What people have to say about GGC and My Workshops

Book

I am banging away at my manuscript. I am reading your book and applying the exercises to my characters. I love applying what I have learned from you to characters I meet in books and movies. Cool stuff.

Kristin Lund, Penngrove, CA

I guarantee that anyone reading this book, and doing these exercises, will have more dynamic, organic, dramatic, and fascinating characters. Martha Engber is practical, inspirational, encouraging, and clear!

If you're ready to take your character to the next level, this is the book for you. Martha Engber's book, Growing Great Characters From the Ground Up is a generous resource, chocked full of examples and exercises for writers who want to develop complex and memorable characters.

Growing Great Characters From the Ground Up distills the essence of character development by using a breadth of good examples. It brims with valuable suggestions. I can't wait to try some of Martha's ideas in my own writing.

I enjoyed perusing your book. I especially liked the chapter on pruning. Your suggestion to trim your writing by merely cutting and saving the offending work in another place or file was a practical one. (Who wants that sting of rejection, even if it is self-rejection?) Thanks again for the great tips.

I finished reading Growing Great Characters From the Ground Up. I loved it. I particularly liked that your book lived up to its advertisement. It is indeed a thorough primer. I focus on nonfiction and your book provides helpful, usable advice as well as concrete examples that are proving quite useful. I'm currently writing a memoir and applying the one sentence test for my character. One specific detail, motivation and defining incident are all things I will incorporate into my memoir. Thanks a lot.

Sarah (third grade) and I are enjoying your book. She's an aspiring writer. She also loves the idea that she has a book written by a real person whom she knows. I've been reading sections aloud, then rewording for her vocabulary level. She's also quite the performer, so I've sometimes been explaining character writing as acting, like putting oneself inside the partly written scene and performing, then writing it down. We're having a ball!

Workshops

I apprecite you and your advice more than any writing advice I've ever received. This is the best laid-out, most easily navigated, and most thorough class I've even taken, on-line or at a conference. If I can't get my book written now, then I'm not meant to be a novelist!

Ruth Andrew, Spokane, WA

Woot! Thanks for all the help, Martha. The class was a wonderful help.

Janice Seagraves, author of Windswept Shores

I truly enjoyed your workshop through the writers' group on Saturday... It made me realize that I simply haven't worked hard enough to develop characters.

It is I who should thank you or your time, expertise and graciousness. Nothing but rave reviews about your workshop.

Thanks so much for your presentation at CWC yesterday. I enjoyed applying your exercises to the protagonist in my memoir, a.k.a, me. You made me think more carefully about how much I love these characters and whether this is where I should be putting my time and energy.

B. Lynn Goodwin , author of You Want Me to Do What? Journaling for Caregivers

Hi Martha. You probably won't remember me, but I took your online workshop last March (through) California Central Coast Romance Writers on creating characters titled, Passion Play. Just wanted to tell you that the information and lessons were so helpful to me and my writing. I've used the defining detail and the questions you taught us to ask about creating our characters for all my subsequent short stories. This process has helped me stretch as a writer and also to learn how to write much longer stories than my usual 1,000 word ones. I actually have three completed stories out for review and each is over 25 pages.

Paul Fahey, Nipomo, CA,

Thanks again for the wonderful time and information you gave all of us last weekend! Everyone thoroughly enjoyed it and we all learned a lot!

Sandra Marlow, Yosemite Romance Writers

It's been a great class! I'm sad to see it come to an end, but I will value all of the conversations and chats we had. I learned a lot from the experience, look forward to putting all the information to use with my characters, and, most of all, I appreciate your giving your time and expertise, Martha.

Alice, Passionate People Online Class

I really enjoyed the workshop. You have so much fun energy. The time flew by.

Sharon, Carmel, CA

I just finished editing a set of three articles due to the San Francisco Chronicle next week. Thanks to your workshop yesterday, I had a mental rewriting map to guide me and to help me remember all the aspects of the rewriting process. I took a lot home from the workshop (and enjoyed it thoroughly), especially the notion of making rewriting more systematic, working down through the levels to the last dotting of the i. Many thanks for your coaching.

Deborah Rich, Monterey, CA

We have tremendous feedback from your talk! THANK YOU so much, both personally and on behalf of CWC (California Writers Club)! We look forward to your Oct. 4th workshop.

Ixchel Leigh, Pacific Grove, CA

I want to take a moment and express my appreciation and thanks to Martha for such an awesome class. We were fortunate to work with you and be able to offer such a great workshop.

Kimberly Napoli, Orange County Chapter Romance Writers of America

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