Creating Unforgettable Characters [52 Books #12}

Seiger goes through the steps of creating a character for movies and television in clear,concise steps. It's a good guide for anyone looking to make better characters for fiction, dramatized non-fiction, role-playing games, or perhaps that other personality for 'that' chat room.

Each character is built through broad strokes then adding details to make them consistent with a real person. The next step is to add contrast to make the characters more interesting, then work on how they all relate to each other; who conflicts with who and how. The chapters are livened by real examples from produced works, such as Rain Man, Ordinary People, Gorillas in the Mist, Fatal Attraction, MacGuyver and Cagney and Lacey.

I liked it. It showed a clear process and gave much good advice for making a character from whole cloth, and showing how we -can't- make a character from whole cloth – we look around us to find ideas and kernels for our fictional parts.