Mimi Herman
How to Create Compelling Characters (Who Aren't You)
It’s easy enough to tell our own stories, but some of the best fiction is about characters who are nothing like the writers who created them. They’re younger or older, live long ago or in the future, have different interests and talents. In this talk, with a Q&A session to follow, you’ll learn how to create narrators and other characters who come alive on the page and remain with the reader long after the book is closed. Instead of describing your characters from the outside, you’ll learn how to abandon your assumptions and stereotypes so you can dwell completely within the people you’re writing about. It’s risky, challenging work, which requires a lot of empathy and understanding, but you’ll find your reward when you hear readers say, “I feel as if I’ve known your characters my whole life.”
Mimi Herman is the author of The Kudzu Queen, A Field Guide to Human Emotions and Logophilia. Her novel, The Kudzu Queen, was selected by The North Carolina Center for the Book for the Library of Congress “Great Reads from Great Places” program, and has been long listed for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. Her writing has appeared in LitHub, Michigan Quarterly Review, Shenandoah, Crab Orchard Review and many other journals. Mimi is a member of the Board of Directors for the Association of Writers & Writing Programs and a Kennedy Center Teaching Artist, a Warren Wilson MFA alumna, and a Hermitage Artist Retreat Fellow. She co-directs weeklong Writeaways writing workshops in France, Italy, Ireland and New Mexico. For more information visit her at www.mimiherman.com and www.writeaways.com.
