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neencohen's review against another edition
informative
slow-paced
4.0
Good use of layman’s terms and some solid information about one structure of story and how character arc can work along side it.
Far too many examples for me. Found them a little hard to take by the end.
Enjoyed the questions to ask yourself (like a workbook really) after each section.
Far too many examples for me. Found them a little hard to take by the end.
Enjoyed the questions to ask yourself (like a workbook really) after each section.
ellesby23's review against another edition
5.0
Love this book! Very informative and insightful on creating characters that go through very real changes!
kaelball's review against another edition
4.0
Really useful
A really useful guide to creating compelling arc. Gets a little repetitive in the language, but kind of needed to drill it in.
A really useful guide to creating compelling arc. Gets a little repetitive in the language, but kind of needed to drill it in.
anthonylwolf's review against another edition
4.0
I’m always sceptical of books wanting to teach you the absolute truth and secret formula about writing fiction.
Perhaps precisely because of this, I did enjoy Creating Character Arcs - I was able to filter out all the exaggeratingly formulaic stuff (the inciting incident must happen at the “12% mark”? Really?) and only take away the tips and pieces of advice that I found most interesting.
I do wish this book went a bit more into the exceptions to all the listed rules. I’d be interested in knowing which books move away from a rigid structure and still manage to tell a great story. I’d be interested in reading about how Kurt Vonnegut wrote his masterpieces without following a clear 3-Act Structure. And so on and so forth.
As it is, Weiland’s handbook is a useful way to get started creating characters, but it gets lost so deep in Hollywood-like influences and rigid frameworks that, at times, it seems to take the soul out of the writing process entirely.
My advice to anyone reading this: let your heart take over and tell the story you want to tell. Books like this are useful, but they’re more useful if you let your creative spirit influence your story - without following strict structures and heavily western tropes.
Perhaps precisely because of this, I did enjoy Creating Character Arcs - I was able to filter out all the exaggeratingly formulaic stuff (the inciting incident must happen at the “12% mark”? Really?) and only take away the tips and pieces of advice that I found most interesting.
I do wish this book went a bit more into the exceptions to all the listed rules. I’d be interested in knowing which books move away from a rigid structure and still manage to tell a great story. I’d be interested in reading about how Kurt Vonnegut wrote his masterpieces without following a clear 3-Act Structure. And so on and so forth.
As it is, Weiland’s handbook is a useful way to get started creating characters, but it gets lost so deep in Hollywood-like influences and rigid frameworks that, at times, it seems to take the soul out of the writing process entirely.
My advice to anyone reading this: let your heart take over and tell the story you want to tell. Books like this are useful, but they’re more useful if you let your creative spirit influence your story - without following strict structures and heavily western tropes.
roseybot's review against another edition
4.0
This book slapped me in the face. As it turns out, I haven't been writing a change arc story, I've been writing a flat arc story. This is both good and bad -- major re-writes loom over my future, but I think they will be positive.