Resources are everywhere when it comes to writing. Anything you need can be found by typing into Google exactly what you’re looking for. In my writing journey, I’ve come across many resources that I’ve found useful in my projects. You can find previous Writing Resources here.

Today’s resource topic is on Character Development.

We all know how important a character is to any story. How the reader needs to feel the same emotion you feel for your character as they read. Voicing a character is the difficult part.

On my journey, characterization has been the hardest part for me. In my release, Not Like Everyone Else, I flushed out my characters as much as I knew how. Characters don’t speak to me as I’d like. I didn’t know how to put them onto the page as I was seeing them in my own head.

And at times I know what the character feels and I don’t reflect that on the page. But that’s the greatest part about being a writer. Admitting our mistakes, making ourselves a hot drink (I prefer hot chocolate) and we keep on writing. 

Lately, I’ve been working on my characters and developing them to be flushed out on the page for, you, the reader, to see the characters as I see them. It’s been a lot of hard work. Many hours of development, but I’m proud of the progress I’ve made.

Now let me share with you some character development resources!

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Reading

This isn’t necessarily a resource, but a way to build characters. Reading your favorite authors and paying attention to the way they develop their characters is a lesson you can learn from. Seeing how the author shows you the character’s flaws and desires and taking that information to create your own characters is a good way to start.

Classes

Googling characterization classes will bring you up a list of potential classes. I’ve found that completing work, no matter how mundane it may seem, helps you develop your writing in ways you cannot imagine. Below, I’ve listed classes on characterization that I recommend:

The Craft of Character – Coursera.com

Creative Writing Specialization – Coursera.com (includes above class)

And a list of classes I’d like to take in the future:

Novel Writing 101 – Universal.com

Character Development – Writer’s Digest University

You can read more about my favorite writing classes that aren’t only about characterization in this writing classes post.

Books

Non-fiction books are a great way of developing your character writing skills. By learning the various POV’s and how to develop a character through showing instead of telling. I have found that books (which we all love because we’re all readers at heart) drive home the important messages that sometimes get lost in the mix when trying to build your writing skills all at once. Here are some recommended reading to help with your characters:

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renne Brown and Dave King

Buy now: Amazon US | Amazon UK | Barnes & Noble| Book Depository

There are several chapters in this book that help you understand how important showing is in a book. This is a mixed book, not focused on character, but I did find it useful in the overall crafting of writing. By learning how to show your characters emotions through their actions rather than you telling the reader, you will create even better characters in your stories.

Click for my review.

 

The Emotion Thesaurus – Becca Puglisi and Angela Ackerman

Buy now: Amazon US | Amazon UK | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository

This thesaurus is a strong comprehensive list of emotions your character can face. It breaks individual emotions into mental and physical emotions that a character may be feeling along with the long-term effects of the emotion. It is a fantastic list to help pick the right emotion and action for your character to show when writing any scene.

Click for my review of this collection.

 

Emotional Amplifiers – Becca Puglisi and Angela Ackerman

Buy now: Amazon US | Amazon UK

This is a companion to The Emotion Thesaurus. It brings the same great qualities, but with new emotions. It also, is priced at $0.99 on Kindle (as of 10/7/2018) as it’s a smaller collection. A good starter if you’re not sure the collection is for you.

There are also many more thesauri by Becca Puglisi and Angela Ackerman that are very useful for character development. I will be doing a post in the near future about each thesaurus and how they can work in creating deeper characters.

I am in no way an expert on character development and I’m still in process of learning. These are only tips that I have found useful in my own writing projects. I hope to be able to add to this list in the future as I learn more about character development.

Questionnaires

Asking your character questions is another great way to get to know them. You can answer them as you the writer or answer the questions from the character’s POV. I’ve found several questionnaires that have a ton of great questions. My two favorite being The Ultimate Character Questionnaire and Proust’s Questionnaire. I use a mix of both questionnaires to meet the needs of my own writing and character development.

 

Have any good tips on creating characters? Tell me about them in the comments below!

Looking to organize your writing life? Check out Organization One and Organization Two

Ready to organize your story? Check out Organizing your Story

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