Getting Into Character: Seven Secrets a Novelist Can Learn from Actors

Want to bring characters to life on the page as vividly as fine actors do on the stage or screen? Getting into Character will give you a whole new way of thinking about your writing. Drawing on the Method acting theory that theater professionals have used for decades, this in-depth guide explains seven characterization techniques and adapts them for the novelist’s use.

In this unique and practical book, you’ll discover concepts that will help you understand and communicate the behavior, motivation, and psychology of every fictional character you create. Examples from classic and contemporary novels show you how these techniques have been used to dazzling effect by Jane Austen, Mark Twain, Steve Martini, Anne Rivers Siddons, and others. These simple yet highly effective techniques will help you:

• Create characters whose distinctive traits become plot components
• Determine each character’s specific objectives and motivations
• Write natural-sounding dialogue rich in meaning
• Endow your characters with three-dimensional emotional lives
• Use character to bring action sequences to exuberant life
• Write convincingly about any character facing any circumstance

Acknowledgments.

The Author.

PART ONE: FROM HIGH-STAKES GAMBLING TO CERTAIN SUCCESS.

1 Low-Yield, Conventional Consulting VersusHigh-Yield, High-Impact Consulting.

2 The Five Fatal Flaws of Conventional Consulting.

3 The Bottom-Line Results of High-Impact Consulting.

PART TWO: THE RESULTS-DRIVEN ARCHITECTURE OF HIGH-IMPACT CONSULTING.

4 Define Goals in Terms of Client Results Insteadof Consultant Products.

5 Match Project Scope to What the Client IsReady to Do.

6 Aim for Rapid-Cycle Successes toGenerate Momentum.

7 Build a Partnership to Achieve and to Learn.

8 Leverage Resources: More Results withFewer Consultants.

PART THREE: CREATING HIGH-IMPACT PARTNERSHIPS.

9 Create a Contract for Collaboration Instead ofa Proposal for a Job.

10 Senior Managers Must Insist That Their PeopleProduce the Results.

Build Communication Bridges and Overcome Anxiety.

12 Test the Shift to High-Impact Consulting:It s All Upside and Risk-Free.

Notes.

Index.