Authors: Nancy Kress
ISBN-13: 9781582973166, ISBN-10: 1582973164
Format: Paperback
Publisher: F+W Media, Inc.
Date Published: March 2005
Edition: (Non-applicable)
How do you create a main character readers won't forget? How do you write a book in multiple-third-person point of view without confusing your readers (or yourself)? How do you plant essential information about a character's past into a story?
Write Great Fiction: Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint by award-winning author Nancy Kress answers all of these questions and more! This accessible book is filled with interactive exercises and valuable advice that teaches you how to: Choose and execute the best point of view for your story, Create three-dimensional and believable characters, Develop your characters' emotions, Create realistic love, fight, and death scenes, Use frustration to motivate your characters and drive your story. With dozens of excerpts from some of today's most popular writers, Write Great Fiction: Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint provides you with the techniques you need to create characters and stories sure to linger in the hearts and minds of agents, editors, and readers long after they've finished your book.
Introduction : what do readers want? | 1 | |
Ch. 1 | Types of characters - assembling your cast | 5 |
Ch. 2 | Introducing characters - first impressions count | 19 |
Ch. 3 | The genuine self - what is she really like? | 35 |
Ch. 4 | The motivationally complicated character - but I'm a mess inside! | 51 |
Ch. 5 | Showing change in your characters - if I knew then what I know now | 67 |
Ch. 6 | Protagonists in genre fiction - from lovers to starship captains | 78 |
Ch. 7 | The humorous character - all bets are off | 93 |
Ch. 8 | Talking about emotion - dialogue and thoughts | 104 |
Ch. 9 | Emotion suggested - using metaphor, symbol, and sensory details to convey feeling | 119 |
Ch. 10 | Special cases of emotion - loving, fighting, and dying | 130 |
Ch. 11 | Frustration - the most useful emotion in fiction | 147 |
Ch. 12 | Point of view - whose emotions are we sharing? | 158 |
Ch. 13 | First person - I saw it with my own eyes | 173 |
Ch. 14 | Third person - see Dick run | 185 |
Ch. 15 | Omniscient point of view - playing God | 205 |
Ch. 16 | Putting it all together - the fourth persona | 213 |