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My POV
Brian A. Wilson
BOOK REVIEW
Creating Characters: How to Build Story People by Dwight V. Swain
Writer's Digest Books
$14.99 cover price, $10.49 on Amazon
It's unfortunate that the author of "Creating Characters," Dwight V. Swain, is the late Dwight V. Swain. If this book is any indication, writers could have learned a great deal more from this scribe who worked in the newspaper biz, informational film and as a foreign correspondent in Central America.
But the point of this review is not what Swain didn't create, but what he did create. And Swain created a deceptively small, power-packed book that needs to be on your bookshelf.
The book's slant is mostly toward fiction writers, but all its principles apply to film and TV writing as well.
As promised in the title, Swain works through constructing rich, vital characters from the ground up. And he gets off to a flying start. Here's the first sentence of the book:
"The core of character, experience tells me, lies in each individual story person's ability to care about something; to feel, implicitly or explicitly, that something is important."
Simple, yet powerful, that's a firm foundation on which to build your characters.
The book presents 17 chapters of brick and mortar to stack upon that foundation. Topics include Fleshing Out, The Character Out Of Time, Labels Labels and The Breath of Life. Each illuminates another helpful aspect of character construction.
The writing flows nicely. It's an easy, pleasant read. Swain encourages chapter hopping. Sometimes, a later chapter will reference an earlier one, but you never feel lost. I enjoy "how-to" books written in this way; it allows you to grab ten minutes to read a chapter that addresses a specific problem you're having, rather than needing to carve out a few hours to read the book cover to cover before you can move ahead.
I used a lot of Swain's tips to open up my thinking and crack a script with which I've been wrestling for quite some time. For that, I'm indebted to the late Mr. Swain. You may feel that same sense of appreciation once you grab this entertaining, practical blueprint for character design.
Keep writing.
BW
LA
transtexan@hotmail.com
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