Week 5: Creating convincing characters
Introduction
Download this video clip.Video player: ou_futurelearn_fiction_vid_1020.mp4
Transcript
DEREK NEALE
Welcome to week 5 and congratulations, you’re now more than half way through Start Writing Fiction.
You’ve already done some work on character and story, and we’re now going to develop that work with the help of a writer.
Josip Novakovich is a Croatian-born novelist and short-story writer. He has won a number of awards, and was on the shortlist for The Man Booker International Prize in 2013.
Like many novelists nowadays he teaches creative writing and he’s also written books on how to write fiction.
This week we’ll look at what Novakovich says about finding and creating characters and the importance of conflict in your writing.
You’ll hear how some authors – including Alex Garland and Monique Roffey – use themselves as starting points. And you’ll learn how to go about turning stereotypes into more rounded characters.
You’ll also exchange feedback with your fellow writers on characters that you’ve created.
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You’ve already done some work on character and story, and we’re now going to develop that work with the help of a writer – Josip Novakovich. Like many novelists nowadays he teaches creative writing and he’s also written books on how to write fiction.
Novakovich says this of himself when he started writing: ‘I avoided letting anybody cramp my style. However, I think that I avoided advice and workshops a little too long: some lessons that I learned on my own, I could have learned faster from some good advice.’
This sums up what you stand to gain from studying creative writing.
With the help of Novakovich we will be looking at further ways to find and create characters, and at the importance of conflict in your writing.