Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint: Techniques and Exercises for Crafting Dynamic Characters and Effective Viewpoints (Write Great Fiction) by Nancy Kress Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint: Techniques and Exercises for Crafting Dynamic Characters and Effective Viewpoints (Write Great Fiction)
Book Review: Not so sure about this book
Summary: 2 Stars
I bought this book based on reviews... and what a mistake I made. I will never do it again.
Please if you have any sense, don't be like me. Check out the book from a local library or bookstore and then make a purchase, otherwise you'll regret it.
I'm not sure how anyone can like such a book, but that's honestly just my opinion.
Book Review: CHARACTERS, WMOTION & VIEWPOINT
Summary: 5 Stars
Every writer, at some point in crafting his/her work, struggles with developing characters, describing emotions of his/her characters, and describing the point of view he/she wants the reader to see.
Miss Kress has put together a book that will make it so much easier to face these problems head on, and find the right words to get their story flowing in a seemingly effortless stream.
I highly recommend this book to any writer.
Mike Phelps
Author of;
DAVID JANSSEN-MY FUGITIVE (1994)
THE EXECUTION OF JUSTICE (2008)
DELAYED JUSTICE (2008)
Book Review: Characters-Emotions & Viewpoint
Summary: 5 Stars
I find this book invaluable for the novel I am writing, I purchased about a dozen grammar, fiction writing books on Amazon. I am plugging other Author's books and my own coming novel. I hope to sell it here on Amazon.
My navel: THE ROCK OF NEREID by Vincent J. Arcuri
Book Review: Another Solid Entry in the "Write Great Fiction" Series.....But....
Summary: 3 Stars
This book is a good resource for looking at how characters, the emotions they portray and in what viewpoint (first person, third person omniscient, third person limited, etc) to use, and it certainly complements the other books quite nicely. I have read all of the "WGF" books save for the one on revision and see them all as a great investment.
For this particular book, Nancy Kress does do a good job of exploring each element in detail. Like the other books, it is largely an overview of each concept, and, like the other books, she does hit on some similar aspects that the other books cover more extensively (how could she not? All aspects work together to create a work of fiction.) That is to say, the other Write Great Fiction books all cover every aspect of a piece of fiction, but mainly discuss how they relate to the given topic they wrote their respective book about. So brief overviews are found in the other books and each aspect is covered extensively in the given work. So "Plot" focuses on plot while giving smaller and more general explanations of characters, description, dialogue, etc. while "Dialogue" does the same with plot, description, characters etc. while keeping the focus on dialogue and so on and so forth. I would recommend a would-be author grab all four of these books, as this would then allow them to see the whole picture.
My main problem with this particular book is that when she gets to the section where she delves deeply into first person, at one point at least she goes into a small rabbit trail about why some readers don't like and will never read first person. Apparently they're willing to read books but not willing to suspend their disbelief that the character narrating the work was an active participant. It makes absolutely no sense to me but I am not going to judge these people. My problem with this is that she goes a little bit longer talking about this than what the situation merits, spending at least a page or two on the subject, yet she says NOTHING of authors who write their books in the present tense, even though this style is easily as equally jarring and disengaging as first person, actually more so in my opinion. Why she ignores the pitfalls of writing in present tense yet shows the pitfalls of first person, second person, third person, first person plural, third person plural, multiple first person, multiple third person, hybrid, (and there's more but you get the point,) is beyond me.
All in all a good book and I would recommend it.
Edit on Saturday February 14th: I would also recommend "The Complete Writers Guide to Heroes and Heroines: Sixteen Master Archetypes" by Tami D. Cowden, Caro LaFever and Sue Viders.
Book Review: excellent resource!
Summary: 4 Stars
"Characters, Emotion and Viewpoint" is helping me understand the importance of viewpoint, of focusing on what the main characters are feeling and experiencing within a story's moment of action. As one working on becoming a writer, this book is essential in understanding the importance of point of view in your characters. It's certainly as important as how you paint the setting to readers.