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Creating Characters From Scratch
Need a character and drawing a blank? This booklet describes a step by step approach to generate characters from scratch.
8 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 6, 2013
4 people want to read
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March 4, 2021
As well as a reader, I also try to write. To help with that (and not at all as a way of putting off the, you know, actual writing) I have been collecting a lot of books about writing. I have read a few of them, but not recently, so i decided it was time to delve into the archive and pluck one or two out to see if they helped. In the case of this one the answer is simple, Yes it did help. Not bad for a free book of only around 1000 words!
This book is part of a large series of books loosely gathered around the idea of “Dramatica” which seems to be a combination of theory and writing school. All the books take a different part or aspect of the theory and craft of writing and this one, as could be deduced from the title, is about characters. In particular, some tricks to help you explore possible characters when you have no plot setting or even an idea for a story..
As with the rest of these short books, the suggested technique is very simple. It starts with picking a name for the character. It suggests avoiding the kind of straightforward name of someone you might meet and ignore, and advises going for a nickname, an unusual name or a descriptive name. The author chooses “Muttering Murdock”, for example. The process then continues with several steps of elaboration, each of which involves first coming up with a selection of questions, as random as possible, then giving several answers for each of the questions as quickly as possible. Finally, play with combinations of answers to various questions until you get to a character you are happy with.
The whole process is very reminiscent of “The Creativity Two-Step” which is part of the same series. If you have that book, or are familiar with that technique, then you probably will not gain much from this book. Likewise, if you struggle with names and prefer to think of characters first and apply names to them later, this approach will not be very useful.
On the whole it is a reasonable introduction to character creation, but I can’t help wondering if it might have been better as something like a blog post or a chapter rather than a book in its own right. Even at just 0.99 for the ebook it still feels expensive for the amount of words, especially as it shares so much with “The Creativity Two-Step”.
This book is part of a large series of books loosely gathered around the idea of “Dramatica” which seems to be a combination of theory and writing school. All the books take a different part or aspect of the theory and craft of writing and this one, as could be deduced from the title, is about characters. In particular, some tricks to help you explore possible characters when you have no plot setting or even an idea for a story..
As with the rest of these short books, the suggested technique is very simple. It starts with picking a name for the character. It suggests avoiding the kind of straightforward name of someone you might meet and ignore, and advises going for a nickname, an unusual name or a descriptive name. The author chooses “Muttering Murdock”, for example. The process then continues with several steps of elaboration, each of which involves first coming up with a selection of questions, as random as possible, then giving several answers for each of the questions as quickly as possible. Finally, play with combinations of answers to various questions until you get to a character you are happy with.
The whole process is very reminiscent of “The Creativity Two-Step” which is part of the same series. If you have that book, or are familiar with that technique, then you probably will not gain much from this book. Likewise, if you struggle with names and prefer to think of characters first and apply names to them later, this approach will not be very useful.
On the whole it is a reasonable introduction to character creation, but I can’t help wondering if it might have been better as something like a blog post or a chapter rather than a book in its own right. Even at just 0.99 for the ebook it still feels expensive for the amount of words, especially as it shares so much with “The Creativity Two-Step”.
Displaying 1 of 1 review