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------Original Message------
"If you have Action and Dialogue, do you really NEED Description too?
What is the difference?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Layers of Fiction

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dialogue Only
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Himawari-chan, I have your lunch!"

"Ah, Watanuki-kun!"

"Here you go Himawari-chan!"

"Thank you, Watanuki-kun!"

"You are very welcome, Himawari-chan."

"I see. Of course. Thank you, Yuuko-san. Do I need to tell you what she said?"

"No! No, you don't, and I don't want to hear it! I don't need a freaking baby-sitter!"

"Yuuko thinks you do."

"That's her! Not me!"

"Are you a fortune-teller?"

"No! Of course not!"

"I'll

HOW do you make THE END?

"When will you make an end?"
- The Pope on the painting of the Sistine Chapel

"When I'm finished."
- Michelangelo.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Okay, so you got this GREAT Idea for a story!

- This Great Idea...that births chapter after chaper...
- This Great Idea... that you can't seem to finish. (WTF?)

Crap.

So what do you do now?

HOW do you make an End?

Fairytales and Myths were my foundational reading, so they became my base model for how a story should finish -- by ending where you began with a solution.

This doesn't mean ending a story in the location it started, or that full irrevocable transformations don't happen, bu

Advanced Plotting-The PREMISE

Advanced Plotting ~ the PREMISE

-----Original Message-----
Could you tell me more on plotting story points? I can get the big story idea well enough, but I run into a snag deciding the whole causality thing -- A leads to B, leads to C, …etc."
-- Mad about Plotting
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ah, so you wanna know how to put all the theories together to make a story, do you? (Gee, you couldn't pick the easy stuff could you?) Okay...

A story's Causes & Effects, the triggers that lead from one event to the next, comes from your Premise.

Just for the record...
A Premise is NOT a Concept!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Premise is the theoretical / e

Basic PLOTTING

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

The Secret to Paragraphing

Writing DIALOGUE
The SECRET to Proper Paragraphing
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(NOT a punctuation article.)

Once you know what your characters and doing and saying, how do you get all that down on Paper without ending up with a huge confusing mess?

Putting the Story on Paper.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Everybody knows that when a new speaker speaks they get a new paragraph, right? In other words, you DON'T put two different people talking in the same paragraph. Okay, yeah, so anyone who has written any kind of fiction learns this pretty darned quick, (usually from their readers.)

What nobody seems to get is that the same goes for a new character's ACTIONS. Ser

RESEARCH is your Best Friend

RESEARCH is your Best Friend.

-----Original Message-----
"...for bigger fictions (maybe 10-20 chapters, or more) for a big fan fiction or OC fiction, how much do you plan out?" -- Wanna Rite Reel Gud
~~~~~~~~~~~~

How much do I plan out for one of my novels...?
-- I detail everything. Seriously. I believe in a Total Immersion style of writing. In other words, I want to know the world so well, I can simply step into the mind and skin of my main character and LIVE the story.

How do I do that...?

I start with a basic plot formula and extrapolate on certain points as needed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Romance needs extra doses of lover's angst,

Pesky Point of View

DISCLAIMER: Before anyone starts screaming about this article not emphasizing the Creative aspect of writing, please understand that this information was hammered into my head by my editors. This is what I had to learn to see my work published.

That doesn't mean you have to follow it! As with all advice, feel free to take what you can use and throw out the rest.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Pesky Point of View
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What is Point of View (POV)?
-- It's the view of the person telling the story.

First Person: I am telling the story.

Second Person. I am telling the story to YOU. (Diaries and letters are commonly written this way.)

Third

Writing Emotions VISUALLY

Writing Emotions VISUALLY

"What is ...VISUAL writing?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-- Visual writing is when the reader can SEE your story unfolding in their imaginations just like a movie.

    * Non-visual: It was a dreary day.
    * Visual: Icy rain slithered down the window glass from an iron gray sky.

This is more commonly known as SHOWING vs. TELLING.

    * Telling: It was a dreary day.
    * Showing: Icy rain slithered down the window glass from an iron gray sky.

"What's wrong with just...Telling them?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-- The problem lays with Reader interpre

The Art of VILLAINY

The Art of VILLAINY ~ Making Realistic Villains for your Fiction ~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"People will do far more to Avoid Pain than they will to Seek Pleasure."
-- CIA Profiler Gavin DeBecker on Human Nature

True Predators
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When I craft a villain, I go out of my way to make darned sure that my fictional villains are as realistic as the villains we face in real life. I begin by giving them ordinary human Issues.

Within every villain (fictional and non-fictional) there's a human issue at core that drives them to BE villains in the first place. Even mass murderers have reasons (however twisted) for doing what they do.

NO villain

ACTION Sequences - Plug+Play

Writing ACTION Sequences
The Plug & Play Method

Lets begin with a Review...
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The flash of pain exploded in my cheek from the slap her hand lashed out at me.
-- WRONG!

Why is this wrong?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you were watching this scene as a movie, that sentence is NOT how you would have seen it happen.

Actual Sequence of events:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1) Her hand lashed out at me in a slap.
2) A flash of pain exploded in my cheek

ACTION Sequences = Chronological Order

REALITY = something happens to you and then…you react.
Action > Reaction > Action > Reaction = Chronological order

FICTION = the Plot happens to

An Unkindness of COMMAS

I SUCK at commas big-time. I tend to pull a "Mark Twain"; I sprinkle them in…wherever to break up the monotony of the sentence. This article is my attempt to hammer the rules into my brain.

An Unkindness of COMMAS

What the heck are Commas for, anyway?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Besides abusing the sanity of the writer, the comma exists to help readers organize information in a sentence. It makes all the stuff the author is trying to say easier to swallow. Without them, sentence bits and pieces collide into one another causing confusion; rather like a train-wreck, though not nearly as exciting.

Just in case you'd like to know who m

Your Character TOO Special?

Is your Special Character
TOO SPECIAL?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Are you indulging in a few too many "special traits"? Is your story really an excuse to show off your Super Special Character? Are you committing a MARY-SUE/GARY STUE?

--> Dead give-away: Your favorite character is YOU only BETTER!

Who is Mary Sue/Gary Stue?

According to SubReality.com:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Mary Sue / Gary Stue is any original or deeply altered character who represents a slice of their creator's own ego; they are treasured by their creator but only rarely by anyone else. A Mary Sue/Gary Stue is a primadonna (usually, but not always badly-written,) who saps life

INTERNAL CONFLICT

Advanced Writing:
INTERNAL CONFLICT

Note: this is how the professional authors do it. That doesn't mean YOU have to. As with all advice, take what you can use and throw out the rest.

The scene…
~~~~~~~~~~~~
His lips drifted across hers in a warm caress. His hand pressed at waist, the heat of his palm warming her flesh through her corset underlying the deep blood silk gown. His fingers drifted upward, toward her breast.

Desire pulsed within her core, in time with her heart. She wanted to let him tear the red silk from her body, and bury himself in her flesh, but set her palm over his to stop him just below her breast. He was a vampi

Interior Monologues

"I was just wondering what you think about interior monologues, long passages of reflection?" -- Curious Kitty
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A note on:
-- Interior Monologues
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Whether you are considering adding a lengthy monologue to a story, or intend the monologue to be the story itself where the focus of the entire story is on one character's thoughts and feelings with very little action -- from my observations and experimentation, the readers either love them or hate them. There's no in-between.

However, it is notable that the internal monologue stories that are sought out most frequently tend to focus on a profound emotion of so

Writing ACTION Scenes

-------- Original Message -----------
"I can't write an action/fight scene worth a crap. Mind you, I can usually imagine them, I just can't write them." -- Wanna Do a Fight Scene.

If you can imagine it - you can write it. The easiest way is by doing it in LAYERS.

The Quick and Dirty Method for writing Action Scenes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Start with a list of ACTIONS & Reactions < in that order.
-- Actions ALWAYS go before Reactions.

(IMPORTANT! Each CHARACTER gets a SEPERATE LINE. ~ NEVER clump the separate actions of two different characters in the same paragraph or the reader will get confused as to who is doing what very quickly.)
~~~~~

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More from *OokamiKasumi

Writing Serial Fiction

Writing Serial & Series Fiction
Not just another Novel idea

Please note, this is how the Professionals do it. Those of you who are Not professional are free to write (and post) as you please.

To view the Main Plot vs Subplot graphic at Full Size, GO HERE --> http://i426.photobucket.com/albums/pp347/OokamiKasumi/MainplotSubplot.jpg

A Serial Story is Not a chopped-up Novel!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I hear it time and time again: "If the story is too big, why don't you just cut it up into a Series or Serial?"

You can't just cut a novel-type Story in half to make a series, or use the chapters to serialize it. A true serial "episode" is its own Comple

ACTION Sequences - Plug+Play

Writing Emotions VISUALLY

Plot Devices-Deus Ex Machina?

Plot Devices:
Deus Ex Machina or Chekhov's Gun?

----Original Message----
"What are your thoughts on Good Deus Ex Machinas? I find them hard to pull off realistically in a plot." -- Puzzled Writer
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A Deus Ex Machina is when the Hero doesn't find the solution to the story's problem. The solution is handed to them, or taken care of, by someone or something far more powerful.

From TV Tropes:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DeusExMachina
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A Deus Ex Machina is an outside force that solves a seemingly unsolvable problem in an extremely unlikely (and, usually, anticlimactic) way. If the secret document

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Time for This-Colorationby *OokamiKasumi

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"Do we really have time for This?"
~ Kakashi & Iruka ~ Naruto</b>

Coloration / Collaboration
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Original Line Art by AleeneLouiseBoucher

AKA: Kita the Spaz

Color by me in Photoshop

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~New-Divide2012 Dec 6, 2010 Traditional Artist

omg, love it!

*OokamiKasumi Dec 6, 2010 Professional Writer

Kita has one hell of a sense of humor. *grin*
-- Did you see the story attached to Hairbrush? It's in the Artist's Comment.

~New-Divide2012 Dec 6, 2010 Traditional Artist

Indeed I did. That was hilarious. Loved that piece a lot. Actually, it made my night.

*OokamiKasumi Dec 6, 2010 Professional Writer

I'm glad you liked it!
-- The story came to me while I was coloring it.

~New-Divide2012 Dec 6, 2010 Traditional Artist

Hehe, liked it? Man!
Currently I am writting a KakaIru story. With long-ass chapters, apparantely. xD

*OokamiKasumi Dec 6, 2010 Professional Writer

Really? Cool! I'm working on the 25th chapter of my KakaIru story. It's on Media Miner if you wanna see it. --> [link] Err, heed the Warnings, 'kay?

~New-Divide2012 Dec 6, 2010 Traditional Artist

lmao, I'll try

I love reading fanfics. Out of curiosity, I was wonderin' if ya wanna be friends, 'n stuff... -itching back of head-

*OokamiKasumi Dec 6, 2010 Professional Writer

You sure you wanna be friends with a crotchety old lady that writes trashy romances for a living?

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