What do you think?
Rate this book
Creating Characters From Plot
Got a plot but need characters? This seven page booklet provides a method for shaking a whole cast out of the action elements of your novel or screenplay.
8 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 8, 2013
5 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 17, 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 an idea for a plot, but feel stuck, blocked, or uninspired by the characters you can come up with.
As with the rest of these short books, the suggested technique is very simple. It starts by describing a framework in which to think of your possible characters. The framework has four categories: .Expected characters (the ones which need to be present because they have a clear function in the plot idea); Usual characters (the ones you might normally find in the setting and can fill roles in the background and foreground as appropriate); Unusual characters (ones which might be possible in the setting of the story, but are not really likely) and Outlandish characters (ones which would never normally be found in this time and place).
To create characters for a particular story, the process is to work through each of the categories and think of as many ideas as possible. The important thing at this point is not to make final decisions or to be critical, just to come up with lots of ideas. As the process continues through the categories, the net can be thrown wider, and by the fourth category can include any character at all. Once you have spent a bit of time dashing out a load of character ideas, it is then time to go back and start asking yourself how this character idea might fit into the story. The important thing that I took from this book is that it is vital to concentrate on “how” the character might be involved, not “if”. Only later, when you have considered possible ways to include even some of the outlandish ideas, do you go back and begin to thin down the options and decide which of the possibilities you will include in the story, and which will be left out (either to be discarded, or as a seed for another story).
Despite its brevity, this book gets straight to the point and works through an example of using the suggested technique, enough to make it really clear how it works. In this case the example is the same one as used in “The Creativity Two-Step” by the same author - a classic Western about a Marshall protecting a small town from a band of outlaws. Character possibilities which are seriously considered for inclusion include a troupe of acrobats and the “ghost” of Julius Caesar.
I currently find myself running a bit dry on character ideas for several of my writing projects, so I am certainly going to give this technique a try.
The book is great, 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.
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 an idea for a plot, but feel stuck, blocked, or uninspired by the characters you can come up with.
As with the rest of these short books, the suggested technique is very simple. It starts by describing a framework in which to think of your possible characters. The framework has four categories: .Expected characters (the ones which need to be present because they have a clear function in the plot idea); Usual characters (the ones you might normally find in the setting and can fill roles in the background and foreground as appropriate); Unusual characters (ones which might be possible in the setting of the story, but are not really likely) and Outlandish characters (ones which would never normally be found in this time and place).
To create characters for a particular story, the process is to work through each of the categories and think of as many ideas as possible. The important thing at this point is not to make final decisions or to be critical, just to come up with lots of ideas. As the process continues through the categories, the net can be thrown wider, and by the fourth category can include any character at all. Once you have spent a bit of time dashing out a load of character ideas, it is then time to go back and start asking yourself how this character idea might fit into the story. The important thing that I took from this book is that it is vital to concentrate on “how” the character might be involved, not “if”. Only later, when you have considered possible ways to include even some of the outlandish ideas, do you go back and begin to thin down the options and decide which of the possibilities you will include in the story, and which will be left out (either to be discarded, or as a seed for another story).
Despite its brevity, this book gets straight to the point and works through an example of using the suggested technique, enough to make it really clear how it works. In this case the example is the same one as used in “The Creativity Two-Step” by the same author - a classic Western about a Marshall protecting a small town from a band of outlaws. Character possibilities which are seriously considered for inclusion include a troupe of acrobats and the “ghost” of Julius Caesar.
I currently find myself running a bit dry on character ideas for several of my writing projects, so I am certainly going to give this technique a try.
The book is great, 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.
Displaying 1 of 1 review