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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Characters and Viewpoint, Jan 14 2003
Really excellent book gave me three questions to answer, to avoid having the reader throw my book against the wall:
1. So what?
2. Oh yeah?
3. Huh?Orson Scott Card takes a very personal, story-telling approach to instructing us in writing better characters. His anecdotes are humorous and get the point across. I do wish he'd spent a bit more time discussing viewpoint and especially issues surrounding changing viewpoint, but what he does give us is some excellent advice. I highly recommend this book to anyone who writes fiction.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Great for character, not viewpoint, April 20 2009
If you're interested in developing a character who's interesting, believable and belongs in your story, look no further. This book is a veritable gold mine of ideas, things to try out, pitfalls to avoid -- it is extraordinarily useful. I particularly liked the good and bad examples that are presented as story fragments throughout the text. There'll be a paragraph or two that isn't written badly, just not very well -- and then the author pulls it apart, explains what's wrong and shows how it could be improved. It's a humbling experience when you recognize your own writing style in the "mediocre" paragraph, but ultimately dazzling when you realize what you should have done instead!
The section on Character -- which is most of the book -- is excellent. Unfortunately, I actually bought the book for the section on Viewpoint, and frankly it's weak. Seems as if it was tacked on as an afterthought. It does cover the essential elements of first and third person, and the part on penetration (how deeply you're involved with your viewpoint character's mind) is worth reading, but I would have liked to read more on alternative viewpoints and especially on switching viewpoints.
Overall, the book didn't answer the questions I had on Viewpoints, and raised more than it did answer. But I'm happy to have it for the Character section.
[Added later] -- if it's viewpoint you're interested in, read Nancy Kress's "Characters, Emotion and Viewpoint".
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Create characters that your readers will care about, Jun 12 2006
Reading a work of fiction (and some works of non-fiction) is an experience that allows you to meet a host of new people. Each of the characters in the book that you are reading will illicit a response from you - do you love them or hate them? More importantly, do you care about them at all?
The mark of a poorly written character, as Card shows us, is not that the readers don't like him - it's that the reader doesn't care about them at all. If the reader doesn't care one way or the other what happens to the characters, what they do and who they deal with, then they don't care about your story. They will put it down and move on to read something else.
In "Characters and Viewpoint", Orson Scott Card shows us how to find the characters that we care about as writers, and then how to bring our excitement about them to the reader. Card tells it simply, because he knows - for a great example of characters that come alive and draw the reader into their lives, look no further than Card's own works of fiction.
Perhaps most pleasing about the book is the engaging, fun-to-read tone and style that Card brings to all of his written work. If you are a writer, this is a valuable, excellent book to read.
Danny Iny
Author of "Ordinary Miracles - Harness the power of writing and get your point across!" (ISBN 1-4116-7252-6)
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