Intellectual theft of written and artistic works SUCKS.

However, you shouldn’t let fear of that stop you from sharing your art or written words with the world at large.  That’s where a Creative Commons license comes in.

Using a Creative Commons license allows you to specify EXACTLY what rights you allow your creative works to be displayed with when you share them for free online, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

If you’ve got a gallery at a place like DeviantART, you may have seen these licenses already, since they’ve had the “CC” licensing integrated into their system for a few years now.  However, have you really given thought as to what those various licenses mean?  For those of you who haven’t heard of or used a Creative Commons license, or don’t quite understand what they are, here’s an easy to understand breakdown of the six “CC” licenses, with definitions from CreativeCommons.org.

  Attribution -  This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation.

  Attribution ShareAlike -  This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to “copyleft” free and open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use.

  Attribution NoDerivs -  This license allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to you.

  Attribution NonCommercial -  This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

  Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike -  This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.

  Attribution NonCommercial NoDerivs -  This license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, only allowing others to download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.

There are several key words here in these licenses that make all the difference in what can or cannot be allowed.

Attribution - However your original work is used, displayed, and/or sold, CREDIT MUST BE GIVEN to you as its original artist.

NonCommercial - However your original work is used or displayed, NO PROFIT can be made off of it by the person sharing it.

ShareAlike - If your original work contains a ShareAlike provision in its license, any derivative work created by another user from it MUST USE THE SAME LICENSE.

NoDerivs - This is short for “No Derivatives.”  This means that while other users can share it or display it, THEY CANNOT CHANGE THE ORIGINAL WORK.

If you are an artist or writer who wants to add a Creative Commons license to your artwork or writings here on Tumblr or elsewhere, it is really easy.  The people running CreativeCommons.org has created a form you can fill out that will automatically generate the text/code you can add to your website.

All you have to do is go to creativecommons.org/choose and fill out the information they request.  Below is an example of what the license looks like:

This is the code:

<a rel=”license” href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/”><img alt=”Creative Commons License” style=”border-width:0” src=”http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-nd/3.0/88x31.png” /></a><br /><span xmlns:dct=”http://purl.org/dc/terms/” href=”http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/Text” property=”dct:title” rel=”dct:type”>Cover Your Creativity:  Protect Your Works with a Creative Commons License</span> by <span xmlns:cc=”http://creativecommons.org/ns#” property=”cc:attributionName”>C.R. Scott</span> is licensed under a <a rel=”license” href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/”>Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License</a>.

And this is what it looks like onscreen:

Cover Your Creativity: Protect Your Works with a Creative Commons License by C.R. Scott is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

If you’d like to learn more about using Creative Commons licenses, or if you would like to learn more about how to support this organization’s great work, then please go and visit creativecommons.org.

When I’m plotting a story, especially one that is most likely going to take up a number of chapters to complete, one of my favorite tools to use is a good mind mapping software program.

Simply put, a mind map is a diagram that is used to link and arrange words, ideas, and concepts around a central key word or a central idea.  Many people’s first (and possibly only) experience with this kind of organizational diagram usually happens in grade school with a hand-drawn variety, though they are more commonly found these days in digital format, created using software designed specifically for that purpose.

When it comes to plotting a new story, especially one that is going to be long, I’ve found mind maps to be an indispensably useful tool.  I’m a pretty visually oriented person, and while I can’t stand writing outlines (outlining bores me to tears), I love being able to see the ever extending branching structure, and also being to collapse and expand those branches at will.

Thankfully, if you’re interested in using mind maps for your writing, there are a number of free software for download out on the internet.  Here is a list of several freeware mind mapping programs:

XMind (my preferred mind mapping program)
Freemind (one I used for several years before switching to XMind)
eDraw Mind Map
MindMeister

Now how is it that someone can use a mind map program to help them plot out their story?  It’s really easy.  First thing you have to do, of course, is pick one of the programs above to use.  Though I’ll be using screenshots from my own copy of XMind, the structure I’ll be using is pretty basic and can be emulated on any of the programs you might use.  I’ll also be using elements of the story of “Red Riding Hood” for these examples.

When you have a new mind map document open on your screen, you’ll start off with one central idea.  This, of course, is where you will put the title of your story (or some very brief description of your story).

After this, you create your first set of “branches”, which is a very basic three-sentence description of your story’s plot.

From here, if you want to expand on your plot, it’s easy to accomplish.  Just add more branches.  Keep the individual branches short and sweet, but add to the ends to expand on the concept they’re expanding from.

In addition to using the mind map to organize your plot, you can also use it to work on other aspects of your story.

I especially like using mind mapping to flesh out characters, locations, and key items in a story.  Being able to branch ideas off of root concepts comes very easily with this kind of tool.

When fully expanded, a mind map can become a huge thing.

While it may be occasionally nice to see everything you’ve written, one of the nice features of these various mind mapping programs is that you can collapse down the various branches and focus in on only the section you’re working on at the time.  The collapsed branches in this screenshot are indicated by the (+) sign.

If you are an organized writer who loves to plot out nearly every aspect of your story before you start writing the first page, then mind mapping might be a something you will want to look into.

Kurt Vonnegut (born 1922, died 2007) was one of the most well known and respected authors of the 20th century.  His most famous works include the novels Slaughterhouse-Five and Cat’s Cradle, although he wrote a large number of novels, short stories, essays, and plays over the course of his life.

In one of his short story collections, entitled Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction, Vonnegut described eight rules for writing short stories. 

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Do keep in mind that these are not immovable, set-in-stone laws.  Mostly they are guidelines to help get the short story writer started.  Vonnegut himself made mention that some of the greatest writers will tend to ignore some or most of these rules in the course of writing their stories.

If you would like to read an earlier list of general writing tips created by Kurt Vonnegut, then feel free to read up on his essay “How to Write with Style”.