World Building 101 World Building 101 by Lee Masterson You are the ultimate creator of your fictional world. No matter where or when your story is set, regardless of what events unfold, and despite the characters you introduce to your readers, they are all products of your unique imagination. "But I write romance set in the present time," I hear you cry. It doesn't matter whether your story is set in 16th century Middle Europe, or the 28th century Altarian star-system, your story still belongs in a world created entirely by you. The good news is you still get your chance to put on your megalomaniac's hat and play God! Regardless of where (or when) your story is set, YOU have decided your characters' destinies for them. But there's a whole lot more to world-building than simply creating a nice backdrop for your characters to parade against. In short, the fictional world your characters live in must seem plausible to your readers. Ask yourself these things about your characters and your story: -
It's Not What They Say... by Mary Cook In fiction writing it's the dialogue that lifts your characters off the page. You must ensure your writing is strong enough for the task. It's not what they say; it's the way they say it Speech has a natural rhythm, like music. Try reading aloud some dialogue from a novel or short story, tapping out the rhythm as you go. You can tell a lot about a character by his verbal mannerisms. One person might use "you know" a great deal, while another opens nearly every sentence with "Well". Punctuation is almost as important as the words. Punctuation is also important from a style point of view. Don't use the exclamation point too freely. You can learn a lot about realistic dialogue by eavesdropping on other people's conversations. Don't be tempted to write with a regional accent by introducing strange spellings. Anyone who has read Somerset Maugham's Liza of Lambeth will know what I mean. It's not what they say; it's whom they say it to It's not what they say; it's what they don't say
Elements of Writing: Point of View | Andi Marquette Originally posted September 17, 2008 Hi, all. Thought I’d actually start doing some stuff related to writing over here. So let’s talk a bit about fiction writing and point o’ view (POV). Wanna know more? POV is just what it sounds like. First person central: The main character (MC) is told with the “I” pronoun. I grabbed the frying pan and smacked the hell out of the intruder. Third person central ["limited"]: The MC is told with a she/he/it pronoun and with the character’s name. Tanya grabbed the frying pan and smacked the hell out of the intruder. Third person omniscient: There’s an all-seeing narrator, hovering overhead, who describes each scene as it might unfold in a movie. Tanya grabbed the frying pan and brought it down as hard as she could onto the intruder’s skull. There’s also what’s called “second person”: MC is told with second-person pronoun (“you”). Let’s now think a bit about what a POV can do for you, your characters, and your plot. Want a little more info? Like this:
Quick Story Idea Generator Stories The theme of this story: dark quest. The main characters: unbalanced hero and humble secret agent. The theme of this story: light-hearted horror. The theme of this story: metaphorical adventure. The theme of this story: noir slice-of-life. The theme of this story: parody revenge. The theme of this story: serious adventure. The theme of this story: surreal romance. The theme of this story: wacky slice-of-life. The theme of this story: weird revenge. The theme of this story: weird thriller. Handling a Cast of Thousands - Part I: Getting to Know Your Characters by Will Greenway Few writing challenges are greater than doing justice to a large cast of characters in a novel or story. In fact, the difference between simply doing them justice and handling them well is a significant level of effort in itself. Sadly, this is one of those writer conundrums that is often best resolved with a "Don't do that if it hurts" solution. If having too many characters is causing a headache -- then don't have so many characters! Getting a grip on your cast Cast members are reoccurring characters who are pivotal to your story. Aside from your main cast, there will be supporting roles, and often dozens of walk-on or cameo characters. Least significant, but always necessary, are walk-ons and cameos. Because of the limited time these characters spend in the frame, writers tend to make them more exotic, giving them odd quirks or ticks in order to make them interesting. Beware of "extras" with aspirations of star status. Casting couch -- criteria for success Read More:
Elements of Writing: Headhopping | Andi Marquette Originally posted Oct. 8, 2008 Greetings, all. Thanks for stopping by. I tend to be a little ol’ skool in some ways in that when I write POV, I stick to one person’s POV (one person’s head) at a time. So come on down and let’s have a chat about it, yeah? Now, to be clear, there’s nothing intrinsically WRONG with headhopping. I’m also an editor. 1) it can defuse a build-up of tension, especially in genre and even romantic fiction, because your reader knows everything that’s happening, even things the MC (main character) doesn’t know. and 2) it can create some confusion and awkward dialogue if you, the author, are trying to do that conversation between, say, three people in a room and you keep jumping into everybody’s head, which means you might have to resort to using names in dialogue, which doesn’t really make sense. and then 3) it can actually work against you if, say, you’re writing a murder mystery (a type of genre fiction). So let’s have a look at something that has headhopping:
Random Book Title Generator Hit a button to share with your friends Brought to You in League With... Leave a message for ANY other driver in the world, check your messages too! So funnny you'll ROFL, maybe PYP The best Comedic Wit in the world Put on your 3D Glasses & freak out! Random Movie Plot Script Generator Eye & Brain Melting Optical Illusions Your IP Address, spoken for the lazy Virtual Reality 3D Face Generator Other Sites & Ppl We Like Ripper's Oculus RiftVideo of the DaySausage DoggieNissan Figaro BlogUK Thunderstorm DetectorUK Bank Holiday DatesToy RayGun CollectorCool GadgetsUKDad Ukulele BlogWebcam DatabaseBaby Name DatabasaeHairyfriend Pet InfoBy Penny - jewellery from photos Web Resources for Developing Characters When developing characters, many writers use personality traits that they see in themselves and in others, such as friends, family and celebrities. A new source of material and information that can help you develop characters is the Internet. The Internet offers some unique resources for character development, such as psychological testing websites, baby name databases and other reference sites and databases. These websites certainly weren't created for writers developing characters; nevertheless, these site are extremely useful for writers. This article will help you locate some of these useful resources, and give you some tips about how you can use them to develop your own characters. Psychological Resources Psychological websites can help writers learn the underlying principles of behavior that motivate or cause people to act as they do. Biography Resources Biography resources can be a great help to writers. Naming Characters Other Resources Developing Characters
What's Wrong With a First-person Narrator on September 20th, 2012 by Fiction Editor Beth Hill and last modified on September 19, 2012 Did you know that stories with first-person narration face a curse? It’s not that every story told in the first person falls under the curse, but a great many manuscripts, especially those of first-time novelists, flirt with it. What kind of curse, you may be asking. Many of the first-person manuscripts I see start off as tales and remain as tales rather than turn into novels. I lived in a small village. And these kinds of things happened to me . . . I wanted to do great exploits, but my family, my village, my circumstances held me back. Such stories go on for paragraphs, maybe for pages, maybe for chapters, simply telling us about the lead character’s life. Our narrator speaks, or rather thinks, but just as a disembodied voice. We don’t see the wise woman at a specific moment in time. And what of the narrator? Once upon a time, I . . . He might not actually say once upon a time. A comparison?
Setting of a story — The Writer’s Craft The following exercises will allow you to create a rich, vibrant setting of a story, giving the reader the full vicarious experience. 1. Use the setting worksheet we have provided. Sit in a quiet place, close your eyes and imagine a particular setting for your scene. Using all of your senses visualize or experience everything that you see, hear, smell, taste, or touch. Make notes in the appropriate boxes. 2. You can do this in any setting-—the mall, the grocery store, a bar, a city street. 3. 4. 5. 6. Character ExercisesCreative Writing Exercises
Tami Cowden | Author I am happy to say that The Complete Writers’ Guide to Heroes and Heroines is now available on Kindle! And even better – so is Fallen Heroes: Sixteen Master Villain Archetypes! What are the Sixteen Master Archetypes? The word "archetype" was coined by Carl Jung, who theorized that humans have a collective unconscious, "deposits of the constantly repeated experiences of humanity.... a kind of readiness to reproduce over and over again the same or similar mythical ideas...." This shared memory of experiences has resulted in a resonance of the concepts of hero and heroine that transcends time, place and culture. The observations my coauthors and I made are that there are recurring character types who have starred in story after story, entertaining and informing the human experience for millennia. At his or her core, every well-defined hero or heroine is one of the respective archetypes. But beware when trying to decide what archetypal family to which a character belongs. Top
How to Write the Male Point of View I’ve got a release coming out in September called Wasteland. It’s written in first person, male point of view. You might be thinking, But you’re a chick, how can you write male point of view? I guess we’ll find out if you think I can write the male point of view effectively after my book releases, won’t we? ☺ Guest column by Lynn Rush, author of Wasteland (Sept. 2011; Crescent Moon Press), a paranormal romance. But seriously, I didn’t go into it blindly. I have a Master’s Degree in mental health therapy, and while I’m no longer using it in a clinical setting, what I learned through six years of school comes in handy when writing characters. But how do you write that? – I’ve read stats that women say 20,000 words per day compared to men speaking only 7,000 per day. – Men are more sight driven. [How to choose a point of view for your novel.] – Details are not a male’s best friend. – Then there’s the whole sex thing—You know I had to bring it up since I write romance novels, right?
Writing The Perfect Scene Having trouble making the scenes in your novel work their magic? In this article, I’ll show you how to write the “perfect” scene. Maybe you think it’s impossible to write the perfect scene. After all, who can choose every word perfectly, every thought, every sentence, every paragraph? Honestly, I don’t know. But structure is pretty well understood. The Two Levels of Scene Structure A scene has two levels of structure, and only two. The large-scale structure of the sceneThe small-scale structure of the scene This may seem obvious, but by the end of this article, I hope to convince you that it’s terribly profound. Before we begin, we need to understand how we keep score. Your reader is reading your fiction because you provide him or her with a powerful emotional experience. If you fail to create these emotions in your reader, then you have failed. Large-Scale Structure of a Scene The large-scale structure of a scene is extremely simple. A Scene has the following three-part pattern: