“7 Books to Understand Your Characters Psychology”
This comes via my wife, who has a great Twitter feed [@bf4tbrainy] on all things related to the brain and creativity. Here are three of the suggested books:
“The Man Who Thought His Wife Was a Hat” by Oliver Sachs. Any of Dr. Sachs’ books will give you insight into creative, fascinating psychoses that people live with. Can you imagine looking at a scene and not being able to put it together as a cohesive picture? All you see are bits of red and pieces of animals? A character in the early stages of that psychoses might be a fascinating addition to your story
“Creating Character Emotions” by Ann Hood. She explains how to write compelling fresh emotions for your characters. Much of this lies in the show-not-tell truism; she explains how to show hostility, hate, etc., rather than saying the words.
“Please Understand Me I and II” by David Keirsey. This is a personality style determinant. Very detailed, but highly relevant for analyzing your main characters’ temperament, character and intelligence.
I can’t emphasize enough the importance of great characters to whatever you write. They are a reader’s emotional and psychological vehicle into a story. They are how a reader connects to your story. They enable a reader to fully immerse themselves in a story. They are roles actors want to play, directors want to direct, even studio marketing departments want to market.
Perhaps most importantly, they tell you — the writer — where your story should go.
So how to find and understand them?
Good question. Let me put that to the GITS community:
How do you find your characters? What tools do you use to understand your characters’ psychology? What practices do you have to unlock the secrets of your characters?
For the other four books from the article, you can download the PDF here.