Rating: 
Summary: A great "How To" for new and experienced Writers
Review: "Creating Unforgettable Characters" succeeds in giving practical steps in the development of character. The book covers several disciplines like psychology, acting, backstory and relationships in an effort to refine and inform the way you approach your characters. For more experienced writers looking to drill down rewrites, the digestible 'get to the freakin' point' style of the book helps you get to what you need, instead of wasting your time lording over topics you don't give shlip about (if I could only take a minute of life away from every author who's wasted my time patting themselves on the back for their puddling observations... there'd be a lot of dead folks in LA).
Particularly useful are the summarizations and categorical exercises at the end of each chapter, helping you immediately implement the lesson into your writing. There are also frequent exercises throughout the book to help jog your mind in relation to your characters.
Seger gives special attention to minor, supporting and nonrealistic characters which populate every script, but are often neglected. Seger's not asking for every character to be the central figure of your narrative... but they better be the central figure of their own story in some way. The book helps in creating characters, small and large, that have a reason for being. It's easy to neglect lesser characters, when they should be poignant and relevant.
Thankfully, Seger has the 'How' mentality that is missing from so many other books on writing. If you are new to writing, this is an excellent resource for illuminating all the elements that go into making a fully fleshed out character. If you're an experienced writer and are looking for a way to make your characters 'pop' off the page a bit more, "Creating Unforgettable Characters" could help you find that edge.
Rating:
Summary: A great "How To" for new and experienced Writers
Review: "Creating Unforgettable Characters" succeeds in giving practical steps in the development of character. The book covers several disciplines like psychology, acting, backstory and relationships in an effort to refine and inform the way you approach your characters. For more experienced writers looking to drill down rewrites, the digestible 'get to the freakin' point' style of the book helps you get to what you need, instead of wasting your time lording over topics you don't give shlip about (oh God, if I could only take a minute of life away from every author who's wasted my time patting themselves on the back for their puddling observations... there'd be a lot of dead folks in LA). Particularly useful are the summarizations and categorical exercises at the end of each chapter, helping you immediately implement the lesson into your writing. There are also frequent exercises throughout the book to help jog your mind in relation to your characters. Seger gives special attention to minor, supporting and nonrealistic characters which populate every script, but are often neglected. Seger's not asking for every character to be the central figure of your narrative... but they better be the central figure of their own story in some way. The book helps in creating characters, small and large, that have a reason for being. It's easy to neglect lesser characters, when they should be poignant and relevant. Thankfully, Seger has the 'How' mentality that is missing from so many other books on writing. If you are new to writing, this is an excellent resource for illuminating all the elements that go into making a fully fleshed out character. If you're an experienced writer and are looking for a way to make your characters 'pop' off the page a bit more, "Creating Unforgettable Characters" could help you find that edge.
Rating: 
Summary: A Great Help for the Aspiring Writer
Review: Linda Seger provides a wonderful gift to aspiring writers in her book CREATING UNFORGETTABLE CHARACTERS. The book is a hodge-podge of Linda's own observations--plus, it is interlaced with interviews with world-class writers. Linda also throws in examples of characters and dialogue from movies, books, TV and stage that we've all heard of (Rain Man, Moonlighting--TV, Broadcast News, Casablanca, Ordinary People, Cheers, etc.). The book is a quick read--I read one chapter a day for a week and a half, but it is chock full of tidbits and insights that make it invaluable.
Dr. Seger encourages the aspiring writer to 'research, research, research' that character (Chapter 1). She then encourages us to consider the dimensionality of a character by introducing motivations 'and' paradoxes (Chapter 2). She explores creating a backstory, a pre-history to a character, and how this can open the writer up to new insights and plot exploration (Chapter 3). The chapter on psychological types (Chapter 4) was helpful in exploring human psychology and abnormal behaviors. Ron Bass's comments on how RAIN MAN's characters (Tom Cruise, Dustin Hoffman) evolved in the writing phase are terrific. Chapter 5 explores creating character relationships, which includes a section on 'the triangle' and the section on replacing characters in the TV sitcom 'Cheers' was a fun read.
Other chapters follow (Supporting Characters, Writing Dialogue, Beyond Stereotyping, and Character Problems), but my favorite section was the one on Creating Nonrealistic Characters. This chapter on fictional, 'unreal' characters, with Linda Seger's contrast between the symbolic (for example, The Joker=evil), nonhuman (Lassie/animal...), fantasy (Vincent in the TV series Beauty and the Beast, Jolly Green Giant--advertisement), mythic (Batman), was worth a full-day seminar of screenwriting.
The book also shares from Linda's interviews with other writers some of the frustrations that they have had in writing. It was nice to read how other writers, proven and successful, struggled to improve their craft.
A quick read, insightful, and full of great stories.
Rating:
Summary: The 2nd most valuable guide in my collection!
Review: As an aspiring writer, I have quite a collection of reference material, and outside of my Thesaurus, this is the most important book I have. Ms Seger gives a fantastic guide to character development, which in my mind is key to great writing. No one will care about the plot if they don't care about the characters, and following this book, the audience will care about the characters.
Rating:
Summary: Finally, Good Characters
Review: Before I read this book, I have to admit - my characters were all pretty lame. Then, hey, I read this book, and boom! Ok, so they still need work, but this book made me understand how to keep characters exotic, good, and believable.
The first part of this book didn't interest me as much, because it was advising on how to make sure your characters are good on their background - of people who live in this world. This wasn't 'really' helpful for me, because I write fantasy in other worlds, but I picked up a few helpful things.
Then came a section on Dialogue, which was good too - at the time I was reading it I didn't realize it, I thought it was a bit dull, but then I realized I had started taking the advice unconciously.
But then came along the next part of the book, and I could hardly wait to pick it up each time. It explains greatly how to make sure your characters aren't hollow, and how they should respond in situations according to their attitudes and past life.
This book I highly recommend to any author who feels his characters aren't to their full potential (or if they don't want to admit that, this book was fun to read as well).
Rating:
Summary: A Wonderful Tool for Authors
Review: Creating Unforgettable Characters is a wonderful tool for writers because it goes into details about the amount of backstory that is appropriate and how to set it up and the traits and characteristics that should breathe life into the characters. This book has been extremely helpful to me and I have read it three times.
Rating:
Summary: Delightful, practical and extremely useful
Review: I found this book delightful, practical and extremely useful. Not only was it very readable, but it will be a resource I'm sure I will turn to again and again whenever I'm stuck with a character that just won't move. I'm delighted to have found this book, and I recommend it to anyone who is looking for something to have on the shelf for those days when your story seems to have stopped dead in its tracks. Linda Seger will get you going again, and you'll have fun at the same time!
Rating:
Summary: great discovery
Review: Thankyou for this book. I am a screen and television writer. In the last six months it has been an enormous pleasure to first discover Linda Segers books and then to sit under her teaching in person and hear her lecture this past Feb. in Toronto, Ont. when she taught at the Guilds. Her insights, intuitive nature, her ability and grasp of story ..both through book and in person is a highly trained gift and a guide to those of us finding our way in the world of story. I strongly recommend any work she does in book form or lecture and look forward to reading more from her.
Rating:
Summary: A Versatile How-To
Review: This book is geared mainly for screenwriting, but it can be useful for novelists and short story writers as well. Linda Seger discusses character backstory, relationships with supporting characters, dialogue, and so on. Plus, there are interviews with today's leading writers across the spectrum. Her narrative is clear and easy to understand, with plenty of examples of both good and bad writing. Even though I'm not a screenwriter, I found this book very useful and entertaining.
Rating:
Summary: A Versatile How-To
Review: This book is geared mainly for screenwriting, but it can be useful for novelists and short story writers as well. Linda Seger discusses character backstory, relationships with supporting characters, dialogue, and so on. Plus, there are interviews with today's leading writers across the spectrum. Her narrative is clear and easy to understand, with plenty of examples of both good and bad writing. Even though I'm not a screenwriter, I found this book very useful and entertaining.
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