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 t

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 conve

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