How do we decide on the hero for our story? How can we write distinctive — but still believable — characters? Matt Bird talks about aspects of writing character. In the intro, a guide to UBLs, Universal Book Links [Draft2Digital]; Your author brand [Ask ALLi with me and Orna Ross]; The Creator Economy in Bath. Today's show is sponsored by ProWritingAid, writing and editing software that goes way beyond just grammar and typo checking. With its detailed reports on how to improve your writing, and integration with Scrivener, ProWritingAid will help you improve your book before you send it to an editor, agent or publisher. Check it out for free or get 25% off the premium edition at www.ProWritingAid.com/joanna Matt Bird is an author, screenwriter, podcaster, and blogger. His latest book is The Secrets of Character: Writing a Hero Anyone Will Love. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes * Matt's journey from indie filmmaking and screenwriting to non-fiction, blogging, and podcasting* How do we decide on the hero of the story — and how readers sometimes choose someone else anyway* Deep point of view (POV)* Writing distinctive — but still believable — characters * Mining real life for character details* Does a character have to be likable? You can find Matt Bird at TheSecretsofStory.com. Transcript of Interview with Matt Bird Joanna: Matt Bird is an author, screenwriter, podcaster, and blogger. His latest book is The Secrets of Character: Writing a Hero Anyone Will Love. Welcome, Matt. Matt: Thanks so much for having me on. Joanna: I'm so excited to talk to you. Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing. Matt: Oh, I wrote a lot. I was an English major. I always liked writing. I always liked creative writing. I decided to become a filmmaker. I wrote and directed many, I would call them indie films, but what is below indie film, DIY, no money changing hands in any way, shape, or form movies. Then I decided to go ahead and go to film school. I went to Columbia Film School in New York and decided to focus. Very quickly, I realized that I was more of a screenwriter than a director. I focused on screenwriting, got frustrated with the program in various ways. I talk about in my first book, how it was basically a fantasy camp, and you weren't allowed to criticize anybody for anything they had done, well, not even criticize people that sounds bad, but, if were to ever go, you may have to reconceive this then they were like,