Elements of Writing Fiction - Characters & Viewpoint (Elements of Fiction Writing)

The are chapters on description, motivation and growth are solid. Combined with the wonderful and numerous contrasting examples of good characterization/bad characterization, you will be able to go back to any story you've written and add, subtract and tweak your characters to make them leap off the page. Don't sell this book short because Orson Scott Card is primarily a writer of science fiction, either. This material will make absolutely any fiction a whole measure better.

Worth the money. Revise your stories with it. Write new, better ones after reading it. Run your writing workshops according to it. Card has given the writers' community a true winner here.


A Probing Look Into Character and Viewpoint   June 25, 2000
S. DEMILLE (N. Las Vegas, Nevada USA)
28 out of 29 found this review helpful

The book is divided into three parts: Inventing Characters, Constructing Characters, and Performing Characters. Card discusses a wide range of related topics: factors that make or break a character, the different types of stories (Milieu, Idea, Character, Event), how to write emotional scenes, transformations in the lives of characters, show and tell, and the benefits and drawbacks of each point-of-view (POV)---among others. Each chapter flows with a conversational, succinct style, leaving the reader with no excuse for misunderstanding. The final chapters on (POV) were well worth the money I paid for the book. Card explores POV deeply, deeper than any other writer of writer's books that I've read. Between paragraphs, I thought about my own stories and how they grossly lack POV unity (now back to the computer to revise). He uses illustrations, draw by Janice Card, to clarify his points (not that he needed to). After reading the last chapter, I set the book down and thought, "that's a damned good book." It's plain that Card loves fiction and has a thorough comprehension of what good fiction is; this book radiates it fully.


Will they care?   October 24, 2002
Don R Waterman (Halfway, Missouri United States)
24 out of 25 found this review helpful

Readers must care about your characters or there is little point in writing about them. Even if you are a beginning writer you probably already know how you'd LIKE your characters to appear to the reader... but you may not know how to `get there from here'. This book gives you the tools and knowledge to make your hero likable, as well as daring, and your villains believable rather than melodramatic or cardboard.

Anyone who has read the fiction of Orson Scott Card knows that he is a master of the craft of characterization, and he proves in this book that he can also explain how it is done step-by-step. He provides a vast array of techniques that can be used to hew and hone your character to the shape desired. In fact, he gives the beginner so much choice that you may be amazed and daunted by the sheer complexity that you CAN put into a character. Fortunately he puts it into perspective by making it clear that you need not use ALL the techniques and that many of them you may never want or need to use. He emphasizes the importance of using the appropriate tool for the task and that, as a writer, it is your responsibility to match the tools used with the results desired.

If there is a negative side to this book at all it would have to be that Orson Scott Card is probably a little too nice, a little too egalitarian, in his presentation. I'm reminded of the TV artist who can create a breathtaking scene on canvas in half an hour while simultaneously making his audience comfortable with remarks about how a little dab here and a stroke there (as you watch him do it) can be turned into a work of art. Obviously HE can do it. And he makes it look so easy you feel that you could just pick up a brush and it would all happen almost by itself. Only in your dreams.

Card can't give you the talent or motivation to write well, but he certainly does a good job of presenting the tools you'll need to mold your characters into people others can care about... if you are willing to work to acquire the skill.


Discover Card's secrets!   April 3, 2000
17 out of 17 found this review helpful

I would read Orson Scott Card's shopping list if I could - I just devour his writing. However, reading this book is much more profitable, even if you have no writing aspirations. Written in 1988, when he'd only published a fraction of his incredible list of titles, you will see that he had the whole writing game sorted out, even then. Without credible, interesting characters, possessing an understandable viewpoint, a novel is just a whole bunch of words. I find that I have reviewed some of my favourite Card books (and others) since reading this, and gained a better insight into the characters, their actions, and their thoughts. Card certainly has proven he knows what he's talking about - led by Alvin and Ender, Card has been responsible for some of modern fiction's best loved characters. How fortunate are we to have the great man share his secrets!