Why is character so important?

- Take a second to think about your favorite story. Why is it your favorite? What is it about that story that really draws you in? I'm willing to bet that a big part of it is character. Character is our connection point as readers into our favorite plots, our favorite worlds. Without character, readers will not fall in love with the book that you're creating. The character is truly the lens through which your fiction comes alive. But what makes a character memorable? What makes them dynamic? And how do we guarantee that readers will fall in love with them? In this course, we'll answer all those questions and a whole lot more. There are many elements that have to come together to make an amazing story. Plot is key to engaging readers and giving them an incredible experience. That's why I'm so happy to be working with Jessica Brody for this class, she is the queen of plot. World building is also crucial because you'll want to welcome readers into a world, even if it very closely mirrors our own, that they can know about and sink into. Writing style, of course, cannot be underestimated. How you write and the voice and words you use are almost as important as what you write. But one fiction craft element stands out, to me, as the most important of all, and that's character. Why? Simply because we are human beings. As human beings, we come loaded with the abilities to empathize and imagine, to step into the shoes of other humans or fantasy creatures. This is where fiction magic happens. In a great novel, we can see the world through a character's eyes, live that character's experience, and go on their journey with them. They make room in their heads and lives for us, and we get access, depending on the point of view, to their inner lives. This is something absolutely unique to the fiction and creative non-fiction art forms. In film, we can only know the inner workings of a character via voiceover. In fiction, we can get as close as possible to fictional people so that we can truly know them inside and out. Once we know someone, spend time with them, like them as humans, we get invested in them. Empathy develops, and then those characters grab hold of our hearts and minds, and an unbreakable bond is created. There's nothing like an awesome character for building a relationship, and that's what you want to do with your very own fiction. Because the reader will go there with you, no matter what your world is, no matter what happens in your plot, once you lure them with character, the reader is yours. Hi, I'm Mary Kole, and I've been working with writers for over a decade, first as a publishing assistant at Chronicle Books, then as a literary agent at Andrea Brown Literary Agency, and finally as a freelance editor and writing teacher at Mary Kole Editorial and Good Story Company. This is my crafting dynamic characters course, and I'm here with you today to shine a light on how to craft amazing characters and bring a good dose of industry insider insight to the table as well. Over the years, I've witnessed a lot of writers struggle with character development. As an editor, it's one of the biggest problems I see in manuscripts that come across my desk. Breathing life into a character and successfully revealing them on the page can be a real challenge, which is why I developed a strategy for demystifying the character development process, that breaks it down into concrete components and actionable steps. I've taught this course for years, and yet I've never broken it down in quite this much detail before. The strategy revolves around a concept I call interiority, or the inner life of a character. We'll talk about this concept a lot in this course because it's my secret sauce for character success. First, I will teach you everything you need to know about interiority and the seven essential tools you'll use to create an unbreakable bond between your reader and your character or characters. Then, we'll work on creating and developing dynamic characters for your own project, whether that be a current work in progress or a story you haven't even started yet. Either way, you'll leave this course armed with character crafting skills that you'll be able to put to use over and over again with every project you tackle. Believe it or not, the ability to craft dynamic characters is not an innate talent that some writers have and others don't. It's a skill that absolutely can be learned, practiced, and mastered, and that's exactly what we will do in this course. So let's get into it.