All fiction is character-driven, according to William Bernhardt, despite what you might have heard elsewhere. If your characters don’t interest readers, even the most exciting plots will fail. “Action is character,” Aristotle wrote, but what does that mean, and how can you use that fundamental principle to create dynamic fiction that will captivate readers? This book explains the relationship between character and plot, and how the perfect melding of the two produces a mesmerizing story. Using examples spanning from The Odyssey to The Da Vinci Code, Bernhardt discusses the art of character creation in a direct and easily comprehended manner. The book also includes exercises designed to help writers apply these ideas to their own work. William Bernhardt is the author of more than fifty novels, including the blockbuster Ben Kincaid series of legal thrillers. Bernhardt is also one of the most sought-after writing instructors in the nation. His programs have educated many authors now published by major houses. He is the only person to have received the Southern Writers Gold Medal Award, the Royden B. Davis Distinguished Author Award (U Penn) and the H. Louise Cobb Distinguished Author Award (OSU), which is given "in recognition of an outstanding body of work that has profoundly influenced the way in which we understand ourselves and American society at large." The Red Sneaker Writing Center is dedicated to helping writers achieve their literary goals. What is a red sneaker writer? A committed writer seeking useful instruction and guidance rather than obfuscation and attitude. Red sneakers get the job done, and so do red sneaker writers, by paying close attention to their art and craft, committing to hard work, and never quitting. Are you a red sneaker writer? If so, this book is for you.

Actor and mime artist Moni Yakim reveals his time-tested techniques and step-by-step exercises for physically evoking a character. Beginning with a chapter on looking inward, Yakim gives exercises on discovering aspects of one's own character. Then he teaches the actor how to identify with qualities outside the self. Finally, he shows how to apply these techniques to 12 classical theatrical roles.

Former private investigator and New York Times notable author David Corbett offers a unique and indispensable toolkit for creating characters that come vividly to life on the page and linger in memory. Corbett provides an inventive, inspiring, and vastly entertaining blueprint to all the elements of characterization-from initial inspiration to realization-with special insights into the power of secrets and contradictions, the embodiment of roles, managing the "tyranny of motive," and mastering crucial techniques required for memorable dialogue and unforgettable scenes. This is a how-to guide for both aspiring and accomplished writers that renders all other books of its kind obsolete.

“Elegant, propulsive, and utterly unputdownable… The work of one of our most talented thriller writers at the very top of her game.” —Lisa Unger, New York Times bestselling author of Confessions on the 7:45 Fast-paced and brilliantly unpredictable, J.T. Ellison’s breathtaking novel invites you to a wedding none will forget—and some won’t survive. Jutting from sparkling turquoise waters off the Italian coast, Isle Isola is an idyllic setting for a wedding. In the majestic cliff-top villa owned by the wealthy Compton family, up-and-coming artist Claire Hunter will marry handsome, charming Jack Compton, surrounded by close family, intimate friends…and a host of dark secrets. From the moment Claire sets foot on the island, something seems amiss. Skeletal remains have just been found. There are other, newer disturbances, too. Menacing texts. A ruined wedding dress. And one troubling shadow hanging over Claire’s otherwise blissful relationship—the strange mystery surrounding Jack’s first wife. Then a raging storm descends, the power goes out—and the real terror begins… Don't miss J.T. Ellison's next thriller, IT'S ONE OF US, coming February 2023!

Building a Character is one of the three volumes that make up Stanislavski’s The Acting Trilogy. An Actor Prepares explores the inner preparation an actor must undergo in order to explore a role to the full. In this volume, Sir John Gielgud said, this great director “found time to explain a thousand things that have always troubled actors and fascinated students.” Building a Character discusses the external techniques of acting: the use of the body, movement, diction, singing, expression, and control. Creating a Role describes the preparation that precedes actual performance, with extensive discussions of Gogol’s The Inspector General and Shakespeare’s Othello. Sir Paul Scofield called Creating a Role “immeasurably important” for the actor. These three volumes belong on any actor’s short shelf of essential books.

In this unique book, Ann Hood will help you find fresh, creative images, words and gestures to evoke feelings in your fiction. In 36 "mini-lessons," Hood sheds new light on love, hate, fear, grief, guilt, hope, jealousy and other major emotions. Each lesson offers instruction on rendering that particular sentiment; "good" and "bad" examples illustrating how writers have succeeded and where others have gone wrong; and imaginative exercises for putting the feeling into words.

This book explores the ways in which the two leading sensation authors of the 1860s, Mary Elizabeth Braddon and Wilkie Collins, engaged with nineteenth-century ideas about personality formation and the extent to which it can be influenced either by the subject or by others. Innovative readings of seven sensation novels explore how they employ and challenge Victorian theories of heredity, degeneration, inherent constitution, education, upbringing and social circumstance. Far from presenting a reductive depiction of ‘nature’ versus ‘nurture’, Braddon and Collins show the creation of character to be a complex interplay of internal and external factors. Drawing on material ranging from medical textbooks, to sociological treatises, to popular periodicals, Creating character shows how sensation authors situated themselves at the intersections of established and developing, conservative and radical, learned and sensationalist thought about how identity could be made and modified.