In this guide, award-winning author Nancy Kress explores the crucial relationship between characterization and plot, illustrating how vibrant, well-constructed characters act as the driving force behind an exceptional story. In teaching writers the fundamentals of creating characters that will keep their readers spellbound, Kress utilizes: Dozens of excerpts from well-known fiction; Enlightening exercises to help writers build strong characters starting from the outside-in; Beginning chapters that focus on the physical elements that comprise a character, providing techniques for using external qualities to reflect personality; Building skill upon skill, writers blend these qualities with emotional and mental characterization, forming multi-dimensional characters that initiate exciting action, react to tense situations, and power the plot from beginning to end.