Characters & Viewpoint - Card, Orson Scott (1988).pdf - Elements of Fiction Writing - kamylka0490

AND VIEWPOINT

ORSON SCOTT CARD

WRITER'S DIGEST BOOKS

CINCINNATI, OHIO

CHARACTERS

Characters and Viewpoint. Copyright ® 1988 by Orson

Scott Card. Printed and bound in the United States of

be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or

mechanical means including information storage and

retrieval systems without permission in writing from the

publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief

passages in a review. Published by Writer's Digest Books,

an imprint of F&W Publications, Inc., 1507 Dana

Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio 45207. (800) 289-0963. First

paperback edition 1999.

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03 02 01 00 99

5 4 3 2 1

Portions of this book appeared previously in Writer's

Digest (October, November, and December 1986) and

in Amazing Stories ("Adolescence and Adulthood in

Science Fiction," September 1987).

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Card, Orson Scott.

Characters and viewpoint / Orson Scott Card.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 0-89879-927-9 (pbk : alk. paper)

1. Fiction—Technique 2. Characters and

characteristics in literature. 3. Point of view (Literature)

I. Title.

PN3383.C4C37 1988

808.3—dc19

88-15532

CIP

Illustrations by Janice Card

To Gert Fram,

alias Nancy Allen Black:

You never had any trouble

finding an attitude or point of view,

and as for inventiveness,

you wrote the book.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I owe thanks to the editors at Writer's Digest and Writer's Digest Books,

especially:

Thanks to Bill Brohaugh, who accepted my proposal for a brief

article on using the "implied past" to help in characterization—and then

accepted what I actually turned in, an article on making characters memo-

rable that was so long it had to run in three issues of the magazine.

Thanks to Nancy Dibble, who as my editor on this book was both pa-

tient and helpful, far beyond what could fairly have been expected.

Thanks to all those who delayed the launch of a major and impor-

tant publishing project while waiting for Card to get his act together.

And to those outside Cincinnati who helped, namely:

Thanks to my good friends Clark and Kathy Kidd for putting me up

and putting up with me for two weeks in February and March 1988 as I

finished the final draft of this book.

Thanks to the students in my writing class at the Center for Creative

Arts in Greensboro, North Carolina, who forgave me—or kindly pretend-

ed to forgive me—for canceling two classes so I could finish this book.

Thanks to all the other writing students who have been the victims of

my developing understanding of fiction; I learned from their successes

and failures as much as I learned from my own.

In particular, I thank my teachers: François Camoin of the English

Department at the University of Utah; Clinton F. Larson and Richard

Cracroft of the English Department and Charles W. Whitman of the The-

atre Department at Brigham Young University; Ida Huber at Mesa High

School in Mesa, Arizona; and Fran Schroeder at Millikin Elementary in

Santa Clara, California.

Thanks to my sister Janice for her help with art and copying.

And, above all, thanks to my wife, Kristine, for making all my work

possible and all my life joyful.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION • 1

PART I: INVENTING CHARACTERS • 3

1. WHAT IS A CHARACTER? • 4

2. WHAT MAKES A GOOD FICTIONAL

CHARACTER? • 14

The Three Questions Readers Ask • You Are the First

Audience • Interrogating the Character • From Char-

acter to Story, from Story to Character

3. WHERE DO CHARACTERS COME

FROM? • 25

Ideas from Life • Ideas from the Story • Servants of

the Idea • Serendipity

4. MAKING DECISIONS • 41

Names • Keeping a Bible

PART II: CONSTRUCTING CHARACTERS • 47

5. WHAT KIND OF STORY ARE YOU

TELLING? • 48

The "MICE" Quotient • Milieu • Idea • Character •

Event • The Contract with the Reader

6. THE HIERARCHY • 59

Walk-ons and Placeholders • Minor Characters •

Major Characters

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