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Last updated on
8 September, 2007

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Creating Characters
with Jana Shellman

REGISTRATION:

COST, LENGTH, PREREQUISITES:

No prerequisites.

Standard course: $150 / 6 weeks. Click here to register

Extended session: $188 / 12 weeks. Click here to register
Extended course gives you two weeks to do each lesson but contains NO additional material.

For questions about this COURSE, e-mail Jana Shellman at

Learn to make your characters live and breathe. Get inside their head...know how they relate to one another. Write such full characters that their arms and legs stick out when you try to close the book!!! Learn their purpose in your plot.

Week 1: The character sketch for each character. Do resumes for each character. Write up a back-story for each character. Where were they prior to the beginning of the story? What baggage are they carrying with them?

Week 2: What does your character look like? Who are they? Learn how to become intimate with your characters.

Week 3: Tools: What's his sign? The use of astrological signs in your character's make-up. Utilizing all of the tools available to you to develop a full, interesting character.

Week 4: What's in a name? What you've named your character and how it effects the way the reader perceives the character.

Week 5: Drawing from people you know...composite characters...

Week 6: Character Driven Plots

Jana Lynn Shellman received her education in Communications, Marketing and Advertising Design at the University of Illinois. She is a member of National Federation of Press Women, Women's Press Club of Indiana, and Toastmasters International. Presently she functions as a mentor for the Writer's Club on America Online. She has served on numerous writing seminar panels in the Midwest.

Shellman published the first edition of The Wish Factory: How to Make Wishes Come True, and established Threadbare Publishing Company to self-publish that book. The Wish Factory was first prize winner of the Women's Press Club of Indiana, and received the National Federation of Press Women Award in Communications, in inspirtional works. Shellman has written the first novel of a (yet unpublished) mystery series with the main character, Poppy Hannah, and is working on the second novel in the series, and has the third in the series plotted.

Well known literary agent, Jeff Herman (agent for Chicken Soup for the Soul), called the author, "...a real writer...look for her to go places." Jana has also written a full-length comedy movie script titled Mad Money, and a one-act play, Rockin, and numerous short stories. She has converted The Wish Factory, into a script for an animated feature film.