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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 ...LiteratureAnybody 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...Literature8 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...Literature6 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...LiteratureHow to Create an Outline for Your Novel
How to Create an Outline for Your Novel Anybody Can Write a Novel 2.0 Chapter 4 “Preparing Your Plot” – Section 1 “The Outline” ( Previous Tutorial ) ( Next Tutorial ) “Plot is what happens in your story. Every story needs structure, just as every body needs a skeleton. It is how you 'flesh out and clothe' your structure that makes each story unique.” -Caroline Lawrence Of all of the topics to discuss in writing a novel, none of them inspire quite so much ire as that of outlining your story. As artists, we sometimes want to believe in the concept of absolute freedom from form and convention, and that our achievements co...Literature7 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...Literature9 Tips for Creating Your Antagonist
9 Tips for Creating Your Antagonist Anybody Can Write a Novel 2.0 Chapter 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 experience, or just a challenge in and of i...Literature10 Tips for Creating a Protagonist
10 Tips for Creating a Protagonist Anybody Can Write a Novel 2.0 Chapter 5 “Characters” – Section 2 “Protagonists” ( Previous Tutorial ) ( Next Tutorial ) “Plot is people. Human emotions and desires founded on the realities of life, working at cross purposes, getting hotter and fiercer as they strike against each other until finally there’s an explosion—that’s Plot.”—Leigh Brackett Apart from Primary and Secondary Protagonists, there are many other different protagonist characters-types that can drive a story—ranging from heroes, to villains, to antiheroes, to just normal people. Today, I'm going to discuss what universal... - Literature
Islands
Everyone lives on an island of their own ridiculous make, And no matter how insignificant they claim a much grander stake. They all shout their thoughts and reveries, their hate and anger, too, Passing judgment on each soul that dares to wander through. Their island is an empire of dime-sized majesty, Where wisdom never comes to those who look like you and me. Only in their image can a person hold some worth, Otherwise be damned and exiled back to mainland earth. So be wary where you moor your vessels in this conscious sea~ For these islands stand as prisons where no dream could e'er be free. Seek instead the larger landmasses where minds are never chained, Where the knowledge grows like fruit, to be savored as it's gained.LiteratureA Salty, Sailor's Warning
If starboard is always right, then...port is always wrong, The keel is happy and healthy as long as it doesn't start singing its song. The sails are well when tied or full but never in a storm, Steer clear of reef and rock and take 'er straight when rogue waves form. Be still in waters made of glass, let fired mornings tether~ Your worries to the anchor as you wait for fairer weather. In crimson sunsets seek the light and venture forth 'til morning, And rememeber all I've told you as a salty, sailor's warning.LiteratureBlack Dreams (Mares of Night)
On subtle waves of inference, On tones of hot and cold. Within the tug of impotence~ And all that's not been told. On tides of weary, chapped forlorn, Within the night of mare. To seize the tendrils, flayed and torn, Of all that you would dare. And on the waves keep coming through, The darkness seeks to roar. A wailing rot of roots that you~ Must battle towards the shore And on those waves of inference, Through drowning wrought of scheme. The embrace only means as much~ As darkness in your dreams. So charge you through the tempest, now, Take rein in reveled flight~ And with your rancor seek to cow~ These blackest mares of night. No beast or shade can stop you, here, No snare of terror's make. No thought will witness tones of fear, When dark, nighthorses break. In you will live tenacity, A blaze of truer shade. And in the firelight you'll see~ Those mares of shadow fade.LiteraturePaper Shaper
In the subtlest of poetry my paper speaks to me, Telling all it wonders at and what it seeks to be. Each line is proof of its existence well beyond the page, Each error stoking wisdom wrapped within the words of rage. For each task is an argument, each sketch a tempered thought, With each their own philosophy and purpose to be sought. They tell me what they long to be and all they long to do, Their messages as clear as any words I'd hear from you. So leave me be when I am fully focused on the art, Since before its full completion I must rip it all apart. Once, twice, thrice - again - abandoned or completed? I'll know when I can finally catch the images it seeded. So do not worry as I speak and argue with the paper, It only seeks to stubbornly rebel against its shaper. But in the understanding and the compromise we measure~ Come the shapes I need to finally see the sun through all the weather.LiteratureWorth
Introspection and recollection, So much to say and do. But never will these words fulfill~ The lack of worth in you. For inception of perception, This will seek to lure and stray. Making lullaby a trade to ply~ Of all it steals away. So find confidence in all that hence~ Becomes a law to learn. Make tranquility your harmony~ And anger fuel to burn. For introspection bears inflection~ Which will twist and turn the sound. Wield prosperity in clarity~ And your worth will then be found.LiteratureThoughts: Fiction Writers
Fiction writers, I think, like scientists, simply want to learn. We want to know and see and understand - all things - not just because we want to constantly grow but rather because at any point in time we can have a character take us down a very unexpected path. I never know what I might be writing for, that day. A doctor? A physicist? A priest? A bull breeder? An entomologist? A homeless, ex-veteran? I never know and because I can never know, I can never stop learning because unlike the doctor and the physicist and the priest and the bull breeder and the entomologist and the homeless, ex-veteran...I'm a fiction writer and I need to be able to convince a WIDE audience of people I'm ALL of those things. Never forget how much work is put into creating believable fiction. Our hearts and souls dwell here.LiteratureIf I Were Somewhere Far Away
If I were somewhere far away, past pull of Galaxie, Would you possess the strength of heart to come and set me free…?For once I’ve traveled far enough, my mind will start again, A sheltered thing with just enough to recognize a friend.And if you did your touch would bring a surge of more to know, Reminders of the pasts we’ve shared, above and still below. Would you still want this entity once all is said and done?Will the distance traveled leave us borne of Moon or Sun?I don’t think that it will matter, then, our Fates will be our own, Nowhere to run, from this point on, as seeds are now regrown.In you – in this – that single second wrought of Dreams and Space,In you is all the strength I need to leave the challenge faced.If I were somewhere far away, past threads of Destiny,I know you’d come on wings of light to mend my memory.And so it is to you I pledge: my Hart, my Mynd, my Sol;Now confident in knowing that this is my place and role.LiteratureThe Man and the Satyr
There was a day of brisk and bitter wind which roamed the land, Which chilled a pair upon the road, a satyr and a man. So frigid was the bitter wind, so cold was its embrace~ That the man took both his hands and cupped them well about his face. Air he blew upon them; the satyr now confused, He paused to ask his friend, to give the floating question muse: "What do you do, my friend?" He inquired with intent, The man removing both his hands to chuckle and relent: "I'm warming them, my good sir, so bitter is this cold, That the heat upon my breath is proving worth far more than gold!" They both laughed and continued, carried through the snow and loam, To a sheltered, wooded burrow that the satyr called his home. There he made them porridge of a sweetened oat and grain, And once more the man brought article to lip to blow, again. Perplexed and bewildered, the satyr spoke and flicked an ear, "Your porridge should be hot enough to boil, yet and sear!" But the man just started laughing - Literature
reasons to love a shy girl
i. men fear strong women, but she's far from strong. this wisp of a girl doesn't even need a hurricane to fall apart. she'd glued and re-glued, old bonds wearing thin, but if you ask politely, she'll let you touch her scars.ii. her lips are fettered in rusted chains. you'd need a crowbar to pry up her whispered secrets. you are not worthy to hear her voice just as she is not worthy to give it to you. she told me everything she knows, and i shut it away, kept it safe. i tied the threads into double knots just to make sure they wouldn't curl away from me, twisted up like a dead spider's legs.iii. she is hewn from shadow, woven from grains of...
Literaturepain
you're disgusting. i hope you know that every time you show your face, i cringe, collapse into rage.you flay my body with cutting board scissors and laugh at the sight of my blood. it's everywhere, staining everything. my clothes are ruined, splotched with your dirty curse. i can't ignore you when you're so persistent, grinding me like coffee beans to grit beneath your boots.i'm a shipwreck. you're the bottom of the ocean, suffocating everything. i collapse into bathroom stalls like a rag doll, falling on my knees and begging for mercy.you're the reason i have medication. i swallow pill after pill, but they don't let me forget you. i feel ...Literaturenever become a writer
i. never become a writer. you will become a perfectionist, picking life apart with a magpie's eye, hunting for the beautiful bits until you can make yourself a sparkling throne in the center of a junkyard. ii. you will write when you're sad. you will write when you're happy. whenever you feel something, you will vomit the emotion out into some sort of literature. when you're finished, you'll be empty and surrounded by pages and pages of everything you once were. iii. you will try to make pain sound delicious, painting over the ragged wounds with pink paint and candy-coat lies.you will learn how to decorate graveyards. everyone will pla...Literaturethis is a warning.
i. The first thing you need to know about people is this: we're shitty. ii. If you cut off our head, we will grow two in its place. We will divide and conquer until there's nothing left but tiny gaping mouths, clacking and salivating at the crumbs of an empire. iii. They tell me hurt is like a paper cut: quick and forgotten, forgotten.They're wrong.Hurt is the first step off a balcony, the first gasp in a chain reaction screaming from the railing to beyond the pavement.When I finally hit the ground, I looked up and saw my halo dangling from the edge, dented. iv. We cycle. He said, she said, I wanted, he lost, she won, I ruined this, I bro...Literatureto the woman who drowned herself in the bathtub.
i. to the woman who drowned herself in the bathtub: in the magazine I own that published your story, they blurred out the crime scene photographs, erasing your face and the full curves of your breasts. some part of me wonders if you would have wanted this, or if you would have liked for the public to see you in your final moments, half-soaked in grey-looking water, your hair in strings, glued to the porcelain, eyes closed and mouth gaping, no breath stirring, no bubbles rising.ii. sometimes when I look into the depths of my bathroom sink, I hear your voice (or what I imagine it to be-- after all, we never met).you sit on the edge of the t...Literaturefive second suicide
and as i pour myself out on these canvases i drip over the edges, spilling dots of absence on the hungry earth. they call me jane doe, and i am not art.every evening, i close the door, close my eyes, disassemble. slowly, i've become fleeting. i float, my feet don't touch the ground. how can i crash? i fade, i dissolve, but i've lost the motive to explode. there's no glory in my death; i leave no trace of the dramatic.a man on the train last tuesday nudged me, apologized, and carried on his way. he's the last person who's spoken to me since then. we hit a notch in the tracks, the car wobbled. i stared at him silently, counting the infinite ...
