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    Creating Fictional Characters
    Creating Fictional Characters
    Creating Fictional Characters
    Ebook48 pages32 minutes

    Creating Fictional Characters

    By Lillie Ammann

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    About this ebook

    Characters are the building blocks of fiction. Even in stories with lots of action, the action has to happen to characters. Phonetically, the word character begins with the word "care." Characters have to care about something for readers to care about the characters, and if readers don't care about your characters, they probably won't care about your plot, either. Learn how to find and create interesting characters that readers will care about. Reveal your characters, use point of view effectively, flesh out your characters, develop a background for them, put the right words in their mouths, give them goals and motivation, and develop them throughout your story. Whether you're a "character-driven" writer or a "plot-driven" writer, you can build great story people for whatever kind of story you write.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLillie Ammann
    Release dateAug 7, 2011
    ISBN9781465853356
    Creating Fictional Characters
    Author

    Lillie Ammann

    Lillie always dreamed of writing someday—suffering a stroke made her realize that someday had arrived. As soon as she could, she sold the interior landscape business she had owned and operated for twenty years and started a new career as a freelance writer. She has published both fiction and nonfiction books. As a freelancer, she works with authors and publishers to prepare manuscripts for publication; writes and edits business documents; and helps families and individuals compile family histories and memoirs. She especially enjoys helping self-publishing authors navigate the publishing maze and likes to think of herself as a book midwife. Lillie, who is widowed, lives in San Antonio, Texas.

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      Book preview

      Creating Fictional Characters - Lillie Ammann

      Creating Fictional Characters

      by Lillie Ammann

      Smashwords Edition

      ©2011 Lillian A. Ammann

      All rights reserved

      Find other e-books by Lillie Ammann at www.smashwords.com/profile/view/lillieammann

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Table of Contents

      Introduction

      Chapter 1: Characters Are Story People

      Chapter 2: Finding and Creating Characters

      Chapter 3: Revealing Characters and Point of View

      Chapter 4: Fleshing Out Characters with Tags, Traits, and Relationships

      Chapter 5: Developing Background and Traits Using a Character Chart, Bio, Diary, or Interview

      Chapter 6: Putting the Right Words in Their Mouths

      Chapter 7: Giving Characters Goals and Motivation

      Chapter 8: Developing Characters throughout Your Story

      Appendix A: Sample Character Chart

      Appendix B: Sample Character Chart in Progress

      Introduction

      Several years ago, I taught classes in fiction writing at a continuing education program for senior citizens. Later I turned my outlines and notes on these classes into a series of posts on my blog, A Writer's Words, An Editor's Eye. Those posts have been quite popular—at least three of the posts consistently rank among the top 10 in Google for creating fictional characters as well as among the top 10 posts on my blog. I hope this ebook created from those blog posts will help you create your own fictional characters.

      Chapter 1: Characters Are Story People

      Fiction writers usually describe themselves as being either character-driven or plot-driven. This is somewhat related to genre--romance novels tend to be more character-driven while action-adventure stories and thrillers are usually more plot-driven. However, characters and plot are both important in all fiction. Plot evolves from character--characters' responses to situation and events creates the plot, and the actions in the plot must be consistent with the characters. Character-driven stories also have plots; plot-driven stories also have characters. Durant Imboden's article "Character vs. Plot" on Writing.org explains more about the relationship between character and plot.

      I'm a character-driven writer--I start with characters first then come up with what happens to them. What happens to them--the plot--evolves from the characters..

      My friend Billie Houston, aka Barri Bryan (BarriBryan.com), teaches a class

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