Product Review

“Plot," Ray Brandbury once said, "is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations.”

More than anything else, characters make stories come alive. And stories make all writing come alive.

Now, in this concise guide, you can learn how to create the kinds of characters your readers will love and hate, characters who create hope and fear and intrigue and, most of all, the need to turn the page to find out what happened.

"Characters: Creating Heroes, Villains, Mentors, Sidekicks, and Other Characters for Your Story," by Charles Euchner, offers a complete guide to creating compelling characters in all genres of fiction and nonfiction.

What You'll Learn

"Characters" offers seven simple skills that you can use, right away, to create complex and intriguing characters. Specifically, you'll learn how to:

• Create a character dossier
• Identify the characters' deepest desires
• Assess your characters' energy and love of life
• Understand characters' basic human needs
• Explore the psychological zones of characters
• Create the wheel of character types
• Spin the wheel of character types

Each chapter includes a case study from great stories, including Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman," Milan Kundera's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn," Gregory Maguire's "Wicked," Giuseppe Verdi's "Falstaff," and the American civil rights movement. Each chapter also includes exercises for you to put apply the skills of character development.

About the Author

Charles Euchner is a case writer at the Yale School of Management who has also taught writing at Yale and conducted acclaimed writing seminars in 12 states and the District of Columbia. '

Euchner is the author of acclaimed books on civil rights ("Nobody Turn Me Around"), baseball ("The Last Nine Innings"), urban politics ("Playing the Field") and policy ("Urban Policy Reconsidered," with Steve McGovern), Euchner has directed Harvard University's Rappaport Institute and taught writing at Yale.