At the center of a good story are the characters in it. In this course aspiring writers will discover how to build and bring to life complex, vivid and unforgettable characters. We will study the choices a writer makes to bring all characters to life on the page, and we will perform written exercises in order to develop a variety of writing and pre-writing techniques, in order to create a variety of characters. We will learn how to use our own life experiences, and the people we know (and how not to!). We will develop inner (thoughts and feelings) and outer (appearance, habits, behavior) lives for our characters and see how that can lead us to richer and more interesting stories. We will breathe life into our characters and let them surprise us.
This course is part of the Creative Writing Specialization
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About this Course
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Syllabus - What you will learn from this course
Discovering Characters from Your Life and Elsewhere
Creating Characters on the Page
Dialogue and Monologue
Set Your Characters Free.. and Give Them Somewhere to Go
Reviews
- 5 stars68.06%
- 4 stars20.86%
- 3 stars8.02%
- 2 stars2.10%
- 1 star0.94%
TOP REVIEWS FROM CREATIVE WRITING: THE CRAFT OF CHARACTER
My only complaint is that some reviewers (peers) really don't elaborate or give much feedback. One of my reviewers for my last assignment, left nothing at all except his name. To me, that is cheating.
In this course I learned how to build characters traits and bring them to life. I also learned about POVs and the difference between them. I wrote, rewrote and did it! A special thanks to Amy B.
The different perspectives from the guest writers helped me to understand how writers craft character. Amy Bloom did an excellent job facilitating and guiding the speakers to help students learn.
An exceptional course with a great insight into the creation of characters in creative writing. Heartily thanks to Amy Bloom and the team for such thorough guidance through the course.
About the Creative Writing Specialization

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