Product Description

Every novelist, screenwriter and oral storyteller faces the challenge of creating original and exciting characters. Archetypes--mythic, cross-cultural models from which all characters originate--provide a solid foundation upon which to fashion new and vastly different story people. 45 Master Characters explores the most common male and female archetypes, provides instructions for using them to create your own original characters, and gives examples of how other authors have brought such archetypes to life in novels, film and television. Worksheets are then included for writers to develop and map the lives of their own characters.

Excellent companion to the works of Joseph Campbell

The first and only book focusing heavily on the heroine's journey

Includes 45 black & white movie stills and line art depicting classic examples of each archetype

Victoria Schmidt is a screenwriter for film and television. A graduate of the film programs at UCLA and NYU, she holds a Masters degree in screenwriting from Loyola Marymount. She lives and writes in Los Angeles.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #150957 in Books
• Published on: 2007-08-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

From Library Journal
Screenwriter Schmidt offers a book for writers struggling with characterization, emphasizing interesting, believable women characters. Looking to mythology for such types as Aphrodite, Artemis, and Zeus, Schmidt concisely outlines each type's cares and concerns, strengths and weaknesses, and likely reaction to common problems. She also gives familiar examples from TV, films, and books. For example, Sam Malone of Cheers is a "Joker," and the "Shadow" is all the terrified characters surrounding Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween. Most blocked writers will find useful leads here, but debating the examples do Lucy Lawless and Sandra Bullock both qualify as Amazons? could easily become one of the better teaching uses of this book. Recommended for creative writing collections and workshops. Robert Moore, Parexel Corp., Waltham, MA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author
Victoria Schmidt is a screenwriter for film and television. A graduate of the film programs at UCLA and NYU, she holds a Masters degree in screenwriting from Loyola Marymount. She lives and writes in Los Angeles.

Customer Reviews

Great, but not the Best
Okay, so this book does give you pretty much what you pay for . . . and then some. BUT, the reason i gave it four stars instead of five is because of the way the characters are vaguely described to you. Yeah, they do go into details, BUT even the details are vague. The bad guy is 'bad. The good guy is 'good. They then go about listing said 'good' and 'bad' qualities, but never get too specific about it. NOW, there is a GREAT section at the end of the book that i absolutely recommend, and i never even ecpected it when i was ordering it. There is a detailed section about stages of you're character's 'journey' and plausible steps suggested, too. THIS part is why i like the book so much. I would have given it three stars without this section included, and i would have given it five stars if they had just went into more detail about the characters. It was almost like they were afraid to because some writer would use what they suggested, sink in the water, and then sue them or something. I dunno. My opinion? Buy the book -For the included back section on the stages of 'a hero's journey' (both male and female, and they're even friggin seperate sections to boot:-) if not for the character descriptions. Don't get me wrong, the character descriptions are good, but they aren't anything you couldn't figure out if someone said, "Hey, tell me what an independant, assertive woman would be like.", nor are they anything you can't get for free from the internet. That back section, tho . . . i've seen the jist of it before on the net, but i wasn't even expecting it. Nice inclusion ;-)

Great Book
I've never written a review on a book, but as I read 45 Master Character I felt compelled to say something about it. I wouldn't call it a book on building characters, but it is great at structuring your character, and surprisingly, it helps structure plot too. What this book does best is give a framework that helps bring out ideas. It is one of my favorite books and will be permanently on my desk. CP

Lets review the text as it applies to myth - can we people.
...I've read two largely damaging reviews of this book, based on their very assumed impressions of the authors opinions' on gender. I would like to say as an owner of both this book and the heros and heroines book mentioned by one of the two reviewers, that this book looks at myth and archetypes through the only lenses available to her, and paints with a broad stroke sensibly and responsibly. - To approach myth and archetypes from a single, modern understanding of gender and identity, would be both foolish and negligent. There is no other way to delineate the inner and outer forms, be they journeys, traits, interactions, other than male and female, without dismissing all other previous understandings and mythic creations pre-20th century. Why should the author be forced to create a new language based on petty, semantic offensives' suffered by the possible yet improbable thin skins of potential readers. You may as well gripe about her choice of archetype titles, perhaps instead of businessman you prefer businesswoman, or business professional, even executive. To alter the impression of these histories, as handed down by time; to adjust them even slightly is to rob them of their meaning, to deny their philosophical implications. Is it so hard for you, in your own mind to imagine that the female character, a stifled, male wallflower as you put it, may easily replace stereotype, because of so, perhaps you should think about changing professions. What reason do you have to believe that her choice in using she instead of he, takes in any small part away from the information she is passing on. Yes, passing on, I'm not sure if you are aware of this but men and women are kind of different, they may be able to do all the same things, but they are in no way copies of each other, which is exactly what makes life so interesting, its what makes a book like this valuable in the first place. I enjoyed this book, found the clearly labeled sections easy enough to follow; perhaps you two should look for the up and coming scratch and sniff edition. To anyone thinking of buying this book, it is a very valuable reference, as is the other text mentioned - hero's and heroines, the link is above. It in no way does the writers job for you, but easily enriches the understanding of both literature and the human beings they represent. On behalf of the author, I'm sorry it's not perfect and up to the very high standards of some, but I'm sure in no short time those two will have versions of their own out, with all problems corrected, and every measly complaint and excuse put to rest even before they are realized.