* Write characters who are fascinating and believable.
* Give your characters compelling needs that resonate with readers.
* Use the seven critical areas of character development to prevent "cardboard characters" and address areas of your characters' lives you've never considered before.
* Develop your characters' individual voices, making each immediately recognizable from all the rest.
* Discover three unique ways of presenting your character to your reader throughout the story, and use each to your story's best benefit.
* Avoid fifteen huge sins writers commit with their characters, or better yet, use them so well they surprise, excite, and delight your readers.
* And much more.
Today, right now, you can turn your characters into people YOU want to read about... because if YOU aren't desperate to know what happens to them next, your readers won't be, either.
So that you can start using it right away, this book is divided into three sections.
SECTION ONE is ASK THEM ANYTHING: I explain, and then demonstrate, each of seven critical areas of character development, along with giving you printable charts offering questions that will give you a well-rounded framework for your characters. Answer as few or as many questions as you need to get a feel for the people you'll be writing about, and ask (and answer) more as you work through your story and need new twists and turns.
SECTION TWO is BRING THEM TO LIFE: A tutorial on how to put all the information you've developed into creating people who live on the page.
SECTION THREE is THE SINS OF CHARACTERIZATION (And How to Commit Them Well): Believe it or not, almost everything you can ever do wrong in putting characters on the page, you can also do right. Here I show you when a writing sin can be a virtue, and vice-versa.
All three sections include demonstrations of both unpublishable and publishable approaches to techniques and problems, and exercises that allow you to put what you've learned into practice.
I want to make this as close as I can to me reading over your shoulder, looking at what you've done, and saying, "Okay. Here's what you can try next to get that character moving."
You can do this.
Holly Lisle
Novelist, writing class creator
