Welcome to our Resource Library. Click on a cover. Download the resources. Level up your writing and publishing game.
Compelling characters are what keeps readers turning pages and buying books — from fantasies to mysteries to the great literary novel. But how to do you create characters that feel three dimensional and real on the page? Counsellor and author Eileen Cook shares common psychological techniques to help you build your characters and take your story to the next level.
Covering understanding your character’s backstory and how it impacts their choices in your book by doing a structured counselling interview, personality structure (Myers Briggs and Emotional Intelligence) and how that may lead to conflict, and understand dissecting the Stages of Change to see how your character moves through them.
This is the second book in the Creative Academy Guides for Writers series. Be sure to check out the rest of the guides for writers in this series.
Free Resources from Build Better Characters by Eileen Cook
What’s included in the resources package?
Writer’s Self Evaluation
If you’re ready to evaluate where your skills are at and focus in on where you need to level up, and where you “got this” then this is the word doc for you. You can download it, and print it or completed it digitally.
Character Belief Checklist
Exploring your own beliefs can be useful. Below is a checklist about people and their behaviours. Indicate true or false for each statement. There isn’t a right or wrong answer to these questions (although feel free to debate it among your friends or family), rather it’s part of your perspective on the world and how people move around in it. If you find yourself struggling with an answer remember that you are trying to answer it “more often than not” versus as an absolute, as there are always different situations and extenuating circumstances. Then re-do the checklist below considering how your main character would answer those questions.
Character Backstory Interview
This list of questions allows you to consider a range of areas for backstory. You can ask yourself these questions or you can have a friend ask you the questions and you respond as if you were your character. We suggest recording this type of interview so you that you can reflect on the answers later.
EQI: 15 Measures of Emotional Intelligence
Ready to dive deep into your character’s psyche? Emotional Intelligence looks at how individuals see and respond to the world. There are fifteen different dimensions to explore that can assist with character creation. Knowing your character’s strengths and weaknesses in these areas can help you determine how they might respond as well as to create conflict between characters. These areas are designed to get you thinking. Depending on your character and the situations you put them in during your book some of these may be more useful than others. The goal isn’t for you to include all of these aspects in your character, but to help you identify key areas of strength and weakness that will help you shape your characters and their arcs in the story.
Recommended tools from this book