Writing a Psychological Thriller
The Character
A course by Emily Barr , Novelist
About the video: The Character
Overview
“Character is crucial to hooking in your reader, particularly in a psychological thriller. Whether you’re writing in first or third person, your main character is going to be living in your reader’s head for quite some time. So, how do you invent a cast of human beings? How do you channel your main character’s voice and work out how they react in different situations? You need to make your readers care what happens to them because if they don’t care, they won’t bother to read on. There are extra considerations of reliability in a psychological thriller: we’ll also look at this and consider how it relates to your protagonist. ”
In this video lesson Emily Barr addresses the topic: The Character, which is part of the Domestika online course: Writing a Psychological Thriller. Learn creative writing techniques to bring mysterious stories to life that grab the reader’s attention from the first page.
Partial transcription of the video
“ The Character In this lesson, we're going to look at how you'd craft a character who's going to feel like a three-dimensional real person, and who is going to be somebody your reader will want to follow on their adventures. Your main character is the protagonist of your story, and they are going to be at the centre of everything that happens. Now is the time to invent them and to flesh them out. The chances are, if you have a story in your head, even if it's only a one sentence pitch for a thriller, you'll also have a character. The character and plot, in a psychological thriller especial...”
This transcript is automatically generated, so it may contain mistakes.
Course summary for: Writing a Psychological Thriller
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Category
Writing -
Areas
Creative Writing, Fiction Writing, Narrative, Storytelling, Writing
Emily Barr
A course by Emily Barr
Emily Barr is an award-winning novelist based in Cornwall, England, with over 20 years of writing experience. She grew up surrounded by books and was an avid reader and writer, even as a child. While studying art history at the University of London, she worked for her university newspaper, during which time she won a student journalism award for her work experience at The Guardian. She went on to work full-time for the newspaper and, during her time traveling for her column, dedicated herself to writing what she was truly passionate about–fiction. Emily later found an agent and secured her first publishing deal for her thriller novel, Backpack, which saw her win WHSmith’s New Talent Award.
Since then, Emily’s work has been published by Headline and Penguin, as well as many others worldwide. She also writes horror and sci-fi in the US under the name Evie Green, and is currently working on her 6th young adult book with Penguin.
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