Recently, I plugged Nancy Kress’ book Dynamic Characters: How to Create Personalities that Keep Readers Captivated as a great book about developing character.
I’d like to add to that recommendation Bullies, Bastards, and Bitches: Writing the Bad Guys of Fiction. Jessica Page Morrell spends pages talking about the intensity of these complicated characters, encouraging readers to look into backgrounds, to pry into psychologies, and to write characters with layers. Morrell lists good sources for research and good examples of bad characters as well.
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In my continuing quest for ingestibles that can kill you, I’ve recently purchased Swindled: From Poisoned Sweets to Counterfeit Coffee–The Dark History of the Food Cheats by Bee Wilson.
And I’m about 10K into Abigail Rath.
How are you?
Catherine
About 2K behind you. I realized I don’t have a good villain last night and I probably shouldn’t wait to introduce one.
Then again, this book is all about flying by the seat of my pants, which differs significantly from last year, which was practically scripted for me after 10 years of marinating.
I’ll look up that character book right now, as I forgot to reset the clocks and I’m up an hour early.