Character and Archetype by Deren Hansen
Characters are the most important part of a story. They are the things that drive the plot along. Nay, they are the ones who actually start the plot. So, as one would imagine, that’s why I, among many other authors, put so much work on the characters alone. And that’s why I took a special interest in this book.
Unlike other books that explain what a character should and shouldn’t do in a story, this book focused on the actual formulating and categorizing of them. That’s right. This book is all about actually creating your characters from the ground up. And that means, mannerisms, attitude, quirks, strengths, weaknesses and many many other things.
Furthermore, it teaches readers/authors on how to, first, create the character from the ground up. Next, they teach how to keep track of your characters – both in a literal and personality sense. In other words, they tell you how to use excel to keep track of your character and make bullet points of key events that could effectively change the characters. Finally, they extended the help even further by making a complete list of questions that will help you create the character’s personality and appearances.
Oh! And when I say a complete list, I mean 40-50 combined questions that should leave you with no excuse in making a great character. Normally, I would write them all down but they were rattling them off way too fast for me to write them all. Plus, I got tired of hitting pause every five seconds so I promised myself to hit the Internet to get that full list. It a really sexy list.
This book is another one that gets an A+ from me. It’s the perfect book for a more in-depth lesson on character building.
