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The Science of Writing Characters: Using Psychology to Create Compelling Fictional Characters
The Science of Writing Characters is a comprehensive handbook to help writers create compelling and psychologically-credible characters that come to life on the page. Drawing on the latest psychological theory and research, ranging from personality theory to evolutionary science, the book equips screenwriters and novelists with all the techniques they need to build complex, dimensional characters from the bottom up. Writers learn how to create rounded characters using the 'Big Five' dimensions of personality and then are shown how these personality traits shape action, relationships and dialogue.
Throughout The Science of Writing Characters, psychological theories and research are translated into handy practical tips, which are illustrated through examples of characters in action in well-known films, television series and novels, ranging from Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri and Game of Thrones to The Bonfire of the Vanities and The Goldfinch. This very practical approach makes the book an engaging and accessible companion guide for all writers who want to better understand how they can make memorable characters with the potential for global appeal.
Throughout The Science of Writing Characters, psychological theories and research are translated into handy practical tips, which are illustrated through examples of characters in action in well-known films, television series and novels, ranging from Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri and Game of Thrones to The Bonfire of the Vanities and The Goldfinch. This very practical approach makes the book an engaging and accessible companion guide for all writers who want to better understand how they can make memorable characters with the potential for global appeal.
253 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 26, 2020
58 people are currently reading
208 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
July 28, 2023
Spunti interessanti, soprattutto nella prima parte, ma non lo consiglierei a chi non ha già una buona base in narratologia. Da un lato faticherebbe a capire alcune cose, dall’altro rischierebbe di confondersi.
November 15, 2023
Easily one of my favorite writing craft books of the year! I knew there were multiple reasons I tend to love the characters I do, even across genres. This book does exactly what the cover says: It takes you about three or four levels down into not only what makes up the human experience and how we show that to the world, but how to put those same kinds of experiences into our fictional characters. Will definitely be coming back to this again and again!
January 26, 2022
Building Character
As a storyteller and screenwriting instructor, I am constantly trying to understand the characters I create and to help others do the same with theirs. I want to breathe life into my characters, transforming archetypical plot devices into human beings (or whatever species) that I might expect to meet in the street or aquarium or alien planet.
Thus, having seen Kira-Anne Pelican present a Raindance lecture on character development using principles of psychology, I was eager to read her book The Science of Writing Characters: Using Psychology to Create Compelling Fictional Characters. The book, I am happy to say, completely mirrors the approachability of her lectures and workshops.
Pelican is by no means the first author to use psychology to explore fictional characters. As writers try to find the universal within the specific, it only makes sense that we would tap into the science behind what makes us tick as individuals. What makes Pelican’s approach so appealing, however, is how quickly and easily she moves from the theoretical to the practical. For me, The Science of Writing Characters finds the sweet spot between a textbook and a how-to guide.
Tapping into current thinking on everything from evolutionary and developmental psychology to neuroscience and personality psychology, Pelican starts our writer’s journey with an overview of five dimensions of personality, along with a half-dozen or so subdimensions within each of those categories, to help us understand the mental mixing board from which we and our characters arise. Throughout her discussions, she provides an endless array of tables that highlight the tangible outcomes of each of those flavours, tables that offer immediately actionable insights to deepen our characters. You will know your character is X because they likely behave Y.
Pelican then takes that basis to explore other facets of character, including dialogue, motivation, and emotional arc, all critical to transforming a portrait into a story. These analyses are similarly supported by tables with ready examples of characters from film and television that represent those combinations. Kudos to Pelican, as a side note, for the artistic breadth of her examples, as any reader is sure to be familiar with at least one example of the three to five she offers in each discussion.
Alongside the many tables, Pelican also offers excerpts of scenes from film and television that highlight how characters of different personality combinations speak, act and present themselves. Due to the length of the book—182 pages—these excerpts are necessarily short, expressing the point but largely only sufficient to whet my appetite for more.
Despite the volume of information within its pages, The Science of Writing Characters is an easy read, in large part due to Pelican’s approachable writing style and personality. But as with any book on storytelling, the breadth of available information could trigger analysis paralysis for an unsure writer. Much as a writer can get stuck in world-building, so too might a writer get stuck in character-building, becoming overwhelmed by the spectrum of possibilities.
None of that is Pelican’s responsibility, however. All she can hope to do is present the writer (or director, actor, whomever) with an understanding of character, a sense of what lies in the depths below the psychological surface. It is up to the storyteller to probe further, to find their own creative sweet spot.
The Science of Writing Characters will sit on my bookshelf to be readily accessed in my own writing and frequently referenced and excerpted (with attribution, of course) in my teaching.
As a storyteller and screenwriting instructor, I am constantly trying to understand the characters I create and to help others do the same with theirs. I want to breathe life into my characters, transforming archetypical plot devices into human beings (or whatever species) that I might expect to meet in the street or aquarium or alien planet.
Thus, having seen Kira-Anne Pelican present a Raindance lecture on character development using principles of psychology, I was eager to read her book The Science of Writing Characters: Using Psychology to Create Compelling Fictional Characters. The book, I am happy to say, completely mirrors the approachability of her lectures and workshops.
Pelican is by no means the first author to use psychology to explore fictional characters. As writers try to find the universal within the specific, it only makes sense that we would tap into the science behind what makes us tick as individuals. What makes Pelican’s approach so appealing, however, is how quickly and easily she moves from the theoretical to the practical. For me, The Science of Writing Characters finds the sweet spot between a textbook and a how-to guide.
Tapping into current thinking on everything from evolutionary and developmental psychology to neuroscience and personality psychology, Pelican starts our writer’s journey with an overview of five dimensions of personality, along with a half-dozen or so subdimensions within each of those categories, to help us understand the mental mixing board from which we and our characters arise. Throughout her discussions, she provides an endless array of tables that highlight the tangible outcomes of each of those flavours, tables that offer immediately actionable insights to deepen our characters. You will know your character is X because they likely behave Y.
Pelican then takes that basis to explore other facets of character, including dialogue, motivation, and emotional arc, all critical to transforming a portrait into a story. These analyses are similarly supported by tables with ready examples of characters from film and television that represent those combinations. Kudos to Pelican, as a side note, for the artistic breadth of her examples, as any reader is sure to be familiar with at least one example of the three to five she offers in each discussion.
Alongside the many tables, Pelican also offers excerpts of scenes from film and television that highlight how characters of different personality combinations speak, act and present themselves. Due to the length of the book—182 pages—these excerpts are necessarily short, expressing the point but largely only sufficient to whet my appetite for more.
Despite the volume of information within its pages, The Science of Writing Characters is an easy read, in large part due to Pelican’s approachable writing style and personality. But as with any book on storytelling, the breadth of available information could trigger analysis paralysis for an unsure writer. Much as a writer can get stuck in world-building, so too might a writer get stuck in character-building, becoming overwhelmed by the spectrum of possibilities.
None of that is Pelican’s responsibility, however. All she can hope to do is present the writer (or director, actor, whomever) with an understanding of character, a sense of what lies in the depths below the psychological surface. It is up to the storyteller to probe further, to find their own creative sweet spot.
The Science of Writing Characters will sit on my bookshelf to be readily accessed in my own writing and frequently referenced and excerpted (with attribution, of course) in my teaching.
May 11, 2021
I found this book really interesting and helpful. I’ve used Myers Briggs Jungian types and Enneagram types in the past to help me shape characters, but this book sets out a framework for writers that I think is definitely simpler and more effective. I guess, each approach that is encountered and absorbed into a writer’s thoughts adds something, like ingredients to a recipe. This book is helping me spice up my characters, making them more vivid.
Ms Pelican is a writer, researcher and scriptwriter with years of experience. Her interest in psychology is clear from the way she introduces the reader to arcane (to me) branches of psychology such as; personality psychology, evolutionary psychology, neuroscience, narrative psychology, media psychology and developmental psychology.
The focus of the book stays firmly on writers and the characters they create, but she presents research findings that underpin lessons about forming a believable character that I will forever use now that I’ve had them pointed out.
Separate chapters deal with personality, dialogue, motivation and transformation. There is then a chapter on a character’s emotional journey and another on secondary characters. The final chapter is a brief workshop walk-through as a springboard to implementing the lessons set out in the book.
The fundamental personality model presented has five dimensions/aspects; extroversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, conscientiousness and open-ness to experience and time is spent understanding each of these Big Five aspects. This gives a framework within which to examine particular character traits to see if the resulting character is believable, and Ms Pelican’s advice is to craft characters that have some extreme characteristics within the Big Five in order to avoid characters that are bland and uninteresting. This approach also allows comparisons with other characters that can be the source of conflict, attraction and motivation. These are basic factors writers handle in their stories.
I found Ms Pelican’s approach held my interest and has given me lots of fertile angles to consider for existing and future characters in my writing. The book is easy to read. It’s not too long, there are 160 pages in my version. I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone writing stories who wants to fill them with believable, well-rounded characters.
Ms Pelican is a writer, researcher and scriptwriter with years of experience. Her interest in psychology is clear from the way she introduces the reader to arcane (to me) branches of psychology such as; personality psychology, evolutionary psychology, neuroscience, narrative psychology, media psychology and developmental psychology.
The focus of the book stays firmly on writers and the characters they create, but she presents research findings that underpin lessons about forming a believable character that I will forever use now that I’ve had them pointed out.
Separate chapters deal with personality, dialogue, motivation and transformation. There is then a chapter on a character’s emotional journey and another on secondary characters. The final chapter is a brief workshop walk-through as a springboard to implementing the lessons set out in the book.
The fundamental personality model presented has five dimensions/aspects; extroversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, conscientiousness and open-ness to experience and time is spent understanding each of these Big Five aspects. This gives a framework within which to examine particular character traits to see if the resulting character is believable, and Ms Pelican’s advice is to craft characters that have some extreme characteristics within the Big Five in order to avoid characters that are bland and uninteresting. This approach also allows comparisons with other characters that can be the source of conflict, attraction and motivation. These are basic factors writers handle in their stories.
I found Ms Pelican’s approach held my interest and has given me lots of fertile angles to consider for existing and future characters in my writing. The book is easy to read. It’s not too long, there are 160 pages in my version. I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone writing stories who wants to fill them with believable, well-rounded characters.
February 28, 2023
This book would be best utilized for someone who struggles with writing strong characters. It's very basic but digs into a lot of the science side of things and includes specific supporting examples mainly from film scripts but occasionally from novels.
As someone who has extensively studied both writing craft and has a degree in Psychology, this was a good reminder and overview of the basics, but based off the title and reviews I was expecting something a little more in-depth. So, while it's good information, it's not exactly what I was hoping for.
I DID, though, really enjoy the chapter that discussed how personality and background and other things influence character dialogue and how to make different characters' dialogue sound unique. I LOVE reading good dialogue, so I think that entry could be really helpful to authors.
As someone who has extensively studied both writing craft and has a degree in Psychology, this was a good reminder and overview of the basics, but based off the title and reviews I was expecting something a little more in-depth. So, while it's good information, it's not exactly what I was hoping for.
I DID, though, really enjoy the chapter that discussed how personality and background and other things influence character dialogue and how to make different characters' dialogue sound unique. I LOVE reading good dialogue, so I think that entry could be really helpful to authors.
January 10, 2021
The Science of Writing Characters is a welcome addition to the shortlist of erudite books on writing. It's one of those books you don't know you need until you've read it, and once you have you won't know how you survived without it. Most of us rely on our instincts and intuition to develop characters, or try to mimic other writers. It's a haphazard approach at best leaving us unsure whether our efforts will bear fruit. Based on scientific evidence, Dr. Pelican breaks down the 'dimensions of personality' and gives us an inside scoop on how we can utilize the findings to make our characters and their dialogue more compelling. She also examines the science behind a character's motivation, transformation, and their emotional journey in a story. Armed with the plethora of tools she provides, the book will leave you itching to jump back into your writing and re-examine old characters, or create new ones, confident that you can maximize the impact they will have on your audience. The Science of Writing Characters is a must-read for any storyteller who wants their characters to be memorable.
November 26, 2023
I was hesitant about this to begin with, but it's great. So many things I hadn't considered when it comes to character, as well as practical techniques to amp up a character that is just kind of "ehh" in a psychologically believable way.
February 25, 2021
Insightful and detailed account of character
This is a very insightful and well thoughtout account of the psychological research that can be used by a writer to develop fascinating characters. It is packed full of references and research findings. It takes a couple of readings to absorb all the information but it is well worth the journey.
This is a very insightful and well thoughtout account of the psychological research that can be used by a writer to develop fascinating characters. It is packed full of references and research findings. It takes a couple of readings to absorb all the information but it is well worth the journey.
August 1, 2021
Highly recommended!
A different - and logical - approach to character development, especially effective when the techniques are applied in the workshop section in Ch 8. So glad I found this book, it’s made a lot of the character development aspects so much clearer!
A different - and logical - approach to character development, especially effective when the techniques are applied in the workshop section in Ch 8. So glad I found this book, it’s made a lot of the character development aspects so much clearer!
August 2, 2021
Lots of interesting information.
December 26, 2021
Great book
Lots great tips and strategies for creating characters. It is also very easy to understand and presented in a very pragmatic way. Lots of tables and charts making the content more easily digestible.
Lots great tips and strategies for creating characters. It is also very easy to understand and presented in a very pragmatic way. Lots of tables and charts making the content more easily digestible.
February 19, 2022
Super useful book for any fiction writers.
December 18, 2024
L'introduzione funziona, un po' di Jung e varie citazioni da film. Il primo capitolo okay, dal secondo invece boh. C'è una tabella in cui si dice che le persone estroverse parlano ricorrendo a "molti verbi, avverbi e pronomi", mentre gli introversi usano "molti nomi, aggettivi e preposizioni". Mi pare una boiata, semmai è il tautogrammista a usare poco le preposizioni. Ma proseguo, curioso e affamato; leggo che gli estroversi hanno un vocabolario "limitato e ripetitivo" e gli introversi "ricco". Non mi è chiaro da dove si deduca tutto questo, dato che il libro non propone alcuna analisi statistica. Cioè: non vedo numeri dati dalle neuroscienze. Ma va be', vado avanti e leggo che le persone coscienziose usano "parole lunghe" mentre quelle non coscienziose "parole corte". Mi viene da ridere. Terzo capitolo okay, il quarto e il quinto sono gli unici per cui vale la pena leggere questo manualetto.
June 17, 2025
[Paperback]
One of the best technical books on writing I've ever read. Not just because I am a psychologist who enjoys writing character driven books, but also because I am a psychologist who enjoys writing character driven books😆
One of the best technical books on writing I've ever read. Not just because I am a psychologist who enjoys writing character driven books, but also because I am a psychologist who enjoys writing character driven books😆
March 22, 2022
Good information in this book but it is a dull and dry read.
March 10, 2023
There's good information to help you draft well-rounded characters, and plenty of examples from popular films and TV.
November 1, 2024
5⭐️
absolutely fantastic resource for writers
absolutely fantastic resource for writers
November 4, 2024
Un libro interessante che ti fa capire meglio i personaggi delle storie. L'ho letto molto lentamente quindi forse mi sono persa un po e non lo apprezzato a pieno, ma mi è piaciuto
October 12, 2025
best book on writing characters I've read.
January 24, 2022
Characters in fiction, together with stakes and plot, are key to a story's success among readers. A reader invests in the story primarily because of a tie to the character. Many books on writing and on character ask the writer to answer many questions about the character, how she will act in certain situations, and why,…!
A strength of this book’s approach is a framework, based on science from several branches of psychology, to develop the character’s personality. The author cites five major dimensions of personality: extroversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, conscientiousness, and openness to experience. Within each of these dimensions, she provides six facets of the dimension. For example, within openness, she discusses fantasy, aesthetics, feelings, actions, ideas, and values. The book also covers topics of how these personalities shape dialog, motivate character, and form interactions with others, among others.
Another strength of the book is the author’s clear writing and presentation style. The book is full of tables to summarize discussions. In addition, the author provides examples, from classical to modern fiction, movies and plays, of characters with the facets or characteristics she discussions.
Finally, the author describes some aspects of a reader’s response to characters, helping explain why some characters are memorable, or why a change in a character is believable.
There is a lot in this book to digest. The author is aware of this and has provided a chapter to help the reader and potential writer to develop characters within the framework she presented. I found most useful her responses to several questions she has gotten from workshops she has given, such as “readers tell me they don’t have a good sense of what my character is like.”
My one quibble with the content is the selection of examples the author uses. She uses many examples, which are good, ensuring the reader will probably know some. On the other hand, she used several from A Song of Ice and Fire, by George R. R. Martin, and specifically the Game of Thrones, and which were lost on me, which probably says more about me than the author’s audience. There were several other stories I was not aware of.
Overall, a valuable contribution to character development, complementing other approaches.
FB. A fascinating and practical framework, based on science, to develop believable and memorable characters readers will want to encounter in a story.
A strength of this book’s approach is a framework, based on science from several branches of psychology, to develop the character’s personality. The author cites five major dimensions of personality: extroversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, conscientiousness, and openness to experience. Within each of these dimensions, she provides six facets of the dimension. For example, within openness, she discusses fantasy, aesthetics, feelings, actions, ideas, and values. The book also covers topics of how these personalities shape dialog, motivate character, and form interactions with others, among others.
Another strength of the book is the author’s clear writing and presentation style. The book is full of tables to summarize discussions. In addition, the author provides examples, from classical to modern fiction, movies and plays, of characters with the facets or characteristics she discussions.
Finally, the author describes some aspects of a reader’s response to characters, helping explain why some characters are memorable, or why a change in a character is believable.
There is a lot in this book to digest. The author is aware of this and has provided a chapter to help the reader and potential writer to develop characters within the framework she presented. I found most useful her responses to several questions she has gotten from workshops she has given, such as “readers tell me they don’t have a good sense of what my character is like.”
My one quibble with the content is the selection of examples the author uses. She uses many examples, which are good, ensuring the reader will probably know some. On the other hand, she used several from A Song of Ice and Fire, by George R. R. Martin, and specifically the Game of Thrones, and which were lost on me, which probably says more about me than the author’s audience. There were several other stories I was not aware of.
Overall, a valuable contribution to character development, complementing other approaches.
FB. A fascinating and practical framework, based on science, to develop believable and memorable characters readers will want to encounter in a story.
July 31, 2025
Not as useful as I was hoping.
April 21, 2023
130 pagine che hanno una densità di concetti imparagonabile. Non fatevi ingannare dalle poche pagine, ho trovato manuali da 600 pagine con la metà dei concetti che trovate in questo manualetto. Assolutamente da leggere almeno una decina di volte per poter iniziare a graffiare quello che è un iceberg enorme di studio sulla personalità.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews