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A review by dako
The Art of Character: Creating Memorable Characters for Fiction, Film, and TV by David Corbett
informative
inspiring
reflective
3.5
3.5 ⭐
I found most of it interesting, especially part 3 and part 4. However, I found a long portion in the middle kind of useless, as it focussed on finding your characters favourites movies, songs, habits, etc. It reminded me of those endless lists of random preferences (bath vs shower? moon vs sun? forests vs beaches?) you could fill out on tumblr circa 2014, and I think they're a total waste of time.
I often complain that these kinds of books don't provide enough examples, but this one provides too much. The author sometimes gives a (long) summary of the entire plot of a movie just to give you a minor advice like "you should know what your character likes to do in their free time". I felt like he took 3 pages to make a point he could have made in 3 paragraphs most of the time. But this was mostly an issue towards the middle of the book.
I found most of it interesting, especially part 3 and part 4. However, I found a long portion in the middle kind of useless, as it focussed on finding your characters favourites movies, songs, habits, etc. It reminded me of those endless lists of random preferences (bath vs shower? moon vs sun? forests vs beaches?) you could fill out on tumblr circa 2014, and I think they're a total waste of time.
I often complain that these kinds of books don't provide enough examples, but this one provides too much. The author sometimes gives a (long) summary of the entire plot of a movie just to give you a minor advice like "you should know what your character likes to do in their free time". I felt like he took 3 pages to make a point he could have made in 3 paragraphs most of the time. But this was mostly an issue towards the middle of the book.