6 Tips for Creating Your Story's Timeline by DesdemonaDeBlake, literature
Literature
6 Tips for Creating Your Story's Timeline
6 Tips for Creating Your Story's Timeline Anybody Can Write a Novel 2.0 Chapter 3 “World Building” – Section 1 “History” ( Previous Tutorial ) ( Next Tutorial ) “Man is explicable by nothing less than all his history. Without hurry, without rest, the human spirit goes forth from the beginning to embody every faculty, every thought, every emotion, which belongs to it in appropriate events.”-Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essay I, History From the events which take place in your novel, to the culture of the people groups present, to the attitudes present in the characters, to the nature of the cosmos and the natural consequences...
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 that is custom fitted to your story, requires adjus...
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PLEASE NOTE THAT WHILE THIS PAGE WILL REMAIN ACTIVE FOR PURPOSES OF EDUCATION AND RECORDS, IT IS OUTDATED.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 story forward. Remem...
8 Tips for Describing a Story Setting by DesdemonaDeBlake, literature
Literature
8 Tips for Describing a Story Setting
8 Tips for Describing a Story Setting Anybody Can Write a Novel Chapter 3 “World Building” – Section 3“Describing Settings” With Links to Supplementary Material Another tricky skill to master in writing is setting description. Setting description is often the first thing that a reader encounters in a story, making it an essential skill to perfect if you want to hook your readers. To make matters more complicated, it is often difficult to calculate the right amount of description in settings—too much or too little can either leave the reader bored, overwhelmed, or confused. Today, I'm going to talk about how to create engaging and approp...
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...
4 Tips for Creating Universe Filler Characters by DesdemonaDeBlake, literature
Literature
4 Tips for Creating Universe Filler Characters
4 Tips for Creating Universe Filler Characters Anybody Can Write a Novel 2.0 Chapter 5 “Characters” – Section 5 “Filler” ( Previous Tutorial ) ( Next Tutorial ) “Respect your characters, even the minor ones. In art, as in life, everyone is the hero of their own particular story; it is worth thinking about what your minor characters' stories are, even though they may intersect only slightly with your protagonist's.”-Sarah Waters Every character that your audience encounters adds a spice to your story and your world. There is no such thing as a character that exists in a vacuum which does not affect anything around it; even tho...
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 of space to work within. Blak...
14 Tips for Writing an Essay by DesdemonaDeBlake, literature
Literature
14 Tips for Writing an Essay
14 Tips for Writing an Essay NOT Anybody Can Write a Novel Chapter Infinite “Life Skillz” – Section 1 “Essays” So you've likely clicked on this in pure disbelief, wondering “what sort of witchery is this? Blake writes novel tutorials, not essays!” Well... mostly true. This is indeed not witchery, nor the start of a new series (we still need to finish our Novel after all); but an outline for a small public speaking event that I've got scheduled at MSU on the topic of how to write an essay. You see, when I was learning how to write, I was never taught how to write a good essay, that there was a correct format, or that there was a way...
6 Tips for Creating Character Motivation by DesdemonaDeBlake, literature
Literature
6 Tips for Creating Character Motivation
6 Tips for Creating Character Motivation Anybody Can Write a Novel 2.0 Chapter 5 “Characters” – Section 12 “Motivation” ( Previous Tutorial ) ( Next Tutorial ) “Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.” -Plato I've found that character motivation seems to categorize people into two groups—those for who it comes naturally and those who need to put conscious effort into it. Some people get it without even thinking about what they're doing, while others need to make a plan. Neither group is necessarily better at writing than the other, it's just an interesting dividing point among us that allo...
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 Climax, it should be clear whether your...
4 Tips for Attaining Realism in Fiction by DesdemonaDeBlake, literature
Literature
4 Tips for Attaining Realism in Fiction
4 Tips for Attaining Realism in Fiction Chapter 8 “From Story to Art” – Section 6 “Realism" Anybody Can Write a Novel 2.0 “The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.”-Tom Clancy When I was in college, I had a professor who explained to me the virtue of embellishing a story when telling it to others for the sake of entertainment. He explained that when you tell someone something that happens to you, it will always be more dull than it was when you were actually there. And since the purpose of telling someone a story like that is their own personal enjoyment, it is important to embellish it enough so that the...
7 Tips for Introducing Your Characters by DesdemonaDeBlake, literature
Literature
7 Tips for Introducing Your Characters
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/writer relationship. The writer, in this ...
5 Steps to Creating Great Supporting Characters by DesdemonaDeBlake, literature
Literature
5 Steps to Creating Great Supporting Characters
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.5 Steps to Creating Great Supporting Characters
Anybody Can Write a Novel Chapter 3 “Characters” – Section 4 “The Antagonist” With Links to Supplementary Material With your Protagonist and Antagonist up and ready to go, you are now ready to create your Supporting Characters. These are the people in your story who show up multiple times and play an important role in the plot—not to be confused with Universe Filler Characters, who may only show up once. The following is a step by ste...
8 Tips for Becoming Self-motivated to Write by DesdemonaDeBlake, literature
Literature
8 Tips for Becoming Self-motivated to Write
8 Tips for Becoming Self-motivated to Write Anybody Can Write a Novel Chapter 1 “Beginning to Write” – Section 4 “Self-Discipline” With Links to Supplementary Material I've talked before about dealing with writer's block, and different techniques for conquering it. But how do we write diligently and with self-motivation, given the overwhelming amount of distraction around us and the difficulty in becoming self-motivated? Today, I'm going to give some of the strategies that I have found to help me the most, so that you can try them or even modify them to fit your own personal strengths and vulnerabilities. Tip 1: Identify the problem. T...
6 Tips for Mapping a Fictional World by DesdemonaDeBlake, literature
Literature
6 Tips for Mapping a Fictional World
6 Tips for Mapping a Fictional World Anybody Can Write a Novel 2.0 Chapter 3 “World Building” – Section 2 “Maps” ( Previous Tutorial ) ( Next Tutorial ) “I wisely started with a map, and made the story fit (generally with meticulous care for distances). The other way about lands one in confusions and impossibilities, and in any case it is weary work to compose a map from a story.” - J.R.R. Tolkien If you've ever read or written a story that seemed unintentionally ethereal—where the descriptions did not paint a vivid picture of the setting but instead a more vague dreamscape that the characters meandered along aimlessly—th...
6 Steps to Creating Your Plot Premise by DesdemonaDeBlake, literature
Literature
6 Steps to Creating Your Plot Premise
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.6 Steps to Creating Your Plot Premise Anybody Can Write a Novel Chapter 2 “Creating a Plot” – Section 1 “Plot Premise” Unlike what I once thought, plot is not a natural result of telling a story. Plot, like all other parts of writing, is a craft that must be studied and then designed with purpose. That being said, there are many different ways that one creates a plot—and countless theories as to how they can be created with the most efficiency. Over the next few weeks, I'm going to teach y...
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 talk about the fine-tuning proces...
6 Tips for Creating an Antivillain by DesdemonaDeBlake, literature
Literature
6 Tips for Creating an Antivillain
6 Tips for Creating an Anti-villain Anybody Can Write a Novel 2.0 Chapter 5 “Characters” – Section 3.2 “Anti-villains” ( Previous Tutorial ) ( Next Tutorial ) Adrian Veidt :
“I know I've struggled across the backs of murdered innocents to save humanity … but someone had to take the weight of that awful necessary crime [...]”
Jon Osterman :
“[..] I understand, without condoning … or condemning.”“Watchmen” by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons The final character type in the circle of heroes, anti-heroes, and villains is the anti-villain. This is the antagonist who seeks to thwart the hero for ethical, selfless, or idealistic r...
15 Tips for Writing Your Story's Third Draft by DesdemonaDeBlake, literature
Literature
15 Tips for Writing Your Story's Third Draft
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. 15 Tips for Writing Your Story's Third Draft Anybody Can Write a Novel Chapter 8 “Editing” – Section 2 “Editing the Second Draft” With Links to Supplementary Material Several months ago, I wrote an article about Editing and Rewriting your Story's First Draft , and today I am writing an article for editing the subsequent draft. You may be spitting your coffee and jack at the computer screen, and telling me that I am not done with story genres, yet! Very true... and I'm sorry for the mes...
6 Tips for Sentence Creation in Your Novel -Part 1 by DesdemonaDeBlake, literature
Literature
6 Tips for Sentence Creation in Your Novel -Part 1
6 Tips for Sentence Creation in Your Novel -- Part 1 of 2 Anybody Can Write a Novel 2.0 Chapter 7 “Editing” – Section 3 “The Sentence” Click here for Part 2 (file size was too large) “I rearrange a sentence many times before moving on to the next one. For me, that editing process feels like a form of play, like a puzzle that needs solving, and it's one of the most satisfying parts of writing.”
-Karen Thompson Walker Once you have placed emphasis in studying, designing, and formatting your plot-points, chapters, paragraphs, the next unit on your list is the sentence. The composition and arrangement of a sentence is a tricky skill to mas...
4 Tips for Choosing Your POV Character by DesdemonaDeBlake, literature
Literature
4 Tips for Choosing Your POV Character
4 Tips for Choosing Your POV Character Anybody Can Write a Novel 2.0 Chapter 5 “Characters” – Section 8 “POV Characters” ( Previous Tutorial ) ( Next Tutorial )
"He looked like a man cut away from the stake, when the fire has overrunningly wasted all the limbs without consuming them, or taking away one particle from their compacted aged robustness...."-Herman Melville in "Moby Dick" Last time, we spoke about every story has a narrator, and about how to create the narrator that will tell your story. If you have decided to write with a narrator who is not an actual character in the story, you now need one last character whose...
10 Tips for Writing Fantasy by DesdemonaDeBlake, literature
Literature
10 Tips for Writing Fantasy
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 Tips for Writing Fantasy Anybody Can Write a Novel Chapter 1 “Genres” – Section 2 “Fantasy” With Links to Supplementary Material As you might have noticed from the Outline , my section on Story Genres is rather bare. And so during the following few weeks, I will be remedying that—starting with fantasy. I have written quite a bit of fantasy—especially mixed within other genres. But more than that, I have read both excellent and profoundly horrible examples of fantasy. Today, I'm going...
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 written a chapter for every plot-point, you now have a co...
6 Tips for Creating Supporting Characters by DesdemonaDeBlake, literature
Literature
6 Tips for Creating Supporting Characters
6 Tips for Creating Supporting Characters Anybody Can Write a Novel 2.0 Chapter 5 “Characters” – Section 4 “Supporting Types” ( Previous Tutorial ) ( Next Tutorial )
“Although my heart may be weak, it's not alone. It's grown with each new experience. And it's found a home with all the friends I've made. I've become a part of their heart, just as they've become a part of mine.” --Sora (protagonist of Kingdom Hearts ) Great stories are hardly ever about only a hero or a villain who fight obsessively to the bitter end. In a great story, there is an entire world of characters who not only love, fight, support, challenge, teach ...
