And Character Development (Helping Writers Become Authors Book 7)

This is a highly readable guide to a fascinating component of storytelling. K. M. Weinland explains the three types of character arcs together with illustrative examples from film and literature. I highly recommend this book.

K. M. Weiland's Creating Character Arcs is another great tool for beginners. She takes you through the process in her easy going and fun manner. It's an eye-opener and time saver for the novice writer. The content is well organized so it's easy to follow and understand. I recommend this book to anyone with a dream of writing a novel.

This book is nothing short of extraordinary. Her concise and easy-to-read writing style, along with her "spot-on" book and movie examples, crystallized every aspect of character arcs I could have ever conceived. The inclusion of impact character arcs and arcs within a series of books was a delightful bonus. I would recommend this book for all writers and enthusiasts, no matter at which level they currently reside. A superb read.

As a new writer, I needed a concrete explanation of all things writing. All Weiland books have given me exactly the information I need in such a way that a newbie can understand, but also has reread value for when I know what the heck I'm doing for a refresher. I know I'll learn even more on the second read, now that I have context.

A great book to reference, whether you're writing your first novel or your ninetieth. K.M. Weiland breaks it down into digestible sections, so you can jump to where you need help the most with your characters. Stays by my desk at all times. Highly recommended.

Weiland's great genius as a writing teacher is her ability to translate theory into practical advice. This book is no exception. Creating Character Arcs is her best yet, layering real wisdom on top of the insights from Structuring Your Novel. In her latest, Weiland shows how character development -- far from being in competition with plot -- fits within a novel's structure. Indeed, character development IS a novel's structure.

As with all of Weiland's wonderful writing books, Creating Character Arcs is written in clear, accessible language, is thorough in its treatment, has well-chosen examples, and bridges the gap between art and technique. But this one not only maintains Weiland's standards -- it takes the advice to another level. I'm very confident my ongoing projects will be richer and stronger for having read this book.

Disclosure: I received a free copy in exchange for my honest review. I also purchased it, because I liked it so much, and because I wanted to have it available in the Kindle cloud on all my devices.

After hearing about K.M. Weiland's books and reading portions of her blog for a while, I've finally read one of her books on writing!

First off, I appreciate how CLEAN this book is as far as content. Many writers dive into vulgar or morally corrupt examples. While Weiland used some examples from movies or books I'd personally not watch/read, she was tactful in the information that she shared (like, "FINALLY, a writing book I can hand to my younger sisters!")

Now, for content. I haven't read many books about character structure, so there were many things that I now have to think about when creating characters. While I had known about character arcs, Weiland gives an understandable overview of how they work--Positive Arcs, Flat Arcs, and Negative Arcs--and gives plenty of examples from various books and movies.

It took me about ten chapters to get into this book. Perhaps it was because I hadn't read any of Weiland's other books. In some ways, it seemed like she has her own "code" for writing (for example, all of the capitalized words: Truth, Lie, Thing He Wants, First Plot Point--which, just for me personally, cluttered the reading space and distracted me). It took me a while to get used to that and to figure out exactly what she meant by all of them (many were things I knew of, I just didn't know how she was using them). Once I got used to that, it was better. So I'm not sure if that's just me and maybe my brain doesn't work like Weiland's.

Overall, there were helpful things in this book and I'll probably go back to it for specific sections.

This book has helped me understand writing better than any book I've ever read. It cuts to the core of what's important in story beneath the structure, and beyond other subjects like plot, theme etc. which have already been dealt with in a multitude of other sources.

Every serious writer needs to read this book. K.M. masterfully weaves the relationship between story structure and character arc, explaining in easy to understand terms why you can't have one without the other. So very helpful!

Stellar Book with lots of case studies to help you develop a better story with characters your readers will absolutely love (or love to hate)! I strongly recommend this book if you want to write a great book!

K M Weiland drills down through the various character arcs in great yet straightforward detail. Her obvious love of writing comes through on every page and I can’t recommend this book highly enough!

Direct, concise, not over-descriptive as some other books of this kind, this guide is absolutely essential to understanding the core of a novel.
The character arc is probably the most important part of a story, and this book really exemplifies how to create one that will give your book a deeper, truer meaning, and that will engage readers on another level.
Together with Structuring your novel, by the same author, this is the book on writing that made me really understand what I needed to do!
(English is not my first language, forgive the mistakes!)

Absolutely my new favorite for helping beginner (and non-beginner) authors. Worth every penny and then some. It provides great sequencing and thought provoking questions that forced me to take a harder look at my novel. I'd say the book is best described as a tool to help writers build deeper characters and better developed plots. Again, loved it!

Creating character arcs is the meat to any story and K.M. shows how to flesh out a psychological ly deep character so your reader gets a story that resonates with the human spirit. This is her best instruction book yet for writers. It's extremely well-thought-out and well written.

This book made so much sense! It gave me practical suggestions for creating characters who will intrigue my readers. I can't wait to apply Weiland's insights into creating the character arc into my work in progress.

Creating Character Arcs is a must read for every writer. K.M. Weiland details the how to in writing compelling characters and provides excellent examples for the reader. Clear and concise. I highly recommend.

K.M.Weiland clearly knows about writing but I find the structure of this book, along with others she has written, arduous to follow. I think I am looking for a clearly structured formula for writing a novel but this is not it. I need to study each of her points in depth to take them in and then re-read each one several times in order to grasp what she is really trying to say. I find myself constantly referring back to previous points made in earlier chapters in order to understand the relevance of her new point. I believe in outlining and structuring novels but this book is such hard going that I feel discouraged from getting down to the writing. I wish it were simplified more and broken down into easily digestible chapters.

Almost every writing guide I have ever read pontificates on the positive / growth character arc to such an extent that you think there is something wrong with your idea if you don't use it. This book discusses positive, flat and negative character arcs -- it also provides excellent and well known examples of each. At last, write the character you envision without being funneled down a single path.