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7 Tips for Introducing Your Characters Anybody Can Write a Novel   Chapter 5 “Choosing and Designing Characters” – Section 3 “Introductions” With Links to Supplementary Material When a reader first picks up a book, they create an instant connection with the author of the story—formed through a required level of trust just so that the two of you can immerse yourselves in the world you have created. The writer and the reader are, at that point, friends or pleasant acquaintances; and at that moment of relationship and immersion into the realm of story, the characters become just as real as the reader/write

Accents, Foreign Languages, and Regional Dialects There are times when your story may have one or more character speaking a different language, or with a different accent than the rest. There are many different ways a writer can go about presenting this to the reader, and before we go any further, I will concede that some of it is a matter of personal taste, and on this particular matter, you won’t be able to please everybody. So, consider this bit not so much a lesson, but rather a series of guidelines. Accents Everyone has one. Even if you think that you don’t, there’s someone, somewhere in the world who would disagree wit

You know that you have a Mary Sue when she upsets the monochromatic color scheme of my Writer's Guides. Mouse over blue text to see a note. Internet communities often lash out at writers who create Mary Sues. Declaring the writing to be below their standards, they proceed to punish the creators. They mock the characters, verbally abuse the writers, and write hyperbolically about how much they wish the characters would die. Bullying writers (who may be very young) is only going to make them afraid to write—and therefore improve—or share their work. Not only that, but it discourages other writers from speaking for fear of public

6 Reading Tips for Improving Your Writing Anybody Can Write a Novel Version 2.0 Chapter 1 “Beginning to Write” – Section 2 “Constructive Reading” (Previous Tutorial)              (Next Tutorial) “That's when I started being a writer. I got the Tarzan books and studied how Edgar Rice Burroughs kept the pace going, because he was really good at that. And I studied Stephen King. Although Burroughs wasn't that great on character, he was great on pace and adventure, and King is very good on character as well as pace. I read the same book over three times to see how it was put together. That's how I trained

How to write a female character Most female characters we see in TV and movies* are not fully fleshed out, 3D characters, but accessories for the plot or a prize for the hero.  They may have high powered jobs, or they may have mechanical knowledge, they may even find a clever way to help the plot or hero along, but by the time the credits roll they have been saved by the hero or have ended up standing just a little behind him for the glory shot. While stories have come a long way from the hero untying his future 'bedroom toy' from the railroad tracks female characters still lack that special something that would give them equal standin

Note: I wrote this after reading a similar article in The Writer magazine about a year ago.  Hope it's helpful! Not all characters are created equal.  Here are some steps to make yours superior. 1) Desire Figure out what your character wants, needs, desires.  A closer relationship with God?  A place to belong?  Just to survive?  Figure it out.  You can’t move on to number 2 until you have. 2) Fear Now that you know what your character most desires, you should be able to figure out what he/she most fears.  Doing the wrong thing, being alone, death?  They are the polar opposites of your character’s desires. 3) History Go back i

1. Know what you're writing. It's easy to get off track while you're writing. Thus it's always a good idea to know what you're writing. As soon as you have a good grasp on what your story is about, you'll find yourself writing quicker. This includes the main plot, a majority of the subplots, and where all the vital plot points are going to be. 2. Know what inspires you and stay around it. Now this doesn't mean that you should go through an entire personal evaluation. It just means to keep track of where you get inspired and what caused the inspiration. For some, it could be listening to music of some sort, while for others, it could be w

5 Tips for Establishing Character Voices Anybody Can Write a Novel   Chapter 7 “From Story to Art” – Section 9 “Speech and Voice” With Links to Supplementary Material After you finish your first draft in all of its rough, unpolished, corny, sappy, unorganized glory, you will likely note something rather disturbing about your characters. They all sound the same. And, upon further analysis, you may even discover that they all sound like you. Fear not! This is to be expected, and but another factor to be adjusted and improved in the many drafts to come. Tip 1: Annotate how each character's speech pattern differ

Don't panic. Don't blame yourself. Writer's block requires a thoughtful, logical approach. Give yourself a little grace and time to think. The first thing we tend to do when we have writer's block is to leave the book. We close the file or notebook and say we'll get to it later. Well, sometimes that works, but sometimes we still haven't touched it a week later. Or a month later. At that point things get a little worrisome. That's why I've compiled this list. 1. Try taking a walk or bike ride. Sometimes you just need the time to yourself. I know you've probably heard this before, but that's because it works. Let your mind drift to your chara

You know you're an artist when paint stains your clothes regularly, when it bothers you that you don't have an idea on what to do, when you don't need to go to a salon to get your nails done. You know you're an artist when you smile at a challenge, when you can write your own songs, they play through your mind, when you've got no need for radio, you just hum that song you designed. You know you're an artist when you create your own constellations, when your failures inspire you to push forward, when you can make yourself smile with a goofy scetch. You know you're an artist when you've got your own style, when you don't go a secon

-----Original Message----- I want to write a story. I have a couple of ideas, but no idea what to do with them, or even how to begin! Help?! -- Newbie Writer So when you wanna write a story, where do you begin? With your PASSION! Write what you KNOW & LOVE What do you KNOW, really? What do you love to Do, to Study, to Think About, to Talk About...? Whether it's cave-diving, model trains, skate-boarding, sewing, horses, mythology, ghost legends, or particle physics your passion is where you will find your most unique and powerful work. Make a list of all the things you know well and all the things you've done -- seriously! Mythology

Part one: Parts of Speech Now that you know how to use a comma and structure a quote, let’s really get our hands dirty! Because all those commas and quotes and hard stops don’t mean a thing if you have weak grammar. Grammar is huge. There’s a lot of it, so this will only be a blitz course, covering a lot in a small space. Hopefully, you already know most of it, though. Parts of Speech That’s right. We’re doing sentence diagramming in this lesson. You’re going to need to know the difference between an adjective and an adverb later on, so this seems the logical place to start. A sentence needs three things to m

12 Tips for Punctuating Sentences in Your Novel Anybody Can Write a Novel 2.0 Chapter 7 “Editing” – Section 5 “Punctuation” (Part 2 of 2. Click here for Part 1) The Dash ( — ) The dash is the secret weapon of the writing realm—particularly to the writing student who has just discovered them and vowed to never use commas again! (Please don't make this vow; and yes, I was screaming.) Writers sometimes use dashes for two of the same primary uses that commas serve—to mark additional information and to separate clauses/phrases. So why might we use a dash instead of commas or parentheses? The dash

Basic Statistics Name: Nickname: Meaning of name: Origin of name: Age: Sex: Blood type: Nationality: Ethnicity: Race: Sexual Orientation: Current status: Political Party: Police/Criminal/Legal record: Socioeconomic level as a child: Socioeconomic level as an adult: Birth date: Birth place: Current residence: Occupation: Title/Rank: Hobbies/Pastimes: Talents/Skills/Powers: Past History Hometown: First Memory: Most important childhood event that still affects him/her: Why/How? Other memories/events that still affects him/her and why/how: Past failures s/he would be embarrassed to have people know about and why: Bigg

7 Tips for Being a Responsible / Ethical Writer Anybody Can Write a Novel   Chapter 7 “From Story to Art” – Section 2 “Ethical Writing” With Links to Supplementary Material Of all the elements of storytelling, the one that sets it apart from other forms of art is the relationship between the artist and the author. Not to say that a relationship does not or cannot exist in other forms of art, only that storytelling creates a necessary long and intimate connection between the author and reader—requiring trust between the two so that the story can be told. Today I'm going to discuss the process of earning

PLEASE NOTE THAT WHILE THIS PAGE WILL REMAIN ACTIVE FOR PURPOSES OF EDUCATION AND RECORDS, IT IS OUTDATED. CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE NEWEST VERSION. 7 Steps to Creating a Great Protagonist Anybody Can Write a Novel   Chapter 3 “Characters” – Section 3 “The Protagonist” With Links to Supplementary Material So I've talked about a couple types of protagonists, and how to create them: Heroes and Antiheroes. As well as what types of Character to Use or to Avoid. But not every Protagonist will be a hero or antihero. Today, I'm going to discuss what universal attributes make a great protagonist, that will drive your

- - - - - - - - - - UPDATE for January 2020: I created this guide in 2011, so you'll have to take it with a grain of salt since dA has updated a bazillion things since then LOL. It now looks like many codes don't work in Literature submissions anymore,  (or disable the "Eclipse" version of the site and show the old site instead), so some of the demonstrations here only look like regular text.  But they should display properly if you copy/paste them in the comments.   I'm so glad to see how many of you wonderful people still utilize this resource, so I wish you the best and encourage you to go ahead and experiment to see what works and what do

It's come to my attention that, in the online amateur writing scene, no one seems to understand the proper role of characters in conjunction with plot. From what I have been able to observe, literally everyone tries to create characters outside of plot by outlining what they look like, what they eat for dinner, and what bands they absolutely abhor.  That's the law on how it's done.  The amount of "character survey sheets" containing a never-ending list of questions for prospective characters is ridiculous--and sad, because determining these things will in no way help you create a good character or, more importantly, a good story (which I def