Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint delivers on all three critical aspects of crafting fiction. Nancy Kress explores characterization through physicality, voice, and motivation. She provides pertinent examples and step-by-step instructions for crafting character emotions. The pros and cons of different point of view choices is the most impactful discussion of viewpoints I’ve read to date. Overall, this is an exceptional writing guide. |
- “Readers want to care what happens in the story, and character is how you make them care.”
- “Unless it’s on the page, the reader doesn’t get it. [The author] must constantly be aware of what the page reads like to someone who is coming to it cold.”
- “Make everything serve more than one purpose. [E.g., characterization can color emotion and reinforce point of view]”
- “Chapter ends, scene ends, and one-line paragraphs all give emphasis to whatever appears there.
- “If you want your character’s emotions to be taken seriously by the reader, underplay it rather than overplay.
Characterization: “The first step is to decide what overall impression you want your character to make on the reader . . . Next, choose a few visual images that project that image . . . choose a mix of details that give readers both some concrete images and a coherent interpretation of those images by the [character observing them]. For example, other characters describe my main character Ayda in Sky God’s Warrior as “moving with predatory grace,” “shockingly handsome,” and "uncivilized." |
- “Character change must come about in response to story events.”
- “Your charcaracter must have emotional responses to these events.”
- “We must be shown [character change]. This is called validation, and it is essential for all changing characters.”
- “A character who genuinely changes needs a validation scene, usually at the end of the story, to dramatize that the change is permanent.”
- “Motivation is the key to your entire story.”
- “People often want more than one thing because people hold more than one value. What makes life--and fiction--interesting is when those values collide.”
For example, Ayda, the headstrong hero of Sky God’s Warrior, values self-direction and independence, but she also values honor and duty. These values collide when her grandmother asks her to stay and protect the clan (duty) instead of returning to her (independent) life as a nomadic warrior. Once Ayda chooses to give her word (honor), she’s duty bound to stay, though she tries to solve problems without asking for help (self-direction). These conflicting values shape motivation and hence character choice. |
She suggests “you dramatize your character’s choices the same way you dramatize anything else: with actions, thoughts, dialogue, backstory, and emotion.”
- “The aim is not to label emotions: it is to make the reader experience the same emotion that the character does.
- Actions: make your characters do something that accurately expresses their feelings; [he] “hit the boy who tormented him.”
- Dialogue: Avoid characters talking about their feelings (“fiction is not therapy”). Example: ‘Don’t, don’t! You’ll break my arm’ is far more vivid than, ‘He felt afraid’. "
- Bodily sensations: “clenched hands,” and “sob and gasp are all preverbal and vivid.”
- Thoughts: Instead of “I was angry” try “I wanted to tear her head off” or “I had to turn away before I said something I would regret later.”
Ask yourself: “What emotion do you want your readers to experience during the scene you’re writing? Find sensory details that will reinforce that feeling.”
The book also covers techniques to portray mixed emotions and changing character emotions.
- “Use as few POV [point of view] characters as you can get away with and still tell the story you want to tell.
- “First person [I, me] has the advantages of immediacy, individual language [voice], and internal range [of emotion & thought], but disadvantages of limited flexibility, claustrophobia, and greater difficulty for the writer in being objective [determining how the text actually reads].”
- “Third person [he, she, they] has the advantage of greater flexibility, external range, and objectivity, but may be less immediate and individualistic than first person.”
- “Omniscient POV, which goes into many characters’ minds at will and includes authorial comments, is hard to do well.”
The final chapter of the book gives hints for a workable writing process (start by becoming your characters) and a detailed analysis of scenes to determine what works or doesn’t work in the narrative. This guide is a treasure of practical tools for any fiction writer. Not only did I learn new skills, I discovered a name for what I like to write: “The ‘little tailor’ plot, in which circumstances force a person to discover within himself strengths he did not know he possessed.” |