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9 Steps for Adding Genuine Depth to Your Story by DesdemonaDeBlake, literature
Literature
9 Steps for Adding Genuine Depth to Your Story
9 Steps for Adding Genuine Depth to Your Story
(Or Ridding Your Story of Pseudo-depth)
When writing a story, one of the most important aspects to the writer will be the themes. In other words, the message you want to tell the world through your characters, plot, and struggles. However, even stories with a good message often fail on a number of levels, or else try to be deep but come off sounding ridiculous. Today, I'm going to talk about how to create genuine depth in the themes, characters, and dialogue of your story, without turning it into a sermon.
Step 1: Focus on the story and perfect it, long before you worry about the themes.
Th
8 Tips for Writing Dialogue for your Characters by DesdemonaDeBlake, literature
Literature
8 Tips for Writing Dialogue for your Characters
8 Tips for Writing Dialogue for your Characters
Anybody Can Write a Novel
Chapter 5 “Choosing and Designing Characters” – Section 4 “Dialogue”
With Links to Supplementary Material
Dialogue is a tricky topic, and for two key reasons. The first is that creating realistic dialogue is a difficult skill to master—even in day-to-day life—without speech coming out plastic, pointless, or otherwise unconvincing. The second problem is that the proper dialogue for your story is deeply rooted within the other elements—the characters, the setting, the genre, etc... Because of this, writing dialogue tha
11 Tips for Romance in Your Novel by DesdemonaDeBlake, literature
Literature
11 Tips for Romance in Your Novel
11 Tips for Romance in Your Novel
Anybody Can Write a Novel 2.0 Chapter 2 “Genres” – Section 2 “Romance”
(Previous Tutorial) (Next Tutorial)
“I always think the most romantic books or films are the ones where the romance doesn't happen, because it makes your heart ache so much watching it.”
-Natalie Portman
Within the genre of romance, as well as every other genre of fiction, one finds love stories. Love is enough of a universal human experience, that it can happen within the context of any type of story. It draws reader attention, unlike any other topic. However, the world of lite
10 Requirements for Writing a Publishable Novel by DesdemonaDeBlake, literature
Literature
10 Requirements for Writing a Publishable Novel
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.
10 Requirements for Writing a Publishable Novel
Today, I would like to announce a project that I hope all of you will be as excited to be a part of as I am. As you all know, my writing guides and tutorials have been rather random, as I was still testing the waters of the internet. I wanted to know if anyone could possibly be interested in what I had to say about the craft of writing, and I was overjoyed to see all of your enthusiasm. And so, I would like to announce that I will be shifting gears
Anybody Can Write a Novel - Outline by DesdemonaDeBlake, literature
Literature
Anybody Can Write a Novel - Outline
Anybody Can Write A Novel - Outline
A Step-by-step Guide for Anyone to Learn How to Write a Novel
This is an Outline of all my current articles, and a look at what is to come. I will try to update it, at least once every two weeks. Also note that just because something is absent from the Outline does not mean I don't plan to write it. This is a compilation of only chapters that have already been written.
(You'll notice that I have neglected some points and chapters within this Outline. This this is simply a result of realizing that there is so much to learn, when it comes to writing. Don't worry, I'll be sure to come back and fill in the g
8 Tips for Composing Each Chapter of Your Novel by DesdemonaDeBlake, literature
Literature
8 Tips for Composing Each Chapter of Your Novel
8 Tips for Composing Each Chapter of Your Novel
Anybody Can Write a Novel 2.0 Chapter 7 “Editing” – Section 1 “The Chapter”
“Many first-time novelists end up rewriting their first two or three chapters, trying to get them 'just right.' But the point of the first draft is not to get it right; it's to get it written - so that you'll have something to work with.”
-Matt Hughes
Recently, we've been working on all of the plot-points contained within a story and what function they serve to the overall plot. And if you've been following along with the “Write-A-Novel” exercises, and writte
7 Steps for Choosing Your Story's Narrator by DesdemonaDeBlake, literature
Literature
7 Steps for Choosing Your Story's Narrator
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 for Choosing Your Story's Narrator
Anybody Can Write a Novel
Chapter 3 “Characters” – Section 8 “The Narrator”
With Links to Supplementary Material
All stories are told by a character in your story—whether you know it or not. Now, it could be that your story is told through the eyes of some sort of god or spirit or unknown invisible force, but there is some sort of being that must be present in order to know and tell of the events that transpired.
7 Steps to Creating a Great Protagonist by DesdemonaDeBlake, literature
Literature
7 Steps to Creating a Great Protagonist
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
8 Tips for Writing Your Story's Epilogue by DesdemonaDeBlake, literature
Literature
8 Tips for Writing Your Story's Epilogue
8 Tips for Writing Your Story's Epilogue
Anybody Can Write a Novel 2.0 Chapter 6 “Plot Points” – Section 12 “Epilogue”
“A true epilogue is removed from the story in time or space. That's the reason it is called an 'Epilogue'; the label serves to alert the reader that the story itself is over, but we are going to now see a distant result or consequence of that story.”
-Nancy Kress
The most basic element of a story are the efforts of a protagonist to reach a goal, to fight the antagonistic forces that prevents him/her from reaching that goal, and to either achieve it or fail. By the end of the
6 Tips for Creating Paragraphs in Your Novel by DesdemonaDeBlake, literature
Literature
6 Tips for Creating Paragraphs in Your Novel
6 Tips for Creating Paragraphs in Your Novel
Anybody Can Write a Novel 2.0 Chapter 7 “Editing” – Section 2 “The Paragraph”
“I will try to cram these paragraphs full of facts and give them a weight and shape no greater than that of a cloud of blue butterflies.”
-Brendan Gill
Once you have completed a first draft that is broken down by carefully constructed plot-points and chapter breaks, the next element you need to look at is the paragraph. Think of paragraphs as the glue by which you hold the sentences, which form your story, into cohesive and unified ideas. The difficulty, however, is that
7 Tips for Adjusting Your Story's Pace by DesdemonaDeBlake, literature
Literature
7 Tips for Adjusting Your Story's Pace
7 Tips for Adjusting Your Story's Pace
Anybody Can Write a Novel
Chapter 7 “From Story to Art” – Section 11 “Pacing”
With Links to Supplementary Material
Have you ever received or given criticism for a story being too rapid and confusing or too slow and boring? Perhaps you had a specific scene that you just couldn't get to fit right with the epic scene that followed. When writers find these issues, it is very often a problem of incorrect pacing in the text. The speed at which the reader perceived the story was simply not working to make the timing work to create a dynamic experience. Today, I'm going to tal
9 Tips for Creating Your Antagonist by DesdemonaDeBlake, literature
Literature
9 Tips for Creating Your Antagonist
9 Tips for Creating Your Antagonist
Anybody Can Write a Novel 2.0Chapter 5 “Characters” – Section 3 “Antagonists”
(Previous Tutorial) (Next Tutorial)
“You don't really understand an antagonist until you understand why he's a protagonist in his own version of the world.”
-John Rogers
Whether the obstacle that stands in the way of your protagonist is an evil person, a person of just another philosophical belief, a person with a contradicting goal, a force of nature, a force of the supernatural, a monster, an emotion, an exper
6 Tips for Sentence Creation in Your Novel -Part 2 by DesdemonaDeBlake, literature
Literature
6 Tips for Sentence Creation in Your Novel -Part 2
6 Tips for Sentence Creation in Your Novel -- Part 2 of 2
Anybody Can Write a Novel 2.0Chapter 7 “Editing” – Section 3 “The Sentence”
Click here for Part 1 (file size was too large)
Tip 3: Consider the effects of sentence lengths.
Similar to how the lengths of chapters and paragraphs will change the way that your audience reads your story, sentence lengths will have a similar effect. The difference is that, unless you plan on writing constant run-on sentences (please don't) or are planning on writing literature for small children (elementary-school age) you don't need to worry about your sentences tiring people
5 Tips for Establishing Character Voices by DesdemonaDeBlake, literature
Literature
5 Tips for Establishing Character Voices
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
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7 Tips For Writing Action Scenes by DesdemonaDeBlake, literature
Literature
7 Tips For Writing Action Scenes
7 Tips For Writing Action Scenes
Anybody Can Write a Novel
Chapter 7 “From Story to Art” – Section 7 “Action Scenes”
With Links to Supplementary Material
Action scenes in a novel are a difficult tool to master, but well worth the time and effort to create dramatic an memorable scenes that will engage and entertain your readers. To pull them off effectively, you must be able to keep a quick yet varied pace, keep a tight focus, reflect your story, and make it all quick and crisp. Today, I'm going to give you a starting-point for honing your skills in this method of storytelling.
Tip 1: Create a visible plane
5 Tips for Increasing Dramatic Tension in Writing by DesdemonaDeBlake, literature
Literature
5 Tips for Increasing Dramatic Tension in Writing
5 Tips for Increasing Dramatic Tension in Your Writing
Anybody Can Write a Novel
Chapter 7 “From Story to Art” – Section 7 “Rules, Limits, and Stacking the Odds”
With Links to Supplementary Material
If you've got a draft of a story or a story in mind, sooner or later you will begin to realize that you might want a certain quality—a certain epic intensity that you've seen and experiences with books and movies that keep you on the edge of your seat with tremulous excitement, and then makes you feel like your mind has been blown after you are finished. But wait! Doesn't Shyamalan try to make his movies e
dA Guide: Text Formatting by SweetDuke, literature
Literature
dA Guide: Text Formatting
- - - - - - - - - -
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
Male!Queen of Hearts/Reader - Painted Hearts (2/2) by MiyuxTheNobody, literature
Literature
Male!Queen of Hearts/Reader - Painted Hearts (2/2)
Male!Queen of Hearts/Reader – Painted Hearts
(Queen of Hearts – King of Hearts) (Alice – Alex) (Cheshire has been humanized in this)
(This is entirely the original animated Disney version of the Queen of Hearts and not any other adaption.)
♥--------♛--------♥
The first day was exhausting to say the least. Frederick had kept you on your toes as he dished out a variety of different practices to teach you with that were all either pointless or obnoxious, usually both. It was now the third day you had been in Wonderland and the week was going by incredibly fast. Today you had more lessons with the king to much
8 Steps to Writing Your Story's Epilogue by DesdemonaDeBlake, literature
Literature
8 Steps to Writing Your Story's Epilogue
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.
8 Steps to Writing Your Story's Epilogue
Anybody Can Write a Novel
Chapter 4 “Plot Points” – Section 11 “The Epilogue
With Links to Supplementary Material
This is the final plot-point of your story, after the conclusion in your Climax. This is a sad and yet proud moment for me... like seeing you all graduate *wipes tear from the corner of my eye. But then again, we still have quite a few more chapters on various topics before we're finished. Feel free to visit the Gu
Do Not Change by winter-unseelie, literature
Literature
Do Not Change
The beast was close, he heard it with his acute senses, he felt how it stomped on the ground. And he felt the scent. Blood. Fresh, just spilled blood. He would find it even more energizing, if not urVa’s feelings slipping through the mind’s connection they had. urVa felt revolted and he felt that too, that cold rage, that anger. But he was sure he would not trade his counterpart’s company for any pleasure he felt when blood was hot and his talons were stained with it. urVa was giving him his vital essence, enfolding his body with an invisible net made of assured courage, and stoic strength, hard as stone. He jumped on the tree faster than the urru’s eye could follow. urVa didn’t try to climb after him, even if he could do it, easily. He relied on skekMal’s eyes and skill. The Hunter chuckled darkly. “These gelfling were really stupid. To go on such a well-armed animal without any support.” “That creature was bringing them harm for almost an unum, skekMal” urVa said calmly.
