|
Creating Unforgettable Characters | 
 enlarge | Author: Linda Seger
Publisher: Holt Paperbacks
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
Buy Used: $2.19
You Save: $13.81 (86%)
New (35) Used (64) Collectible (3) from $2.19
Rating:  20 reviews
Sales Rank: 97229
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1st
Pages: 256
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.7
ISBN: 0805011714
Dewey Decimal Number: 808.2
UPC: 021228011715
EAN: 9780805011715
ASIN: 0805011714
Publication Date: July 15, 1990
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| |
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
In this book, Linda Seger shows how to create strong, multidimensional characters in fiction, covering everything from research to character block. Interviews with today's top writers complete this essential volume.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 15 more reviews...
 Best Book For Developing Characters June 26, 2009
Daniel
Took my character ideas through this book and they are much more realistic now. Lots of ideas on how to add depth and unique qualities.
 Not so unforgettable April 26, 2009
A. Buyer
Linda did a good job here in brewing up all the bits of advice dreaded by any writer: finding the voice, writing with power and energy, beginnings, middles and ends... So at the end (if you make it so far) this book leaves you dizzy and if you're out for hands-on advice, go get yourself something else. What I find particularly annoying are the endless quotations of writers, Linda thinks are important and famous, but who infact are - well - not so important and not so famous and serve up a lot of not so great platitudes. So why 2 stars? If you don't lose your patience, you may be lucky enough to find some bits you can actually implement and need, such as her examples on subtext.
Forgettable April 25, 2009
Light Seeker (CA USA)
I really hate to say this but I've tried and tried to get through this book and can barely make it past one page. I find the writing to be a painful work-out. Interesting how a book on creating unforgettable writing is so forgettable. I hope others have better luck reading this than I have!
THIN December 31, 2008
Nathaniel T. Parsons (Los Angeles, CA United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Disclosure. I'm an experienced writer, not a novice. So maybe this isn't fair. But I find this book thin, general, and unhelpful. I was particularly hoping that her examples from films would be illustrative, but I found them really bland and not illustrative of much of anything. For a rank beginner this attention to character is good, but for anyone who's past through the first few gateways, this empress is butt naked.
Bums me out how the literature on creating characters on the page is so limited. The screenplay page is so sparse, so minimal, that the writer is pressed to be extremely selective and precise in ways no novelist has to deal with. To me, Seger's focus on backstory and history - while important - reveals that she's never dealt with this problem up close. As a consultant she gets away with broad prescriptions, but when you're facing a blank page, broad prescriptions aren't good enough. Where's the book that takes apart some great scripts and shows precisely why this scene setting reveals character, why this dialog bite is so important to character, why this clothing choice was made, why this juxtaposition shows a character change etc. Examples from the greats, specifically annotated. We need one. This ain't it.
 Average June 5, 2008
AJ (Santa Rosa, CA USA)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
I thought this would be a great book, but it really wasn't up there in terms of being helpful. There are lots of other really good books like:
1. Dave Trottier's - The Screenwriter's Bible
2. Blake Synder's - Save the Cat
3. Syd Field's - Foundations of Screenwriting
4. Syd field's - The Screenwriter's Problem Solver
5. Scott Sedita's - The Eight Characters of Comedy
Stick with those five and don't waste your money on the rest. I've bought them all and those five are the only ones worth buying!
|
|
|
| |
