The 21st Century Writer

007: Characters

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Characters: the people in our stories. How do you develop them, what makes them fascinating, and what do you need to know about them!

Book and Media mentions and recommendations:

  • The “Mary Sue”: a term for a character who’s perfect in every way, has no character flaws, and sails through stories essentially with no opposition or difficulty with obstacles.
  • World War Z, by Max Brooks. Completely brilliant look at what would happen after the zombie apocalypse.
  • The Myers-Briggs Personality Indicator.
  • Astrology: there are thousands of books and websites about this. If all you know is newspaper astrology columns, be forewarned that “understanding” astrology can get a lot more complicated than that.
  • The Enneagram. The best books Diane knows of for learning the Enneagram are Personality Types and Understanding the Enneagram, both by Don Richard Riso
  • David Feldman (the screenwriting consultant who gave me the great tip on developing characters): I…can’t find a link for him. There are a LOT of David Feldmans out there. I will keep looking.

    • Join us next week when we have an in-depth discussion of Libbie Hawker’s Take Off Your Pants! (which discusses character and story in terms of building your outline).

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    The 21st Century WriterBy Diane Patterson and Hannah Steenbock: Authors, Publishers, Entrepreneurs