For Women Only, What You Need to Know About the Inner Lives of Men

I recently ran across a great reference book for characterization. Shaunti Feldhahn's book, For Women Only, What You Need to Know About the Inner Lives of Men is a resource of how men think and view their personal relationships with the women they love.

The author decided to interview men she knew for insight into a male character for a book she was writing. The more she learned, the more she wanted to learn. Professionals helped her develop a personal survey, and she did personal interviews of men from all walks of life: friends, strangers, married men, singles and different ages.

The information she garnered makes up the book. One chapter title is "Chocolate, Flowers, and Bait Fishing". This chapter discussed a man's idea of being romantic. As I read the various chapters, I was surprised to learn things, that in spite of being happily married for forty-five years, I didn't know.

Men, according to the author, wish women knew these things, but they don't know how to explain them. The agreement on issues from a wide-range of men of different ages and professions gives creditability to her findings.

My particular edition also came with a study guide at the end for possible use with a discussion group. When I concluded the book, I thought this would be a great resource for writing more realistic male characters instead of our feminine view of men.

I found this book in a box of donations for a sale. I gladly paid my dollar to keep it for my own shelf of reference books. If you want to write better male characters or just understand the man in your life, you need to find this book. It's an eye-opener.

Creating Characters: How to Build Story People by Dwight V. Swain

Creating Characters: How to Build Story People by Dwight V. Swain is a book a fiction writer would definitely want to add to his/her permanent library.

When I saw this book available for purchase on Amazon.com, I knew I wanted to order it. I am not sorry I decided to purchase this book. The book is divided into seventeen chapters. In the preface Mr. Swain recommends selecting a chapter that addresses a particular problem area you need.

Since I planned to review the book for this blog, I read them all. My favorite chapter was "Fleshing Out" since one critique of my last manuscript was "Your characters are two dimensional". This chapter provided some good suggestions on how to give my characters depth.

Chapter Twelve talked about character descriptions and how choosing the right words to describe the characters was essential.

Chapter Thirteen revealed some techniques for writing good dialogue that would move the story along and show who the character was instead of telling.

Chapter Seventeen was "The Search for Zest", which addressed how to keep on writing and not lose the motivation to write.

I feel more confident that I can write better characters in my next book based on what I learned from Dwight Swain's book. If I have any questions, I know which book to pull off the shelf. The combination of notes I took and underlinings throughout the book should help me overcome difficulties I might experience at the time.

This is one more book I will keep close at hand because I know I will be rereading selected chapters many times in the future.