Basic Statistics
Name:
Nickname:
Meaning of name:
Origin of name:
Age:
Sex:
Blood type:
Nationality:
Ethnicity:
Race:
Sexual Orientation:
Current status:
Political Party:
Police/Criminal/Legal record:
Socioeconomic level as a child:
Socioeconomic level as an adult:
Birth date:
Birth place:
Current residence:
Occupation:
Title/Rank:
Hobbies/Pastimes:
Talents/Skills/Powers:
Past History
Hometown:
First Memory:
Most important childhood event that still affects him/her:
Why/How?
Other memories/events that still affects him/her and why/how:
Past failures s/he would be embarrassed to have people know about and why:
Bigg
How to Start and Stay Writing by illuminara, literature
Literature
How to Start and Stay Writing
I recently solicited my watchers to ask me writing questions that I would then attempt to answer in a writing guide such as this. This article is my first response, and there will be many more to come.
I've been asked to give advice on ways a writer can begin to put words on a page. The bottom line is as simple as this: sit your butt down and write.
Duh, right? It's the only way I know to actually write.
Sure, sitting your butt in a chair is easy, but getting your fingers to move and stay moving is a challenge. Here are three things that have helped me.
1) Have a goal.
Your goal can be as simple as "describe the person in this picture" o
Tips to Remember for selling your Art by jadecillustrations, literature
Literature
Tips to Remember for selling your Art
Introduction
First things first, a quick introduction coming from myself. My name is Jade Choung, but I am better known as mzzazn / mzzy on the world wide web. I am an artist that primarily focuses on digital media. My art work produced for income is of the anime/manga genre. A majority of my publicity is derived from deviantART.com. I have held the position of Community Volunteer (CV) on this popular art website in the past. A community volunteer is pretty much a moderator. This means, there's a handful of tasks given to a CV on this website, but one that last a huge impact on me was selecting Daily Deviations ('spotlights' for art pieces t
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PLEASE NOTE THAT WHILE THIS PAGE WILL REMAIN ACTIVE FOR PURPOSES OF EDUCATION AND RECORDS, IT IS OUTDATED.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
Writer's Tip: Show, don't tell. by DarlingMionette, literature
Literature
Writer's Tip: Show, don't tell.
Show, don’t tell (SDT). It’s one of the few consistent pieces of advice that all writers have heard at one time or another. Even the most amateur of writers parrot it back, but knowing the phrase doesn’t necessarily mean that we understand it, or how to implement it.
So what does “Show, don’t tell.” really mean? SDT is the idea that instead of telling your readers what’s happening in a story, you show them. This seems like an abstract concept to most of us, but what it boils down to is this: using words to give your readers an idea without having to directly state it. There are many ways good writers
The Truth About Selling Fanart by KiRAWRa, literature
Literature
The Truth About Selling Fanart
Update notice as of January 17, 2013: I have given this guide a MAJOR overhaul. It was originally written over a year and a half ago, and since then my own views and understanding of copyrights has changed. I felt that this guide should reflect those changes, so if you read this guide in the past, please take a moment to look through it again as I have added MANY new topics, information, and sources. Unlike my first draft, I have also changed my viewpoint to neutral throughout this writing.
Update notice as of July 17th, 2015: Check out DeviantArt's new article on art theft, fanart, copyrights, and other relevant topics! http://protectart.de
Character Profile Form- Short by ThirdPotato, literature
Literature
Character Profile Form- Short
Basic Statistics
Name:
Country:
Species:
Political Party:
Socioeconomic level as a child:
Socioeconomic level as an adult:
Birth date:
Birth place:
Current residence:
Describe their dwelling/house:
Describe their bedroom:
Occupation:
Title/Rank:
Hobbies/Pastimes:
Talents/Skills/Powers:
Birth order:
Family:
Past History
Hometown:
First Memory:
Childhood:
Most important childhood event that still affects him/her:
Why/How?:
Other memories/events that still affects him and why/how:
Past failures he would be embarrassed to have people know about and why:
Favorite parent:
Why?:
Biggest role model:
Why?:
Physical Character
Please copy and paste this into a Word document or deviation. Then highlight the information after the colons and type over it.
Setting
Time/Era: Exact year or approximate time
Name of Country: For fun, you could alter the name of an old country to amuse more educated readers. For example, I altered the Assyrian Empire's name for a conquering people to evoke images of brutality and Mesopotamia.
Geography: Keep track of all the places you mention and their approximate locations. I find it handy to draw a rough map of the area.
Landscape: Trees, soil, water, buildings... Imagine you were flying over the place in an airplane. What would you
Blank OC Reference Sheet by AmandaLyn11, literature
Literature
Blank OC Reference Sheet
Character Reference Sheet-ness
Basically this reference sheet covers pretty much everything a person would ever need to know about your character.. and then some.
-Basics-
Lets face it. If somebody were to just glance over the reference sheet, at least you can feel some reassurance in knowing that they got the bare minimum
Name (Nickname):
Age:
Please if youre going to give your character some ungodly, few centuries old, age, make sure to include what age they looks like. Otherwise all shall assume they appear to be a rumpled piece of leather, ran over by some sort of moving vehicle, after being regurgitated by a cat. Obvio
Writer's Tip: Writing Effective Sentences by DarlingMionette, literature
Literature
Writer's Tip: Writing Effective Sentences
Sentences—if the plot is the backbone of a story, then sentences are the muscles and tendons keeping it glued together. Unfortunately, writing solid sentences isn’t easy for everyone. As Human beings, we don’t speak the same way we write. Unless you do a lot of writing, you may have trouble putting together even the simplest of sentences. The last time you took a good look at a sentence and broke it down into its individual parts was probably around 3rd grade. Don’t worry—I’m here to help.
There’s More Than One Type of Sentence
There are (roughly) four different types of sentences, and we’re g
Basic Plotting
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A plot is the pattern a story follows, the most common being:
-- Beginning
-- Middle
-- End
All successful (read: popular) stories have patterns. Sometimes it's simple, sometimes it's complex, but all of the stories read or told often enough to remain in the popular mind of any culture have a pattern, a plot.
Here are some examples of simple plot patterns
Traditional:
He came.
He saw.
He conquered.
American Dream Version:
He came.
He conquered.
He became very rich.
The Heroic version:
He conquered.
He became the leader of
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
Story Writing for BEGINNERS by OokamiKasumi, literature
Literature
Story Writing for BEGINNERS
-----Original Message-----
I want to write a story. I have a couple of ideas, but no idea what to do with them, or even how to begin! Help?!
-- Newbie Writer
So when you wanna write a story, where do you begin? With your PASSION!
Write what you KNOW & LOVE
What do you KNOW, really? What do you love to Do, to Study, to Think About, to Talk About...? Whether it's cave-diving, model trains, skate-boarding, sewing, horses, mythology, ghost legends, or particle physics your passion is where you will find your most unique and powerful work.
Make a list of all the things you know well and all the things you've done -- seriously! Mythology
100 Questions to Ask Your OC by viralremix, literature
Literature
100 Questions to Ask Your OC
Hello, folks! The purpose of this exercise is to delve deep into a character's mind and tease out interesting eccentricities about them, the bits and pieces of unique information that make them special. Each question is designed to help think about the character more and understand them. Whether you're responding to one question or all of them, hopefully your character speaks to you all through it!
PERSONALITY PROFILE
1. People don't behave the same way all the time. In fact, they generally have a mask for every social group -- friends, family, business. Sometimes they have a different mask for different groups of friends. How does your
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
10 Tips for Creating a Protagonist by DesdemonaDeBlake, literature
Literature
10 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
Essentials of a Short Story by OokamiKasumi, literature
Literature
Essentials of a Short Story
Essentials of a Short Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Quotes raped from a critique of Nathanial Hawthorn's Twice Told Tales by
Edgar Allen Poe - 1837
Edgar Allen Poe, celebrated as one of the finest short fiction writers of all time, was also a literary critic. These are bits of his wisdom on writing short stories, gleaned from one of his critiques.
"The true critic will but demand that that the (story's) design intended be accomplished, to the fullest extent, by the means most advantageously applicable " -- Poe
Poe's Prerequisites -- in a Nutshell:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To deliver fullest satisfaction, a short story should be structured:
1) To
Note: I wrote this after reading a similar article in The Writer magazine about a year ago. Hope it's helpful!
Not all characters are created equal. Here are some steps to make yours superior.
1) Desire
Figure out what your character wants, needs, desires. A closer relationship with God? A place to belong? Just to survive? Figure it out. You cant move on to number 2 until you have.
2) Fear
Now that you know what your character most desires, you should be able to figure out what he/she most fears. Doing the wrong thing, being alone, death? They are the polar opposites of your characters desires.
3) History
Go back i
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