Elements of Fiction Writing - Characters & Viewpoint

Orson Scott Card

F+W Media, Mar 15, 1999 - Language Arts & Disciplines - 182 pages

Vivid and memorable characters aren't born: they have to be made.

This 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 memory, your imagination and your soul.

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 members of their own families.

You'll learn how to:

• draw the characters from a variety of sources, including a story's basic idea, real life–even a character's social circumstances
  
  
• make characters show who they are by the things they do and say, and by their individual "style"
  
  
• develop characters readers will love–or love to hate
  
  
• distinguish among major characters, minor characters and walk-ons, and develop each one appropriately
  
  
• choose the most effective viewpoint to reveal the characters and move the storytelling
  
  
• decide how deeply you should explore your characters' thoughts, emotions and attitudes

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What people are saying

Review: Characters and Viewpoint (Elements of Fiction Writing)

User Review  - Jade - Goodreads

Other then two or three books, the elements of writing series weren't as hugely helpful as I thought. I guess it depends on each writer, but it had only a handful of useful tips, nothing I couldn't ...

Review: Characters and Viewpoint (Elements of Fiction Writing)

User Review  - Brad - Goodreads

I thought this book on writing was very good, although I tend to like Card's later, more informal discussions better. Seeing how I've read almost all of his work, it's interesting to see what he has to say about it, too. :)

About the author

Orson Scott Byron Walley Card, was born in 1951 and studied theater at Brigham Young University. He received his B.A. in 1975 and his M.A. in English in 1981. He wrote plays during that time, including Stone Tables (1973) and the musical, Father, Mother, Mother and Mom (1974). A Mormon, Scott served a two-year mission in Brazil before starting work as a journalist in Utah. He also designed games at Lucas Film Games, 1989-92. He is best known for his science fiction novels, including the popular Ender series. Well known titles include A Planet Called Treason (1979), Treasure Box (1996), and Heartfire (1998). He has also written the guide called How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy (1990). He is the recipient of a Hugo and a Nebula award. His titles Shadows in Flight and Ruins made The New York Times Best Seller List for 2012.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Elements of Fiction Writing - Characters & Viewpoint; The Elements of fiction writing
• Author: Orson Scott Card
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: F+W Media, 1999
• ISBN: 0898799279, 9780898799279
• Length: 182 pages
• Subjects: Language Arts & Disciplines / Authorship; Reference / Writing Skills