One of the best writers of fiction for young people, Orson Scott Card also penned Characters & Viewpoint, published by Writer’s Digest Books. No matter where you are in your writing journey, this book reinforces generally known conventions in character creation and point of view, and also provides new ideas to work into your craft.
Card begins the book by defining the difference between writing performance and composition. This in itself spurred my own imagination for—as Card explains—even as we write our stories, we are performing them in our heads. This he compares to” composition” which is the creation of characters, situations, plot, scenes, etc. He is referring to the craft of writing. This book he divides up into “Inventing,” ” Construction” and “Performance.”
The first section, “Inventing” goes through all that one should consider when creating characters. He even goes through a process of doing so in an exercise he ran in a writing class he taught.
Part two, “Construction” goes into detail about different types of characters and how to, essentially, turn them into complex human beings who become as dear to the reader as their closest friends.
And finally, in “Performance” Card considers point of view—how close do we want our readers to become to our characters. And the limitations and advantages of the various points of view.
I read this book when I was a new writer and looking to learn how to create believable, well-rounded characters. Today, as I re-read the book I saw deeper meanings to his words and also reminded myself of the basics that no writer should forget. I highly recommend this book by one of the greatest authors of our time where he teaches us about what, I believe, is the most important parts of a novel—its characters.
Book Review: Characters & Viewpoint