Characters Rule

Create A Character Clinic, by Holly Lisle is a guide that belongs in every fiction writer's library. It is also helpful to those who write creative non fiction.

As I've mentioned in other articles Holly Lisle is one who believes in paying forward. She offers her hard won experience to other writers so they can skip some of the mistakes she made in her journey to having over 60 books published by mainstream publishers.

The cleverest plot ever devised will fail if the characters of the story fail to engage the reader. This is not merely a matter of having a likeable character; there are many good stories where the character or characters are unlikable or even down right evil. Frankenstein's monster comes to mind here. Whether or not the character is someone you'd bring home isn't the key to creating characters that hook readers. There has to be something about the characters that makes the reader want to know more about them.

Create A Character Clinic, by Holly Lisle shows the writer step-by-step how to create compelling characters. She shows you how to breathe life into the character on page 30 that has about the same appeal as a poster the day after the election. Even better, Holly shows you how to avoid creating those card board characters in the first place.

Holly offers a method consisting of seven possibilities that places the character exactly where it needs to be to in order to make the story live and move. She doesn't just warn against fifteen sins that will ruin a character for the reader. She shows the writer how to commit those fifteen sins right and turn them into assets that will excite and engage the reader.

There are charts that you can use over and over again as you move on to other stories with other characters. Holly teaches you how to use mind-mapping as a method of finding all the hidden layers that lurk inside a character.

Create A Character Clinic, is so effective that it works for writers whether they are working on their first book or their tenth one.

This link will take you directly to a site where you can look at Create A Character Clinic, by Holly Lisle and see if it will be useful to you.