What Would Your Character Do? by Eric Maisel

What Would Your Character Do? Reviews

• 
  Lynne Favreau

  The first chapter of this book is so interesting I’m finding it hard not to quote the whole thing. Maisel, who holds degrees in philosophy (B.S.), psychology (B.A.), creative writing (M.A.), counseling (M.S.), and counseling psychology (PhD) discusses what a personality is, the traditional psychologist’s theories, clinicians and experimenters, and how little is actually known or provable from a scientific stand point about personality.
  
  He asserts “Fiction writers have a leg up on psychologist when it comes to understanding personality and character. To put it differently: Fiction writers are our real psychologist.” I love this perspective and after reading Maisel’s take on the failing of psychologist to actually define a personality theory, I’m fascinated.
  
  Writers get to make up characters, defining who they are, what motivates them, how those characters interpret and respond to their world. And while what the writer creates is artificial, it is a depth of understanding human motivation and personality that rivals what psychologist have tried to understand and theorize about because we get to be inside the characters head.
  
  Though there are plenty of theories of personality, they don’t hold up to the real scientific rigor of analysis. A real theory is provable and results reproducible, human personality theories are not. Freud, the father of psychoanalysis in the late nineteenth century, led the psychology movement down the path to experiments which led to a plethora of theorist. “...Gustave, Jung, Adler, Horney, Kelly Erikson...” their major ideas have not led to any one conclusive theory. In fact, “...no psychologist, psychiatrist, family therapist, or clinical social worker, could say, except guess, what caused depression, anxiety addiction psychosis or any of the other ailments that befall people.”
  
  Without a concrete theory that explains why we suffer from these psychological maladies, “...health care professionals are left with three ways of dealing with our emotional health.” Medication, clinical methods(psychoanalysis), or behavioral changes. “Or they could do what natural philosophers have done for thousands of years, use their common sense and their understanding of human nature– and a lot of wit and warmth– to affect behavior changes.”
  
  There are plenty of health professional who work this way. “There turned to be all the difference in the world between standing behind a theory and having insight into human nature. The first could be called pseudo-science: the second, wisdom.” To me, it this wisdom of noticing and being in touch with humanity that gives writers the basis for building characters that are alive and real on the page.
  
  Maisel goes to discuss academia, the problems with diagnosis, and testing. Basically he wants you, the writer, to realize that professional psychologist are no more an expert on why humans do the things they do than you are. In fact writer have the advantage of being able to get inside the subjects head and know why a character is behaving the way they do, what exactly is motivating them and their secret wishes and desires. No therapist can do that.
  
  The majority of the book is Maisel’s “personality quizzes for analyzing your characters.” Scenarios are proposed, such as “At the Airport” and questions asked with answers provided. The answer you pick for your character have a small synopsis explaining what that might reveal about your character. The first question about the airport is about waiting, if you chose the answer, “A. Restless?” you’d find out “ Waiting restlessly is consistent with type A character whose appetites, ambitions and high energy level make it impossible for him to relax.” While I found them interesting, they ended up not serve a purpose for me in this study. I was more intrigued by his ideas of personality and the writer than any of the exercises. Though I wouldn’t hesitate to try out the exercise if I ever feel stuck or wanted to do character building exercises for practice.
  
• 
  Rose

  Quick review for a quick read. Oh wow, this turned out much better than I expected. A practical guide to character personality that tests your character in a series of 30 scenarios with extended questions. Granted, it takes a little bit of creative stretching because the scenarios may not fit your characters (I tried three of my protagonists and side characters from the YA projects I'm working on, and suffice to say I had to skip a few descriptors/questions because they didn't really apply.)
  
  This text made me think about how my characters would answer if put into a certain situation, and the Maisel's do a fine job of allowing the reader to come up with their own frame of the scenarios, but also following up with some possible choices and meanings for each question. I found it quite helpful overall and see myself trying these series of "What ifs" for crafting a narrative in the future. Note that I would say this is a supplemental personality text. This won't give you any distinct foundations on how to shape your characters, but rather provide an eye into how they would react in a given situation and allow the free-range of the writer's mind to expand upon that as they would like.
  
  Recommended.
  
  Overall score: 3.5/5 stars
• 
  Jane

  This was a fun book to mess around with, and it delivers on its title with several exercises designed to explore your character's actions. Each exercise proposes a situation, then follows up with questions about what your character would do in the given circumstances.
  
  But I kept thinking the exercises were just a little light. If you really want to get the most out of this book, it seems you'll use the questions withing as a jumping off point, and brainstorm a lot more of your own. For me, it wasn't illuminating enough to become a staple resource.
• 
  Simplyliv803

  I love Eric Maisel's take on creativity. His book "A Writer's Paris" is really wonderful, whether or not you're a Paris fanatic or not.
  
  This book offers a lot of different ways to examine your character and get to know him or her in a more in depth way. It's a pretty quick read and very useful.
• 
  Kev Willoughby

  Nice little writing book that was fun to read. Reminded me of a cross between the old "Choose Your Own Adventure" books and a personality test. I'll have to keep this one in my library. It makes a great resource for character development in fiction.
  
  The first three chapters serve as an introduction and explanation to how the rest of the book is laid out. In the remaining 30 scenarios, an opening vignette is presented, and in each scenario, there are 6 multiple choice questions presented, in which the protagonist has to make a decision to move the plot forward. Each question has 5 possible answers, and each answer includes a brief analysis of what that particular choice reveals about the protagonist.
  
  I read every answer to every question for the first half of the book, and initially this was very revealing (though laborious) about how much power the author has in shaping perceptions of the characters through just a few significant "obstacles" placed in their paths. Each chapter closes with a "Situations to Consider" section that follows the 6 multiple choice questions, allowing the template of that scenario to be applied to similar plots with different components.
  
  In the second half of the book, I chose just 1 or 2 answers to each question, based on how I would likely respond to each scenario if I had been placed into each story. This was even more fun, and it helped me to learn more about myself. I can see now how easily an author might craft a "fictional" story around autobiographical events.
  
  I would recommend this book to aspiring writers and anyone who would like to enjoy an adult version of the "Choose Your Own Adventure" series you may have read as a kid.
• 
  Carolyn Harris

  This book has some interesting ideas, but not enough to build an entire character on. It's best used if you're stumped or need a little inspiration. I didn't like all of the provided answers or agree with all the analyses, but it's easy enough to ignore that and make up your own responses.
• 
  alexander shay

  I was pretty excited to find that my university carries this book. But the book itself wasn't as good as I had hoped. I read it from front to back, and there were 5 situations I particularly liked for the protagonist of the novel I'm currently working on. Mostly the others just weren't relevant, but I liked the amount of detail Maisel put into all of them.
  There are 6 questions expanding every scenario, and then 5 options for each question. Each option is then given a brief relation to personality as to how a character who reacts like that would generally come across. It is limited in its scope, but at the same time there is a fair bit of accuracy behind it--going through the exercise as my protagonist, some of the personality briefs described him to a T.
  Each scenario is also related to the real world in some way, usually through research. Some are experiments and some are case studies, and some are checklists for things like PTSD or bad ways to fight. I found some of them useful, but several of them I am already very familiar with; anyone who has taken an intro psych course would know of them. It's a good basis point if you want something to write with your novel characters that isn't your novel that potentially gets you out of a slump, but it's not really what I was looking for.
• 
  Liz Alexander

  I'm a big fan of Eric Meisel and recently dug this book out of a batch I'd bought several years ago when thinking about writing a novel--but never, until just now, thought of using.
  
  It's proven hugely helpful as I begin to reflect and refine the characters I've dreamed up.
  
  This is a genius resource for novelists. Meisel--a licensed family therapist, creativity coach and trainer--offers 30 different scenarios in which your main characters might find themselves. Then he provides quizzes to identify how each character might respond. Followed by a sense of the psychology of your character, depending on each choice. And, at the end of each of these scenarios, the author provides lists of other, similar situations, some fascinating "Did you know?" relevant insights, and Food for Thought.
  
  Since I already knew my main protagonist fairly well, I was able to dive deeper into her psyche by using the insights from this book.
  
  I highly recommend this for first-time (or even experienced) novelists, like me, that want to provide readers with deep, authentic, complex characters. Thank you, Mr. Meisel!
• 
  Tricia

  Obviously, any book written with the intention of guiding a creative writer is limited to just that - guidance. This book acknowledges what it is and remains modest, loose and flexible in assisting writers with character development. Each scenario provides six questions with five options each, so there's plenty of variety and scope. It must, however, be taken with a pinch of salt and an open mind - no writer can rely solely on books like these, though their use in developing characters and scenarios is nonetheless inspirational. I'd strongly recommend this to anyone who wants to create a set of characters, or explore the ones they already have in mind. Use the scenarios to place your characters in unlikely situations, and push yourself to think of how they'd react. Above all, the exercises are great fun as well as very useful. Just don't let books like these control or limit your imagination. It's there to encourage originality rather than dictate what should and shouldn't be written.
• 
  Heidi

  I expected more. I should have spent more time looking through this at the bookstore - I was just so excited about the idea of "personality tests" for the characters in my novel. But it was more a series of questions - "What would your character be doing at a funeral?" Not something I couldn't think up on my own.
• 
  Abigail Singer

  This book is greate for fiction writing. It gives personality quizes for your characters so you can get to know about them better.
• 
  Crystal

  Excited to get to this book. I think it will help me flesh out characters and their story and back stories too.
• 
  Lily

  It was fine. It didn't work for me though. And it is definately for adult or older teenage characters.
• 
  Amanda

  Really good for writers block or trading with CP's.