"A wonderful book, as consoling as it is insightful. It belongs on every writer's night-table."
      ---Dennis Palumbo, psychotherapist and author, Writing From The Inside Out

   "Author Marisa D'Vari has crafted a glittering treasure chest of creativity techniques in this excellent book, gifting writers with innovative new roadmaps to creating provocative characters. A must have for your screenwriting shelf!"
-- Lew Hunter, author Lew Hunter's Screenwriting 434

   "Simple, direct, intuitive -- D'Vari's latest installment of insider writing tips delivers the truths about character development that all good writer must master on their way to becoming great ones.

  D'Vari's techniques are powerful, fresh and motivating. Her insights are the keys to opening doors in Hollywood."
-- Troy Browning, former Director of Development, Geffen Films

    "D'Vari's Creating Characters is a valuable resource for authors who want to create vivid,
three-dimensional characters that capture and keep our attention. Her suggestions work whether
you're writing for the page or the stage. Read it and reap."
- - Sam Horn, author of Tongue Fu! and 11-time Emcee of the Maui Writers Conference

 "A must read for all writers. This book is a fresh approach to creating characters that are complex, vivid and surprising. D'Vari takes experienced and novice writers on the fun ride of understanding
what makes their characters tick and how to dazzle the reader. It's a well-organized, fascinating and intelligent look at the most important element of fiction writing and the most comprehensive book on character development I've read."

-- Al Blanchard, President, New England Chapter of Mystery Writers of America, author of The Stalker and other Tales of Love and Murder and four other books, plus the film Knock 'em Dead

     "Marisa D'vari's Creating Characters gives the beginning screenwriter/novelist a set of useful tools, as well as some nifty tips on how to win over Hollywood's gatekeepers."

-- Beverly Gray, UCLA Extension screenwriting instructor, former story editor for Concorde-New Horizons Pictures, author, Roger Corman: Blood-Sucking Vampires, Flesh-Eating Cockroaches, and Driller Killers

     "Before putting pen to paper, read Creating Characters. Marisa D'Vari gives writers a practical foundation for character development with tools and exercises that engage writers and result in fully formed 'people'
who live and breath."

-- Jennifer O'Connell
Author, Bachelorette #1

      "This book is an invaluable treasure trove of advice. Whether you are a screen writer or a novelist, a few afternoons reading, pencil in hand, will give you insight and ideas that are sure to give your characters interesting edges, contours, heart, soul and guts."

--M.J. Rose (www.mjrose.com) - author of 5 novels including Sheet Music, The Halo Effect, Flesh Tones & co-author of two non-fiction titles including Buzz your Book.

     "In Creating Characters, Marisa D'Vari has pulled together a fascinating array of tools for psychological and spiritual insight, teamed up with practical exercises and advice for dealing with publishers and producers. She calls her method the More-Personality system, and her stylish writing shows more personality th

an many novels. Both new and experienced writers can get fresh ideas from this book."

-- Toni L.P. Kelner, author of Wed and Buried

    "CREATING CHARACTERS is an excellent book for writers interested in analyzing their characters and deciding what sort of character would fit best into a plot. Marisa D'Vari's experience of screenwriting and grasp of theory result in highly useful advice."

-- Sarah Smith, best-selling author of Chasing ShakespearesThe Vanished Child, The Knowledge of Water and other books and Sisters in Crime New England former president.

     Dr. David Chananie, author of Not Yet At Ease: Photographs of America's Continuing Engagement With the Vietnam War, a Writers' Digest awardee for nonfiction

ASJA member Marisa D’Vari suggests that successful character-building is the result of channeling your characters, as if they exist in a different dimension or on a different plane.

This rather controversial idea is one of many that she explores in her new book, which otherwise takes an analytical approach to understanding characters.

D’Vari, whose expertise includes public relations and script writing, organizes her book around the “MORE Personality,” a personality typecasting system she developed for screenwriters, which helps to understand any given character as a type.

Similar in some ways to the Enneagram or Jung’s archetypes, the MORE formula categorizes all characters (you included) as Mover, Observer, Relater, or Energizer.

D’Vari offers examples of each type from well-known movies, along with reams of specific information on each.
The book also offers guidelines on creating a character’s look, milieu, possessions, and dialogue tags as shorthand keys to the inner personality (always using the MORE system). One advantage of D’Vari’s approach is that it can help you round out all characters in a novel or script, not just the protagonist.