Review: Create a Character Clinic

In keeping with the theme of characters this month, here’s another book on creating compelling characters.  This book was written by Holly Lisle and is part of her Writing Clinics bundle.  This is a fun book.  Holly has a great sense of humor and it comes out best in the last section on the sins.

How It’s Put Together:  This book has three main sections, each with exercises to apply the information to your characters.

1 – Ask Them Anything

Get to know your characters through determining the answers to a variety of questions on

• the character’s compelling need
• his work and play
• his past, present and future
• his friends, enemies and lovers
• life and death
• culture, religion and education
• his moral stance

All this detail might seem overwhelming, but Holly recommends that you start with answering just a few questions in each section. You can work through a set of questions in greater detail later on if your story would benefit from it.

2 – Bring Them to Life

Exercises let you find out more about your character through interviews, the character’s setting, his dialogue, exposition and action.

3 – The Sins of Characterization, and How to Commit Them Right

Holly discusses the five sins of exposition…

• Core Dump – big lumps of the author’s research dumped into the story
• Dust and Cobwebs – long, itemized sections of tedious description
• MIrror, Mirror on the Wall – where the hero or heroine admire themselves in a reflective surface
• Behemoth – the hundred-plus word sentence of tedious details
• Superman vs. The Gremlin – Hero who is perfect in every way versus Villain who is evil, deformed and all things wretched and loathsome

the five sins of dialogue…

• As You Know, Bob – two characters telling each other what they already know
• Headless Horseman – dialogue with no tags or action to denote who is speaking or what the characters are doing while talking (I do this all the time in my first drafts.  Thank heavens for revisions.)
• Coffee and a Bagel – all the nonsense pleasantries we say to one another (Hi, how are you doing, what do you think of the weather, etc.)
• Seltzer – dialogue that is all fizz, no substance – usually something witty the writer thought to have the character say that has no relevance to the story
• Elephant at the Tea Party – characters talking around and avoiding the primary issues and compelling needs

and the five sins of action…

• The Ben Franklin – mind-numbing detail of a character’s daily routine
• The Snowman – action that is bold and exciting, but then melts away to nothing because the author chickened out
• Door, Two Guns, No Ammo – exciting action with no possible way to resolve it… also known as painting yourself into a corner
• Naked Chick at the Opera – something so bizarre and out of place in the story that it catapults the reader out of the story and back to reality
• The Brain Transplant – stupid, drooling idiot character has moment of impossible brilliance or impossibly brilliant character does something agonizingly stupid

and best of all, shows you how to use them correctly in your writing.  Yes, there are actually correct ways to incorporate all of the above sins into a story.  Well, except for the Brain Transplant.  There’s no way to do that right.  Just cut that section out of your story and rewrite it.

How It Helped Me: There is such a wealth of information in this book.  When I got my copy, I set down to read through it first (before beginning the exercises) and wow.  Just reading the questions in the Ask Them Anything section sparked all kinds of ideas for the characters in my book.  The most helpful idea for me was that of using Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to determine where your character is at in his or her life.  Using the hierarchy and determining the character’s compelling need has provided a great basic definition for my characters.

This book explains how Holly creates her characters. But the best part is that by following her example, you won’t create characters like hers. You’ll create characters that are uniquely your own. Characters that live and breathe and are remembered by the reader long past your story’s end.

Who Can Benefit From Reading It:  This book is actually applicable for writers of all levels.  A beginner can use it to understand the basics of creating three-dimensional characters.  Experienced writers can use Holly’s exercises to refresh their characters and add more depth.  Pick up a copy, you won’t be disappointed.

Format:  147-page PDF file (e-book)

Related posts:

1. Review: Out of the Box & On the Page
2. Your Character Is NOT His Name & Weight

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