Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint

I picked up what I thought would be a rehashing of old material covered in other books on the same subject, but The Great Fiction series of books continues to impress and surprise. So many books on creating characters speak to their physical description, wants, motives and give the character a background. This book goes a step further and tells you how to do those things and hits the key point of showing emotion. In addition, chapter Eight titled "Talking About Emotion -- Dialogue and Thoughts" was worth the price of the book alone. Other great topics were "Showing Change in Your Characters" and "Frustration -- The Most Useful Emotion in Fiction." Like the other books in the series, Appendix A recaps the author's critical points. Thus for the impatient reader, jump to this appendix and read what the book is about. For those of us who enjoy the journey of the reading the previous 200+ pages, the appendix is a nice summary. Overall, this felt like the first book that brought all the concepts of characterization into one place and provided me with an easy to follow roadmap to creating, deepening and SHOWING my characters off in my story. My recommended characterization plan: 1) Read this book as a guide on how to breath life into your characters and what you are trying to accomplish with your characters. (Characters are not there by accident!) 2) Pick up The Marshall Plan of Novel Writing by Evan Marshal or First Draft in 30 Days by Karen Weisner. Both of these books take many of the concepts listed in this book and put them into templates and forms you can fill out to plot your novel 3) Write. Write. Write. Don't do what I did and spend the last ten years reading more on writing than actually writing. Get that first 1 million words written asap!! While you are doing it, read this book, which has found a permanent place on my book shelf as a handy reference and reminder of what makes a successful cast of characters.

There are many books on the market on how to write a novel. But I can highly recommend the complete series of Write Great Fiction, simply because I cannot think a writer could ask or want for more information on setting, character, plot etc.Plot & Structure: (Techniques And Exercises For Crafting A Plot That Grips Readers From Start To Finish) (Write Great Fiction)Dialogue: Techniques and Exercises for Crafting Effective Dialogue (Write Great Fiction)Description & Setting (Write Great Fiction) I read first 'How to write a damn good novel' of James Frey. This is a great synopsis of the craft of writing, and included roughly all that this 'Write Great Fiction' series explores in much more detail. I did not realize that actually much of writing theory is more transparant than it seems. We all read stories that seemed fluent, while others we could not seem to finish. The reasons for this are not mysterious. Many aspects make for good, or bad writing, but where can you find works that elaborate on all of them in a clear manner? This 'Write Great Fiction' series splits this seemingly impossible task in just 4 editions that you can read one by one. This book gives many great tips in a clear and fun to read manner. Apart from the content, what I like especially is the setup of the chapter; at the end there is a recap, and a possibility for doing excersises. At the end of the book there is a quick bulletpoint checklist on all the material covered that you could tear out to hang on the wall. Very handy! Just as the rule in writing often goes: 'show not tell', so does this book. The many examples included the book enhance the credibility of the tips that are given in every chapter, on how it is done, or what makes horribly writing. I recommend to check out the index of content on the 'search inside' option to see the content of the book yourself. Buy it and read it and at least you will have good advice on how to embark on an emotional deadth-bed scene, or how to portray emotions, to name just a few. Of course, most of us know, at leat intuitively, much of the advice. But it is always better to have them all summed up once more to refresh the memory, and also to realize why things work out or not. But then you might say 'hey, I already have read dozens of books like this'. Well, like James Frey said, there is no shortcut on reading the masters to see how they do their magic. The same is true for 'how to write' books. If you want to give writing all you have got, then I would say for every tip you did not know yet it would be well worth the price of this book! There will be many of those tips, guaranteed! Highly recommended.

Writer's Digest Books stikes gold yet again with this book of the superb Write Great Fiction series. Nancy Kress smoothly covers the three areas of interest and naturally flows from one to the next as they are related. The characterization section is wonderful. Among other things it suggests complex characters that are revealed through the problems the author brings their way. Ensure they have a backstory and if they change through the book be sure to dramatize it at the end. Also covers different types of characters for different types of fiction. The emotion section was great. Good examples and more general than the rediculous book "creating character emotions" by hood, there, I won't even capitalize the title or author of that mess. Important emotions are covered in detail such as loving, fighting, and dying with a complete chapter on the most important emotion of all for your lead character. Can you guess what it is? Nancy Kress will tell you. Finally viewpoint. I have read several books already on this subject yet Nancy Kress sweetens the pot even more. Good advice and examples. I would like to add, most books I have read on writing, where the author quotes works for examples of good prose, seem to fall flat. Apparently you must read the entire book quoted to fully appreciate the snippit given as an example. Surprisingly, Nancy Kress steps up to the mound and pitches some wonderful examples that STAND ON THEIR OWN. Nice work Nancy. I bought all but one of the Elements of Fiction Writing. Home runs. However this new series from Writers Digest Books, the Write Great Fiction series with its four books surpasses them. Together the four books are a GRAND SLAM!

As a beginning writer working on my first novel I'm constantly searching for "the book" on a particular facet of writing. As a general book for beginners, Gotham Writer's Workshop is great. However, this book takes its subject topics and provides insights that can be immediately applied to one's writing. Her chapters on point of view (POV) provide explanations that I have not found in other books. The chapters on character emotion are also very well written. Buy this book, read it once through without doing the exercises. Then read it again, doing the exercises. You won't regret it.

Nancy Kress has raised the bar on fiction instruction with this book. Each chapter is thoughtful and clear, with examples from recent works and loads of concrete advice for solving problems. Her sequence moves logically from characterization to depicting emotions, finishing with the most complete and intelligent discussion of viewpoint that I have found anywhere. She examines such difficult issues as when to use certain viewpoints and how to make them more effective. Her discussion of emotion shows how to make the characters deeper and richer while avoiding cliche and other pitfalls, all with good humor but demanding standards. This is among the best books on writing fiction that I've found anywhere. Writers and teachers of writing should all check it out.