About Complex Characters
• The All-Important Link Between Theme and Character
I’m currently writing my first fantasy novel and the idea of coming up with clever names is daunting, not to mention, how to introduce them to hook the reader. I loved some of the links the author provides to help the reader find appropriate names. I particularly like the Fantasy Name Generator website.
I agree with her pitfalls of character description:
and
I have mixed feelings about character description. It bugs me when I’m reading a book and I have no clue what the character looks like. However, I’m equally annoyed when the character description sounds like a police lineup or as the author calls it, “laundry lists”.
I love Charles Dickens. I was so excited to see an entire chapter devoted to Dickens Characters. The author discusses several Dickens novels and goes into detail about some of the key characters.
I haven’t been writing long enough to incorporate theme in my novels, so it was nice to see a chapter devoted to it and how it links to character. I especially liked her list of thematic questions.
She has some great quotes, writing prompts, and creative exercises as well. There were some other interesting sections such as Choosing your Character’s Career with Care and 11 Dichotomous Characters—And Why They Work
I’m sure I’ll go back and reread a couple of sections. It’s worth investing in this and you’ll have it read in under an hour.
Here are a few sections in particular that I loved:
• Utilizing Character in the Beginning
• Naming Characters
• Describing Characters
• What Dickens Can Teach Us About Complex Characters
• The All-Important Link Between Theme and Character
I’m currently writing my first fantasy novel and the idea of coming up with clever names is daunting, not to mention, how to introduce them to hook the reader. I loved some of the links the author provides to help the reader find appropriate names. I particularly like the Fantasy Name Generator website.
I agree with her pitfalls of character description:
"Clichéd descriptions that add nothing to the characters, but rather render them as caricatures."
and
"Inappropriate usage, placement, and emphasis."
I have mixed feelings about character description. It bugs me when I’m reading a book and I have no clue what the character looks like. However, I’m equally annoyed when the character description sounds like a police lineup or as the author calls it, “laundry lists”.
I love Charles Dickens. I was so excited to see an entire chapter devoted to Dickens Characters. The author discusses several Dickens novels and goes into detail about some of the key characters.
I haven’t been writing long enough to incorporate theme in my novels, so it was nice to see a chapter devoted to it and how it links to character. I especially liked her list of thematic questions.
She has some great quotes, writing prompts, and creative exercises as well. There were some other interesting sections such as Choosing your Character’s Career with Care and 11 Dichotomous Characters—And Why They Work
I’m sure I’ll go back and reread a couple of sections. It’s worth investing in this and you’ll have it read in under an hour.