Deeper People: Putting Yourself Into Your Characters
Warning: Includes hashing out all of your insecurities and faults.
Tracks
Fun with Timelines
I found a great timeline-generating site. I’m working on a fanfic project, and I needed some nice sleek way to create a timeline, to help me make sense of everything going on in this AU verse.
The tool is called Timeline JS, and it’s great because you don’t really need to download anything to use it. All you have to do is put information down into a Google Docs spreadsheet template they have set up, and then put the published code of it into their online embed generator, and it creates what you see below.
I’ve been having WAY too much fun with this tool. If I have any complaints about it, the main one is that there’s currently no way to customize the color palette of the published timeline. I would love to be able to use a different colored background. But oh well. This is still a new tool, so customization options are probably in the works.
(Submitted by howdotheyriseup)
I do this occasionally, and it makes me feel like a horrible person. Am I alone?
*meekly raises hand*
The Pen is Mightier than the Phone: A Case for Writing Things Out
This article, I believe, has a great deal of insight regarding writing things via hand through pen and paper versus writing things down on electronic devices, like phones and computers.
It covers many of the same reasons why I prefer to write original drafts of stories and poems on a notebook rather than on my computer.
“We’re more likely to find an electronic device, open our favorite word processor, and fiddle with a margin and font size before committing a single word to the page,” Martin wrote in an email. “Automatic spellcheck and word correction can slow the process further and cause you to lose your train of thought.”
By committing your thought to paper, you’re also doing more to lock it into place. Virginia Berninger, professor of educational psychology at the University of Washington, has the brain scans to prove it. Berninger told the Wall Street Journal in Oct. 2010 that as your hand executes each stroke of each letter, it activates a much larger portion of the brain’s thinking, language, and “working memory” regions than typing, which whisks your attention along at a more letters-and-words pace.
If you have the time, you ought to take a look at this article. Maybe it will inspire you to try writing your next piece in longhand rather than on the keyboard.
(Submitted by maraoliver)
When I am really into a story I’m writing, I tend to do things similar to this quite often. It’s often how I find my characters’ voices.
(Source: onceandonce-again)
Cover Your Creativity: Protect Your Works with a Creative Commons License
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.
Wired Article: How Led Zeppelin + Franz Schubert = Writing
From Wired.com, I found a fascinating article explaining how the music of Led Zeppelin and Franz Schubert can be used as models for writing, particularly in long-form writing.
This really is an interesting, informative read.
How To Always Have The Perfect Word
An article I recently found at GhostwriterDad.com.
Have you ever had a hard time finding the perfect word for something you’re writing?
Well, if you can’t find one, why not make one up?
Reblogged: 102 Resources for Fiction Writers
102 Resources for Fiction Writers
Are you still stuck for ideas for National Novel Writing Month? Or are you working on a novel at a more leisurely pace? Here are 102 resources on Character, Point of View, Dialogue, Plot, Conflict, Structure, Outlining, Setting, and World Building, plus some links to generate Ideas and Inspiration.
CHARACTER, POINT OF VIEW, DIALOGUE
The Universal Mary Sue Litmus Test
Priming the idea pump (A character checklist shamlessly lifted from acting)
Handling a Cast of Thousands – Part I: Getting to Know Your Characters
Establishing the Right Point of View: How to Avoid “Stepping Out of Character”
How to Start Writing in the Third Person
Web Resources for Developing Characters
What are the Sixteen Master Archetypes?
Fiction Writer’s Character Chart
Fiction Writer’s Character Chart
Villains are People, Too, But …
Top 10 Tips for Writing Dialogue
Advantages, Disadvantages and Skills (character traits)
How to Write a Character Bible
Character Development Exercises
All Your Characters Sounds the Same — And They’re Not a Hivemind!
Writing the Other: Bridging Cultural Difference for Successful Fiction
Family Echo (family tree website)
Interviewing Characters: Follow the Energy
100 Character Development Questions for Writers
Lineage Chart Layout Generator
PLOT, CONFLICT, STRUCTURE, OUTLINE
How to Write a Novel: The Snowflake Method
Effectively Outlining Your Plot
Conflict and Character within Story Structure
Ideas, Plots & Using the Premise Sheets
Creating Conflict and Sustaining Suspense
Plunge Right In … Into Your Story, That Is!
Fiction Writing Tips: Story Grid
Tips for Creating a Compelling Plot
The Thirty-six (plus one) Dramatic Situations
The Evil Overlord Devises a Plot: Excerpt from Stupid Plotting Tricks
The Hero’s Journey: Summary of the Steps
Outline Your Novel in Thirty Minutes
SETTING, WORLD BUILDING
The Art of Description: Eight Tips to Help You Bring Your Settings to Life
Creating the Perfect Setting – Part I
An Impatient Writer’s Approach to Worldbuilding
Fantasy Worldbuilding Questions
Character and Setting Interactions
Creating Fantasy and Science Fiction Worlds
Maps Workshop — Developing the Fictional World Through Mapping
IDEAS, INSPIRATION
Solve Your Problems Simply by Saying Them Out Loud
Writing Inspiration, or Sex on a Bicycle
Creative Acceleration: 11 Tips to Engineer a Productive Flow
The Seven Major Beginner Mistakes
Complete Your First Book with these 9 Simple Writing Habits
Free Association, Active Imagination, Twilight Imaging
Story Starters and Idea Generators
REVISION
One-Pass Manuscript Revision: From First Draft to Last in One Cycle
Revising Your Novel: Read What You’ve Written
Writing 101: So You Want to Write a Novel Part 3: Revising a Novel
TOOLS and SOFTWARE
My Writing Nook (online text editor; free)
Bubbl.us (online mind map application; free)
Freemind (mind map application; free; Windows, Mac, Linux, portable)
XMind (mind map application; free; Windows, Mac, Linux, portable)
Liquid Story Binder (novel organization and writing software; free trial, $45.95; Windows, portable)
Scrivener (novel organization and writing software; free trial, $39.95; Mac)
SuperNotecard (novel organization and writing software; free trial, $29; Windows, Mac, Linux, portable)
yWriter (novel organization and writing software; free; Windows, Linux, portable)
JDarkRoom (minimalist text editor; free; Windows, Mac, Linux, portable)
AutoRealm (map creation software; free; Windows, Linux with Wine)
screaming
Because a writer can’t have enough resources.
(Source: ruthlesscalculus)
