THE ICE PICK

Characters and Viewpoint, by Orson Scott Card. (The Elements of Fiction Writing series) Cincinnati, Writer’s Digest Books. ISBN 0-89879-307-6, 182 pages, $13.95.

Well-known to science fiction readers and writers, Orson Scott Card shares with us in this book his award-winning techniques for inventing original and memorable characters.

Creating characters is not, and should not be, "a mechanical process." As Card says, you shouldn’t expect that you can use a book like this as a blueprint for creating characters, but rather "bring the questions and ideas in each chapter to your own work, the stories you believe in and care about."

In addition to showing you how to make characters by using strangers and people you know, Card explains how to create them from within yourself and from within the story. Clearly and simply, he shows how you can influence readers to love or hate characters and how you can make characters seem like real people through their background, actions, motives, habits, talents, and hobbies, plus through using stereotypes and physical appearance.

He discusses how important it is to choose the correct names for your characters and to refer to each of them by the same name throughout your story or novel (although other characters may call them by nicknames or titles). He recommends keeping a notebook--which he calls a "bible"--for your characters, so that you won’t forget whether your heroine is blonde or brunette or whether your hero’s father captained the Viceroy or the Victory.

Although traditionally science fiction and fantasy stories, and other stories in which the idea or the milieu of the story is paramount, have not required the strong characterization that other genres required, readers now increasingly "expect a deeper level of characterization. . . . Readers expect to get to know the characters. . . . This is the fashion of our time, and you can’t disregard it." However, Card says, "it’s a mistake to think that deep, detailed characterization is an absolute virtue in storytelling." You must, he says, understand the needs of your story and know when deep characterization is necessary and when a stereotype will do as well.
The last part of the book is devoted to helping you choose the point of view needed for your story, the advantages and disadvantages of each kind, and how to change viewpoint characters in the middle of a story. Some stories require that you explore your characters’ attitudes, emotions, and thoughts very deeply. Others do not. Card explains with great clarity the differing levels of mental penetration to help you decide which level is best for your particular story.

This is an excellent book and I recommend it highly.

{Published in GPIC, the Oklahoma Science Fiction Writers Newsletter, Mar. 2000. Reprinted in SF & Fantasy Workshop Newsletter, Nov. 2001.}