Creative Writing: The Craft of Character

The characters are at the heart of any good story. This course will teach aspiring writers how to create vivid, memorable characters. We will examine the choices that writers make to bring characters to life on paper. Additionally, we will do written exercises to help us develop writing and prewriting skills to create many characters. We will be able to draw on our life experiences and those of others (and not!). We will learn how to create inner (thoughts, feelings, and behavior) and outer (appearances, habits, and behavior) lives for our characters, and how this can help us tell richer, more interesting stories. We will give life to our characters and allow them to surprise us.