Write Great Fiction: Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint

Discover how crucial decisions regarding characters, point of view, and authorial flexibility can generate an emotionally compelling work that your reader will love to explore. By beginning with your character and his or her viewpoint—and using key points in Nancy Kress’s Write Great Fiction: Characters, Emotion, & Viewpoint—you’ll learn how to craft characters so intriguing that your reader will be drawn in to learn more about their story with each turn of the page.

Course level:  Beginner / Intermediate

Required Book:  Write Great Fiction: Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint by Nancy Kress

Workshop Length:  8 weeks

Tuition:  $349.00 ($314.10 for VIP)

Start Date: View Write Great Fiction: Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint Course Schedule

Course Structure
The workshop will consist of eight one-week sessions. Each session will include online lectures (text based), associated textbook reading assignments, and writing exercises submitted to the instructor for private review. In addition, the course provides an interactive area which you might use to further the conversation with your peers and thus create a community of writers.

You will learn:

  • How character affects many other aspects of your fiction: plot, setting, and style
  • How to create well-rounded and intriguing characters
  • How to use figurative language and physical description to convey emotion
  • How to write compelling, believable dialogue
  • How to decide which point of view (POV) is best suited for your fiction

Who should take this course:

  • Fiction writers of any genre that want to know how to take their character development to the next level
  • Graduates of other beginner level courses that want to focus on how the use of emotion can create memorable characters
  • Writers who want the guidance of a Published Author to help improve the characters in their story

Register for Write Great Fiction: Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint Writing Workshop

Course Outline

Session One: Introduction: Generating Characters

  • The fundamentals of character
  • Creating character complexity, history, and plausibility

Writing Assignment (Fundamental): The goal of this assignment is to begin thinking about the fundamental elements of character. First, spend a few minutes with a notebook in a public space. Simply write down some of the people you observe and provide a brief description of each one (and what they are doing). Second, when you get home, select one of the people you wrote about in your notebook and fill out a mini-bio sheet for them. Finally, write a 500-word scene where this character finds himself in trouble. This trouble could be physical danger or even a simple mistake. Taking into account the kind of individual this person is, how does he react? What does she do? After you’ve written this scene, write a few sentences where you answer the question: Is this character interesting and complex enough to be a protagonist?

Writing Assignment (Advanced): First, select a character from a piece of fiction you’ve already written. Next, with that character in mind, fill out a mini-bio. Finally, write a “case-study” memo of approximately three paragraphs (roughly 800 words) where you assess and analyze your character’s plausibility, history, and complexity. Does this character seem to have a rich enough history, a suitable level of plausibility, and notable complexity? Is this character a changer or a stayer?

Session Two: Bringing Characters to Life

  • The importance of word choice
  • Appearance versus personality
  • Characters observing characters
  • The relationship between setting and character

Writing Assignment (Fundamental): Look through newspaper classified ads, Craigslist, or Ebay, and find an unusual item that is for sale. Who is the person selling this item? What does this item tell us about the individual who is selling it (let’s assume for the sake of this exercise that the item actually belongs to the individual and he’s not simply helping out his grandma)? What does this individual look like in physical appearance? What does her apartment or house look like? Spend some time—and a minimum of 500 words—describing this character. If you’re feeling particularly motivated, you might do the same for someone who would then purchase such an item.

Writing Assignment (Advanced): Select short 500- to 800-word scenes or paragraphs from your work in progress: One should be describing the physical appearance of your protagonist, or another character; one should be describing the setting of your work; and one should be describing a character observing another character. Keeping in mind the lessons above, rewrite and revise these scenes, paying particular attention to how word choice and detail reveal character.

Session Three: You Can’t Always Get What You Want: Motivation

  • Characters who are changers versus stayers
  • How to convey character motivation
  • The relationship between plot and character
  • Creating conflict through character

Writing Assignment (Fundamental): The goal of this exercise is to build on the skills we’ve learned about character history, appearance, motivation, and conflict. Using the characters you developed in both Lesson One and Lesson Two, fill out two of Kress’s emotional mini-bios. Next, put these two characters in a scene together. Write a 500-word scene in which you demonstrate how their values might conflict and/or align with one another. Next, choose either one of the characters, and write the opening scene (500 words) of a story or novel. How will you immediately introduce us to this character’s personality, appearance, motivations, and conflicts? Afterwards, answer these questions:

The conflict of my story is_____________________

My character wants_________________________

My character can’t immediately have what she wants because _____________________.

______________________ is at stake for my character.

My character’s appearance reveals________________ about him.

My character’s history comes into play (through text or subtext) when________________.

Writing Assignment (Advanced): Select a piece of writing you feel is fairly developed. First, fill out an emotional mini-bio for your protagonist. Next, answer the questions above. Finally, locate the climatic scene in your work (consider your climax as the key or defining moment for your character, after which they will be significantly changed by the event and their response to it): Rewrite it (approximately 1,000 words) paying particular attention to revealing the internal and external conflict for your character through action. What is at stake for him or her. How are his desires, values, motivations connected to his actions? How are his reactions to the events going to propel or resolve your story?

Session Four: I Love You, I Hate You, and Everything Between: Conveying Emotion

  • Using physical description to convey emotion
  • Using figurative language to convey emotion
  • How word choice helps convey emotion
  • When to use flashback and why

Writing Assignment(Fundamental): The goal of this exercise is to practice conveying emotion without ever directly naming the emotion. Write a description (250 words) of your emotion in response to the following scenario. You cannot directly reference the emotion itself or tell us what you’re thinking or feeling. Think, instead, of the physical details and figurative language that show us your emotion:

Your roommate borrowed your car without asking and totaled it. He doesn’t have insurance, and when you ask him to pay for the damages, he refuses saying: “It wasn’t my fault—your car didn’t brake fast enough. And plus, that old lady shouldn’t have been driving so slowly. I had to go around her.”

Write a scene (500 words) where one of your characters from a previous exercise is feeling a strong emotion. How can you convey this emotion using only physical description and figurative language? Remember: Do not directly state the emotion!

Now, write a scene (500 words) in which one of your characters from a previous exercise is feeling a strong emotion—but is in a setting where they can’t reveal it publicly. For example, a prominent politician just found out his wife is having an affair with his campaign manager. However, he’s in a room full of potential voters and campaign donors. Or perhaps a woman is interviewing for a job. She knows she’s lied on her resume, but is trying to remain outwardly “cool.”

Writing Assignment (Advanced): Do the first of the three exercises above (the 250-word exercise). Next, using a work in progress, select a scene that demonstrates a depth of emotion in your character. Rewrite this scene (1,200 words), being sure to edit out any direct references to those emotions. Have you adequately described physical reactions? Where can you strengthen your word choice to include a more powerful word that more clearly conveys emotion? Have you used any figurative language to convey emotion?

Session Five: In the Beginning There Was the Word: Dialogue

  • Finding your character’s voice
  • The uses and misuses of dialogue
  • Tips for formatting and styling dialogue
  • Indirect speech and character thought
  • Cleaning up dialogue problems with the “spoken word” test

Writing Assignment (Fundamental): The goal of this assignment is to practice writing dialogue with text and subtext, and then to integrate this dialogue into a scene. Go back to the scene you started in Lesson Three or Four. Select one of these scenes and revise it to include dialogue between at least two characters. Which thoughts can be indirectly stated? How is your spoken dialogue doing two things at once? How do internal thoughts and external dialogue differ? Approximately a third of your scene should be dialogue. Aim for 1,000 words.

Writing Assignment (Advanced): Find an 800- to 1,000-word scene of dialogue that you’ve written in your work-in-progress. First, write a 500-word self-critique of this dialogue. What problems do you see with it? What is done well? How can you distinguish between text and subtext? Do you characters have a unique voice, or do all your characters sound the same? Next, revise this scene, paying close attention to text versus subtext, indirect speech, and internal thoughts versus external dialogue. How can you make better use of your dialogue to reveal your characters?

Session Six: Through Someone Else’s Eyes: Point of View

  • Who should speak?
  • Selecting your POV character
  • Consistency: a warning
  • A quick look at types of narration

Writing Assignment (Fundamental): The goal of this assignment is to get you thinking about how a story will change if a POV character changes. Many writers have “retold” a story from the perspective of another character. Gone with the Wind, for example, was rewritten from the point of view of a mulatto slave in The Wind Done Gone. Reread a scene you wrote in a previous lesson. Rewrite that scene from the POV of another character. Aim for 1,000 words.

Writing Assignment (Advanced): Working with something you’ve already written, complete the following: 1) Rewrite the opening scene from a different POV character. 2) Rewrite a mid-story scene from another POV character. 3) Rewrite the final scene from another POV character. What did this character reveal about your story that the original POV character did not? Try not to exceed 1,500 words total.

Session Seven: Point of View Revisited

  • The strengths and limitations of first person narration
  • The strengths and limitations of third person limited narration
  • The strengths and limitations of third person omniscient narration
  • Unreliable narrators

Writing Assignment (Fundamental): Write three opening scenes to a story (you can use a scene from a prior lesson, but you don’t have to). The events, characters, and conflicts should remain the same in each (and don’t forget the lessons we’ve learned thus far!), but try each of the above POVs on for size. So … one scene should be written in first-person, one in third-person limited, and one in third-person objective. Each scene should be approximately 500 words. Which perspective do you like best? Which POV feels best for your story?

Writing Assignment (Advanced): Rewrite the opening scene and the ending scene of a work in progress using first person, third-person limited, and third-person omniscient. You’ll end up with three beginnings and three endings. (Each should be about 300 words, no more than 2,000 words, total.) Which POV feels right for this story?

Session Eight: Putting It All Together: Final Considerations

  • How scenes reveal character and further your plot
  • The basics of writing scenes
  • Tapping into your inner critic

Writing Assignment (Fundamental and Advanced): Write the first 2,000 words—one long scene or two shorter ones—of a character-driven story. You may wish to revise and expand upon characters you’ve already written, or you may use this opportunity to create some fresh ideas. Have you ever heard the saying, “Love is in the details”? Think of this as you write. Before you hand in this assignment, take a look at this checklist:

In my first 2,000 words, did I …

  • Choose the POV character and perspective that is best for my story?
  • Give my character a name that provides insight into her character?
  • Reveal what is at stake for my character through both internal and external conflict?
  • Describe the physical appearance of my character in a way that conveys elements of his interior life?
  • Describe the setting in a way that revealed the character’s mood or personality?
  • Write dialogue that adequately reveals aspects of character?
  • Convey the character’s history and complexity through flashback and subtext?
  • Convey emotion through action and figurative language?
  • Reread what I wrote and act as a critic?