Sunday, December 19, 2010

Saturday, December 18, 2010

The Art of Surprise in Fiction (1 of 2)



The element of surprise is one of the most important parts of good fiction writing and is is rarely given the attention it deserves. This tutorial and it's follow-up tell you how to focus on surprise events in your story and make them more, surprising.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Friday, November 5, 2010

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Fiction Writing Tips: Different Types of Plots



This tutorial discuses popular plot types and how thinking about the kind of plot you are writing can enhance your creative writing.

Friday, October 22, 2010

Learn to Storyboard Using this Software, Springboard



This is an intro to Springboard, a great program for storyboarding without all the resource hogging other storyboard programs like to do. It runs on a netbook. I use it to storyboard all the time.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Creative Writing Tips: Finding Useful Feedback



No one like criticism but critiques about a story you are working on is invaluable. Listen to feedback and make the needed changes and it will make your story better. Not a fun process to start but as you rework you story it becomes very satisfying.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Tips on Writing Dialog that Absorbs



Dialog should be written to exist in time not on the page. This video tutorial is about making your dialog come across more smoothly and about how to make your dialog more digestible.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

A Writing Exercise: Write a Story Based on One Character



The exercise should not take more than a couple of hours. It is designed to put you in that creative place from witch all great stories come.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Organizing Tool for your Story: Online Timeline

This free online timeline site is a great place to make a timeline of your story to help work out event sequences and also provides you with a way to "see" your story much better. I highly recommend it! It made my writing better and helps me make decisions.

Friday, October 1, 2010

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

First Draft Madness

Fly past writer's block by forgetting all integrity and abandoning yourself to "first draft madness."

Sunday, September 26, 2010

The Story Idea



Not exactly the premise, the story idea is usually how a story first comes to us. This tutorial talks about getting more story ideas, and what to do with them.

The Drafting Process



This video has a lot of info about how to use use the drafting process. There is much more to it than improving your story. One draft my be focused on the emotional well being of one of your character, as an example. You can use the drafting process to take control.

Simplifying



"Less is more," what a great concept. It applies to writing too. People don't like a cluttered story.

Enhancing Creative Ideas



What you can do ahead of time to make sure you are ready when those great ideas fly through your life.

Character Driven Plot pt. 2



Try letting your character determine the course of the story.

Character Driven Plot vs. Circumstance Driven Plot



Is your story character driven or circumstance driven? Why it a good idea to have your story at least partially character driven.

Super-Short Story Exercises



The most important ideas in a story are the essential ones. This exercise will help you practice working with essential story ideas.

Naming Character, Exercises

Choosing Character Names



A name can say things about a character that would take paragraphs to convey and yet depicting a character with their name does not come across as decisive.

Creating Full Characters



16 Personality Factors to use for Developing Full Characters

Story Telling Snags



Learn to look for the bumps in the road that interfere with the course of the story.

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Creative Writing, Getting Started



It's best to have different writing strategies for different stages of your story's completion. It's better to delay thinking of your writing as a finished work until you have completed many drafts. Good writing is the act of making changes in passing. This video introduces some the the beginning stage strategies.