Character Development

One of the biggest struggles for writers is how to convey emotion to readers in a unique and compelling way. When showing our characters’ feelings, we often use the first idea that comes to mind, and they end up smiling, nodding, and frowning too much.

All of us at Canterbury Writers are fans of this book.

Powerful Character Arcs Create Powerful Stories Have you written a story with an exciting concept and interesting characters—but it just isn’t grabbing the attention of readers or agents? It’s time to look deeper into the story beats that create realistic and compelling character arcs.

Uncover the Secrets to Creating Characters Readers Will Never Forget Award-winning author K.M. Weiland’s previous book, the acclaimed Creating Character Arcs, showed writers how to identify the five most important types of character arcs and use them to bring your own characters to life.

For characters to come across as authentic, they need a past, the same as you or me. And, like us, part of their history includes painful experiences known as emotional wounds which generate fears, insecurities, trust issues, and make it difficult for them to take risks when it matters most. This guide will lead you to specific types of trauma (and the dysfunctional behaviors tied to them) so you can choose what your character’s vulnerability is, what it will look like on the page, and develop a character arc where they overcome the past…or succumb to it.

Every character has good qualities, even the bad guy. Attributes help your characters come alive on the page by revealing their identity, showing readers how they treat other people, and giving them a moral compass to live by. This guide does a deep dive on 100 positive traits to help you brainstorm unique combinations of strengths to help your characters bend the story to their will and win reader’s hearts.

Ready to explore your character’s dark side? Protagonist, antagonist, or someone in between—all characters have negative qualities that mess up their relationships, keep them from achievement, and stymie internal growth. This thesaurus digs into over 100 character flaws, how to show them through dysfunctional behavior and attitudes, and provides ideas on how they will cause problems in the story.

When writing fictional characters, it’s hugely important to convey their emotions effectively so readers will be drawn in and become invested in those characters. The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Expression was written to help writers convey the quality and depth of their cha...

Body Trauma explains what happens to body organs and bones maimed by accident or intent and the small window of opportunity for emergency treatment. Research what happens in a hospital operating room and the personnel who initiate treatment. Use these facts to bring added realism to your stories and novels.

This book is a set of tools: literary crowbars, chisels, mallets, pliers and tongs. Use them to pry, chip, yank and sift good characters out of the place where they live in your memory, your imagination and your soul.

Award-winning author Orson Scott Card explains in depth the techniques of inventing, developing and presenting characters, plus handling viewpoint in novels and short stories. With specific examples, he spells out your narrative options–the choices you'll make in creating fictional people so "real" that readers will feel they know them like members of their own families.

The Conflict Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Obstacles, Adversaries, and Inner Struggles (Volume 2) explores more ways to activate story conflict and tension and serves up 115 more scenarios that lead to power struggles, lost advantages, dangers, threats, ego-related conflicts, and more. Use this guide to plot fresh challenges and story problems that will trip your characters up and force them to strive harder to win.

Take advantage of the six most common transformational character arcs found in story. Use these beats to craft engaging stories.

When you choose a character’s job with care you gain a way to show-not-tell their personality, skills, interests, priorities, beliefs, and more. Plus, you can use it to generate conflict, provide a route to goals and dreams, and showcase key relationships. If you need a guide to finding and describing the perfect job for your character that will further the story, this is it!

What makes a person commit a white-collar crime? Who is a likely candidate to join a cult? Why do children have imaginary friends? How does birth order affect whether or not a person gets married? When does mind over matter become a crippling problem?

Writer's Guide to Character Traits, 2nd edition answers all of these questions and many others. With more than 400 easy-to-reference lists of traits blended from a variety of behaviors and influences, you'll gain the knowledge you need to create distinctive characters whose personalities correspond to their thoughts and actions - no matter how normal or psychotic they might be.

Writers know that their characters and stories should be multi-layered and believable. Now here’s a simple workbook that uses the same knowledge that gives therapists insight into human behaviour to create fiction that hits the mark.

Crafting good fiction isn't an impossible feat. You just need a dose of fiction magic.

While writers might disagree over showing versus telling or plotting versus pantsing, none would argue this: If you want to write strong fiction, you must make your readers feel. The reader's experience must be an emotional journey of its own, one as involving as your characters' struggles, discoveries, and triumphs are for you.

This book takes writers through a series of exercises designed to encourage you to go deeper into your stories and creating emotionally engaging writing.