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Creating Characters
- How to Build Story People
- Narrated by: John N. Gully
- Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins
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Publisher's summary
A jargon-free manual on the basics of developing interesting fictional characters
Vibrant, believable characters help drive a fictional story. Along with a clever plot, well-drawn characters make us want to continue reading a novel or finish watching a movie. In Creating Characters, Dwight V. Swain shows how writers can invent interesting characters and improve them so that they move a story along.
“The core of character,” he says in chapter one, “lies in each individual story person’s ability to care about something; to feel implicitly or explicitly, that something is important.” Building on that foundation - the capacity to care - Swain takes the would-be writer step by step through the fundamentals of finding and developing “characters who turn you on”. This basic but thought-provoking how-to is a valuable tool for both the novice and the seasoned writer.
The book is published by University of Oklahoma Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.
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Wasteful
- By ABID on 12-05-13
By: Roy Peter Clark
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Confident Decision Making
- How to Make the Right Choice Every Time
- By: Roger Dawson
- Narrated by: Roger Dawson
- Length: 5 hrs and 51 mins
- Original Recording
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Story
Every businessperson has to make decisions. Here's how to make them quickly, correctly and confidently.
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Excellent Practical Book
- By Amazon Customer on 12-24-14
By: Roger Dawson
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Native Son
- By: Richard Wright
- Narrated by: Peter Francis James
- Length: 17 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Right from the start, Bigger Thomas had been headed for jail. It could have been for assault or petty larceny; by chance, it was for murder and rape. Native Son tells the story of this young black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic. Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Richard Wright's powerful novel is an unsparing reflection on the poverty and feelings of hopelessness experienced by people in inner cities across the country and of what it means to be black in America.
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Simply a classic
- By Noah Smith on 11-11-10
By: Richard Wright
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Talking About Detective Fiction
- By: P. D. James
- Narrated by: Diana Bishop
- Length: 4 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
To judge by the worldwide success of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie's Poirot, it is not only the Anglo-Saxons who have an appetite for mystery and mayhem. Talking about the craft of detective writing and sharing her personal thoughts and observations on one of the most popular and enduring forms of literature, P. D. James examines the challenges, achievements and potential of a genre which has fascinated her as a novelist for nearly 50 years.
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Fascinating and Informative
- By Nancy J on 03-17-13
By: P. D. James
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I Can Read You Like a Book
- By: Gregory Hartley, Maryann Karinch
- Narrated by: Gregory Hartley, Maryann Karinch
- Length: 3 hrs and 6 mins
- Abridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
I Can Read You Like A Book features a system for scanning and interpreting anyone's body language, enabling you to figure out what they are really saying or feeling.
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Fabulous in every way!
- By Minny on 07-11-21
By: Gregory Hartley, and others
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12 Rules for Life
- An Antidote to Chaos
- By: Jordan B. Peterson, Norman Doidge MD
- Narrated by: Jordan B. Peterson
- Length: 15 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
What does everyone in the modern world need to know? Renowned psychologist Jordan B. Peterson's answer to this most difficult of questions uniquely combines the hard-won truths of ancient tradition with the stunning revelations of cutting-edge scientific research. Humorous, surprising, and informative, Dr. Peterson tells us why skateboarding boys and girls must be left alone, what terrible fate awaits those who criticize too easily, and why you should always pet a cat when you meet one on the street.
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Not Your Average 'Self Help' Book
- By The Bookie on 06-04-18
By: Jordan B. Peterson, and others
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The Romantic Manifesto
- A Philosophy of Literature
- By: Ayn Rand
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In this beautifully written and brilliantly reasoned collection of essays, Ayn Rand throws new light on the nature of art and its purpose in human life. Once again, she demonstrates her bold originality and her refusal to let conventional ideas define her sense of the truth. Rand eloquently asserts that one cannot create art without infusing it with one's own value judgments and personal philosophy - even an attempt to withhold moral overtones only results in a deterministic or naturalistic message.
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Essential AYN
- By Mica on 07-15-08
By: Ayn Rand
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Mastermind
- How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes
- By: Maria Konnikova
- Narrated by: Karen Saltus
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
No fictional character is more renowned for his powers of thought and observation than Sherlock Holmes. But is his extraordinary intellect merely a gift of fiction, or can we learn to cultivate these abilities ourselves, to improve our lives at work and at home? We can, says psychologist and journalist Maria Konnikova, and in Mastermind she shows us how. Beginning with the "brain attic", Konnikova unpacks the mental strategies that lead to clearer thinking and deeper insights.
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Mindless: How to Regurgitate Useless Information
- By CC on 02-12-13
By: Maria Konnikova
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Save the Cat!
- The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need
- By: Blake Snyder
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 5 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Here's what started the phenomenon: This book has been a best seller for over 15 years and has been used by screenwriters around the world! Blake Snyder tells all in this fast, funny, and candid look inside the movie business. Save the Cat is just one of many ironclad rules for making your ideas more marketable and your script more satisfying.
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Don't waste your time
- By Amazon Customer on 02-05-20
By: Blake Snyder
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Ended up buying the paperback version
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