A Writer's Guide to Characterization

A Writer's Guide to Characterization PDF Author: Victoria Lynn Schmidt
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1599635593
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
Develop compelling character arcs using the power of myth! In the best novels, characters undergo dramatic changes that keep readers turning pages. A Writer's Guide to Characterization shows you how to develop such meaningful character arcs in your own work--stories of transformation that will resonate with readers long after the story ends. In this comprehensive guide, author Victoria Lynn Schmidt examines cross-cultural archetypes to illustrate how they can make your work more powerful and compelling. Plus, you'll learn how to draw from Jungian psychology to add complexity and believability to your characters. Schmidt also provides: • 40 lessons on character development (with examples from well-known films and novels) that you can apply to your own work • Questionnaires and exercises to help you select male and female archetypes and adapt them to your story • 15 classic animal archetypes (including the coyote, snake, tiger, and butterfly) you can use to build convincing character profiles With A Writer's Guide to Characterization, you'll have the information you need to infuse the development of your characters with drama and authenticity.

A Writer's Guide to Characterization

A Writer's Guide to Characterization PDF Author: Victoria Lynn Schmidt
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1599635593
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Get Book Here

Book Description
Develop compelling character arcs using the power of myth! In the best novels, characters undergo dramatic changes that keep readers turning pages. A Writer's Guide to Characterization shows you how to develop such meaningful character arcs in your own work--stories of transformation that will resonate with readers long after the story ends. In this comprehensive guide, author Victoria Lynn Schmidt examines cross-cultural archetypes to illustrate how they can make your work more powerful and compelling. Plus, you'll learn how to draw from Jungian psychology to add complexity and believability to your characters. Schmidt also provides: • 40 lessons on character development (with examples from well-known films and novels) that you can apply to your own work • Questionnaires and exercises to help you select male and female archetypes and adapt them to your story • 15 classic animal archetypes (including the coyote, snake, tiger, and butterfly) you can use to build convincing character profiles With A Writer's Guide to Characterization, you'll have the information you need to infuse the development of your characters with drama and authenticity.

Writer's Guide to Character Traits

Writer's Guide to Character Traits PDF Author: Linda Edelstein
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1582973903
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 3

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Book Description
From Sex to Schizophrenia: Everything You Need to Develop Your Characters! What makes a person commit a white-collar crime? Who is a likely candidate to join a cult? Why do children have imaginary friends? How does birth order affect whether or not a person gets married? When does mind over matter become a crippling problem? Writer's Guide to Character Traits, 2nd edition answers all of these questions and many others. With more than 400 easy-to-reference lists of traits blended from a variety of behaviors and influences, you'll gain the knowledge you need to create distinctive characters whose personalities correspond to their thoughts and actions - no matter how normal or psychotic they might be. In this updated and expanded edition, you'll also find: • Comprehensive instruction on how to use this book • New statistical information to help you create true-to-life characters • Corresponding exercises that show you how to put the material to work in your stories • A quick-reference index to make cross-referencing a snap • Idea sparkers to get your thoughts out of your head and onto the page Plus, you'll learn about common - and not so common - psychological, physical, and relationship disorders; delve into the minds of criminals; find out what it takes to be a professional athlete, scientist, and truck driver; discover what life is like for a gang member, suicidal teen, and alcoholic; and more. In Writer's Guide to Character Traits, 2nd edition, note psychologist and author Dr. Linda Edelstein takes you beyond generic personality types and into the depths of the human psyche where you're sure to find the resources you need to make your characters stand out from the crowd.

The Complete Writer's Guide to Heroes & Heroines

The Complete Writer's Guide to Heroes & Heroines PDF Author: Tami D. Cowden
Publisher: Lone Eagle Publishing Company, LLC
ISBN: 9781580650243
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
Writing great fiction heroes and heroines.

The Occupation Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Jobs, Vocations, and Careers

The Occupation Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Jobs, Vocations, and Careers PDF Author: Becca Puglisi
Publisher: JADD Publishing
ISBN: 0999296388
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 594

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Book Description
Compelling fiction starts with characters who have well-crafted layers that make them memorable, relatable, and fascinating. But trying to convey those layers often results in bulky descriptions that cause readers to skim. Occupations, though, can cover a lot of characterization ground, revealing personality traits, abilities, passions, and motivations. Dig deeper, and a career can hint at past trauma, fears, and even the character’s efforts to run from—or make up for—the past. Select a job that packs a powerful punch. Inside The Occupation Thesaurus, you’ll find: * Informative profiles on popular and unusual jobs to help you write them with authority * Believable conflict scenarios for each occupation, giving you unlimited possibilities for adding tension at the story and scene level * Advice for twisting the stereotypes often associated with these professions * Instruction on how to use jobs to characterize, support story structure, reinforce theme, and more * An in-depth study on how emotional wounds and basic human needs may influence a character’s choice of occupation * A brainstorming tool to organize the various aspects of your character’s personality so you can come up with the best careers for them Choose a profession for your character that brings more to the table than just a paycheck. With over 120 entries in a user-friendly format, The Occupation Thesaurus is an entire job fair for writers.

Reading Like a Writer

Reading Like a Writer PDF Author: Francine Prose
Publisher: Union Books
ISBN: 1908526149
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
In her entertaining and edifying New York Times bestseller, acclaimed author Francine Prose invites you to sit by her side and take a guided tour of the tools and tricks of the masters to discover why their work has endured. Written with passion, humour and wisdom, Reading Like a Writer will inspire readers to return to literature with a fresh eye and an eager heart – to take pleasure in the long and magnificent sentences of Philip Roth and the breathtaking paragraphs of Isaac Babel; to look to John le Carré for a lesson in how to advance plot through dialogue and to Flannery O’ Connor for the cunning use of the telling detail; to be inspired by Emily Brontë ’ s structural nuance and Charles Dickens’ s deceptively simple narrative techniques. Most importantly, Prose cautions readers to slow down and pay attention to words, the raw material out of which all literature is crafted, and reminds us that good writing comes out of good reading.

A Writer's Guide to Fiction

A Writer's Guide to Fiction PDF Author: Elizabeth Lyon
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101143886
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
The second book in the Writer's Compass series from professional writing instructor Elizabeth Lyon offers both aspiring and established authors the fundamentals of writing and selling a great novel or short story. In addition to the basics of characterization, plot, pacing, and theme, A Writer's Guide to Fiction also features a plan for revising fiction, a guide to marketing, samples of cover and query letters, and methods of honing the writing craft.

The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Character Expression (2nd Edition)

The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Character Expression (2nd Edition) PDF Author: Becca Puglisi
Publisher: JADD Publishing
ISBN: 0999296353
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 541

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Book Description
The bestselling Emotion Thesaurus, often hailed as “the gold standard for writers” and credited with transforming how writers craft emotion, has now been expanded to include 56 new entries! One of the biggest struggles for writers is how to convey emotion to readers in a unique and compelling way. When showing our characters’ feelings, we often use the first idea that comes to mind, and they end up smiling, nodding, and frowning too much. If you need inspiration for creating characters’ emotional responses that are personalized and evocative, this ultimate show-don’t-tell guide for emotion can help. It includes: • Body language cues, thoughts, and visceral responses for over 130 emotions that cover a range of intensity from mild to severe, providing innumerable options for individualizing a character’s reactions • A breakdown of the biggest emotion-related writing problems and how to overcome them • Advice on what should be done before drafting to make sure your characters’ emotions will be realistic and consistent • Instruction for how to show hidden feelings and emotional subtext through dialogue and nonverbal cues • And much more! The Emotion Thesaurus, in its easy-to-navigate list format, will inspire you to create stronger, fresher character expressions and engage readers from your first page to your last.

Passages

Passages PDF Author: Richard F. Nordquist
Publisher: Forge Books
ISBN: 9780312032166
Category : English language
Languages : en
Pages : 480

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Book Description


The Writer’s Digest Sourcebook for Building Believable Characters

The Writer’s Digest Sourcebook for Building Believable Characters PDF Author: Marc McCutcheon
Publisher: Writers Digest Books
ISBN:
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
Six novelists reveal their approaches to characterization in this guide, which comes with a questionnaire to help writers probe their characters' backgrounds, beliefs, and desires and a "thesaurus" of physical and psychological traits to aid in character development.

The Emotional Wound Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Psychological Trauma

The Emotional Wound Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Psychological Trauma PDF Author: Becca Puglisi
Publisher: JADD Publishing
ISBN: 0999296302
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 612

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Book Description
Readers connect to characters with depth, ones who have experienced life’s ups and downs. To deliver key players that are both realistic and compelling, writers must know them intimately—not only who they are in the present story, but also what made them that way. Of all the formative experiences in a character’s past, none are more destructive than emotional wounds. The aftershocks of trauma can change who they are, alter what they believe, and sabotage their ability to achieve meaningful goals, all of which will affect the trajectory of your story. Identifying the backstory wound is crucial to understanding how it will shape your character’s behavior, and The Emotional Wound Thesaurus can help. Inside, you’ll find: * A database of traumatic situations common to the human experience * An in-depth study on a wound’s impact, including the fears, lies, personality shifts, and dysfunctional behaviors that can arise from different painful events * An extensive analysis of character arc and how the wound and any resulting unmet needs fit into it * Techniques on how to show the past experience to readers in a way that is both engaging and revelatory while avoiding the pitfalls of info dumps and telling * A showcase of popular characters and how their traumatic experiences reshaped them, leading to very specific story goals * A Backstory Wound Profile tool that will enable you to document your characters’ negative past experiences and the aftereffects Root your characters in reality by giving them an authentic wound that causes difficulties and prompts them to strive for inner growth to overcome it. With its easy-to-read format and over 100 entries packed with information, The Emotional Wound Thesaurus is a crash course in psychology for creating characters that feel incredibly real to readers.