Characters & Viewpoint

by Orson Scott Card

Paperback, 1999

Status

Available

Call number

808.3

Collection

Your library

Publication

Writers Digest Books (1999), Paperback, 182 pages

Description

Vivid and memorable characters aren't born: they have to be madeThis book is a set of tools: literary crowbars, chisels, mallets, pliers and tongs. Use them to pry, chip, yank and sift good characters out of the place where they live in your imagination. Award-winning author Orson Scott Card explains in depth the techniques of inventing, developing and presenting characters, plus handling viewpoint in novels and short stories. With specific examples, he spells out your narrative options--the choices you'll make in creating fictional people so "real" that readers will feel they know them like mem.

User reviews

LibraryThing member danbarrett

Card's written a very good handbook here. There isn't much in the way of anectdotes or stories to keep you interested; this is a fairly bare-bones manual to the different types of viewpoint and characterization you can use, and the pitfalls of each. It can be hard to find writing books that

actually give you useful information without a lot of fluff on the side, so this book is worth it if that's what you're looking for.

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LibraryThing member CKmtl

A useful examination of the process, elements, and techniques of characterization.

I appreciated the way Card created quick, bare-bones fiction examples to demonstrate most of points he making, rather than referring to other books and/or stories which may be hard to find.

Of the three sections, I

found the last one (focused on the implementation of characterization and viewpoint) most useful.

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LibraryThing member LisaMaria_C

An editor once told me that if you're going to take advice on writing, take it either from name-bestselling writers or gatekeepers such as acquiring editors or agents--not necessarily anyone who writes for Writer's Digest. Well, I've ordinarily liked the Elements of Fiction Writing series Writer's

Digest put out, but in this case you get the "name" too, and Orson Scott Card happens to be someone whose writing I admire. I liked the various examples he gave, especially in illustrating the effects of different points of view. Particularly memorable was his treatment of omniscience, which he said was particularly effective in comedy--complete with an example. The book is a keeper.

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LibraryThing member CharityBradford

This was really helpful for me. I was able to take a new look at my characters and see where I needed to fill them out and also see that some of my characters really didn't need any more attention. This book will be helpful for creating and developing characters in any genre of writing.

LibraryThing member VincentDarlage

I think this book is an excellent resource to have for an aspiring author. I'm keeping it on my writing desk for future reference. It was filled with a lot of useful tips and wonderful illustrations of the points Mr. Card makes. It's an actionable resource.

LibraryThing member HenryJOlsen

Of the books I've read about writing, this one taught me the most.

LibraryThing member Bruce_McNair

This book concentrates on inventing and writing memorable characters and telling their stories from different viewpoints. It is part of Writer's Digest Elements of Fiction Writing series. Because of its limited scope, it delves further into its subject matter than many writing books. It provides

lots of hints, ideas, and techniques for bringing characters into existence, how to develop their profiles, and how each viewpoint can be used to tell their stories in different ways. The subject matter is provided with a little humour, which helps lighten it. But there are none of the exercises you might see in other writing books. I give this book 4 stars.

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LibraryThing member RodRaglin

There's nothing new in books about writing fiction, only on how they're presented.

Some are written by academics and you need to be one to understand them. Others are written by authors who use them as a means of self-aggrandizement constantly quoting examples from their own work. These may not

necessarily be good examples of what they're trying to demonstrate, but they're not about to let an opportunity to promote their work slip by.

In Characters and Viewpoint, Card uses straight forward prose and not a lot of examples from his own work and gives good insight into these two important aspects of writing fiction.

This is a solid book about what is stated in the title.

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LibraryThing member drardavis

Excellent reference on characterization. I should have found this sooner.

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