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So You Wanna Be a Writer?Many writers profess their desire to be novelists or poets, and sometimes even journalists, but very few--indeed, even those sitting with Creative Writing degrees, know what other options are out there for someone gifted with words. Your old Alma Mater wasn't lying when they said you could do "anything" with an English Literature degree, but they may have been leaving out much of the story.

For writers, especially those trying to break into the publishing business, the world is a daunting (and often depressing) place. Securing a literary agent is almost necessary in today's oversaturated market and, while many publishers are still looking

Punctuation Basics

Writing is like math. If you don’t follow the right formula, you end up in a state of mass confusion. Synonymously, punctuation is like following a map. If you miss the street signs, you’ll end up completely lost. The following is a list of common English punctuation marks and their most basic functions. Contrary to popular belief, there are no exceptions to these rules. Breaking them has never been in style.

The most common English punctuation marks include the following:

. = period
? = question mark
! = exclamation point
, = comma
“” = quotation mark

Character Creation - Tips

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 can’t 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 character’s desires.

3) History

Go back i

Common Errors: Lead and LedA number of talented and otherwise capable writers seem to be unsure of the forms of the verb to lead. There is a common misconception that, perhaps, is exacerbated by the widely known correct uses of the verb to read.

Most people know that the past tense of to read is read, spelled exactly the same way but pronounced differently, with a short E sound: red. But red spelled that way, of course, is the colour of blood, Superman’s cape and a great many other things.

However, when it comes to the verb to lead, you need only remember one thing: the same rule does not apply! Pronounce lead with a short E sound, and you are actually descri

Tips On Self-Publishing

Tips On Self-Publishing

I recently decided to self-publish a compilation of my work. It is something that I've wanted to do for a long time, but have always put off for several reasons; the imagined cost, basic lethargy in editing the damn thing, and laziness when it came to mail-outs to publishers. If this sounds like you so far, you might be able to benefit from a few things I learned along the way. Below I will discuss almost everything you will need to know before jumping into a self-publishing project, some pitfalls to avoid, and approximately what to expect to come out of your pocket. (I'm talking about money, pervert.)

Once I dec

Common Errors: Lose and LooseLoose is an adjective meaning slack; not firmly fixed; the opposite of tight. It has a hard S sound, and almost everyone knows how to spell it.

However, many are confused by the very similar word, lose. This is a verb meaning to misplace something: an object, a function such as eyesight or memory, or one may lose one’s way whilst trekking through the Australian outback or the local supermarket.

The confusion arises because the pronunciation of lose and loose is almost identical; the only different is that lose has a soft S sound at the end. It, too, has the double-O sound that makes many people want to spell it the same way as loose

Submitting to Lit JournalsRough Guide to Submitting Poetry to Literary Journals (by Email)

First thing you need is your poems, naturally; these must be fully redrafted to your satisfaction to have much of a chance of getting anywhere in the world of self-respecting mags. Try out some workshops (there are a tonne on the internet, and plenty in the real world too), ask your friends, but most of all just mull them over for yourself until you're happy.

Do not pad your submission with bad poems, thinking the worse ones might get through thanks to your stronger work. This will just result in the whole bunch being rejected, in all probability.

Next we need to scope out a

"Poeticks: On Imagery" 3 of 3

Chapter 5: Imagery and its limitations

We have discussed in previous chapters, the nature and importance of imagery in poetry, and especially from the above experiment concerning originality, we are prone to being convinced of an infinite nature in one's creative possibilities, yet by common sense, we know that we all produce different imagery, differing in style, differing in quality, differing in the words we choose and the correlations we construct.

We will now look at the reasons and forces working behind the creation of imagery, and where the limits lie, and what constraints work against the writer's creative process.

5-1: Experienc

"Poeticks: On Imagery" 2 of 3

Chapter 4: Quality of imagery

4-1: Figure of Speech

We have already heard from deviantArt writers about the importance of "figure of speech" within imagery.
To make out a clearer picture of "imagery" from the writer's point of view, let us take take a closer look. You may find :devfutilitarian:'s Terms and Techniques a useful guide along the way, and other online resources to complement what we are about to explore. We will not go over the whole gamut of writing techniques here for that is not the main purpose, but here, let us look at how a variety of figure of speech may be used in a single piece of poetry.

We will dissect T.S. Eliot's

apocathary's guide to dAlit

Note to potential readers–I’m not dA bashing here. Kicking up drama is for people who are either bored, or naturally inclined to do so. I am neither. This article was written for the purposes of discussion of what deviantART is and isn’t. It focuses mainly on the literature section of dA, as this is the one I am most familiar with. Visual arts might as well be on another planet as far as literature on dA is concerned. The dynamics are utterly different and cannot be applied to each other. So if you are a visual artist reading this, there might be some happy occasions whereby you can identify with what is being said, but you may

How To WriteAbstract: an analytical approach to plotting and writing fiction upwards of 1,000 words

Acknowledgements: the potentially amazing Rachel (:devifrozenspiriti:) served as guinea pig to this; go and tell her to finish the product of that experiment, because you'll love it. Chris Widdison (:devtearstone:) approached me indecently with the idea of writing a longer essay (which will still happen, and be a lot more purdy than this here thing), which would incorporate this essay in another form, amongst others. He doesn't need to read any of this, because he already knows it all.

Target audience: young, inexperienced writers, especially those that

Elements of Story - UPDATED

Updated Mar. 18th 2009

The following is a self-discovered list of elements contained in an excellent story:

An interesting and intriguing main character, an individual with a unique past that has made him who he is at the time of the story. Be sure to explain the important aspects of this backstory where appropriate.

This main character must have a story goal: a mission to accomplish, a mystery to solve, his past to reconcile, a villain to overthrow, a treasure to find, a person to save, etc.

Along with this goal, the character must have an all-consuming desire that drives him to accomplish what he sets out to achieve. Love, re

Writing Paranormal CharactersAs a writer of prose, you may at some point to want to write about a character or characters which are paranormal. We could perhaps debate over the exact definition of the word ‘paranormal’, and some may prefer ‘supernatural’ - a word more closely associated with magic, whereas ‘paranormal’ tends to be taken to mean something outside the realms of science (though of course, it is not as clear-cut as that, and you may like to think that I am wrong in saying this).

For the purposes of this guide, both ‘paranormal’ and ‘supernatural’ refer to conscious beings, not found in the animal kingdom, t

Writing Tips - Mechanics

Tips and Tricks for Writing Fluidly

Mechanics

No, we’re not fixing up your brother’s car. Mechanics are the little technical bits in your writing; punctuation, spacing, spelling, capitalisation, et cetera. We’ll start there.

Capitalisation

Different languages have different rules for what should be capitalised. If you speak English, you’d capitalise “I” and leave your dog lowercase. You may find it interesting that German is a bit backwards. If you’re German, you’d capitalise “Hund” and leave “ich” lowercase. Why am I telling you this? Because it’s simple little things like

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Count Yourself In!

by ~WordCount, Apr 29, 2007, 6:56:36 AM
Journals / Culture / Contests

Hello! With quite a few

ers and some wonderful support under out belt, ~WordCount is excited to move forward with plans for enriching the deviantART community.  With that in mind, we'd like to welcome you to our first contest!

Wait, I missed it.  What's ~WordCount?

~WordCount is a new community project on dA designed to increase expose and support for talented prose writers.  For more information about how the project is run, please check out ourjournal or this news article.

Because we're a new project, ~WordCount is without an official avatar or deviantART ID, and we'd like to change that. We need a look that makes us stand out--something that compliments what we're trying to achieve and makes us easy to recognize on site. Right now we have a wonderful icon donated and created by the amazing `StJoan, and we love it, but we're also interested in seeing what the dA community, at large, can come up with.

And that's where you come in!

Design a new ~WordCount avatar and win!

Create an avatar that represents the ~WordCount project and what it stands for, and you could have the privilege of seeing a piece of your genius all over dA.

The winning entrant will receive his/her choice of one of the following:

A 3-month subscription to deviantART (that can also be donated to someone else)

A Lit Mug (for examples, click here)

A Wishlist print not to exceed $15.00

Are avatars a little too little for you? Do you need more room to express your creativity? Why not try your hand at creating a ~WordCount ID?

Design a new ~WordCount deviant ID and win!

Just as it says above, we're asking you to create a deviantID for the ~WordCount account that we can use to instill pride in our project (and pretty pictures on our page).

The winning entrant will receive his/her choice of one of the following:

A 3-month subscription to deviantART (that can also be donated to someone else)

A Lit Mug (for examples, click here)

A Wishlist print not to exceed $15.00

But wait! There's more!

If you're not as visually-inclined, ~WordCount has something that might work for you.

Create a catchphrase and win a prize!

Our current slogan is "Word Count: Where Every Word Counts", which we sometimes replace with "Make Every Word Count" and "Prose is the Place to Be". Do you think you could do better? If so, we want to hear it!

Create a short catchphrase that represents either the ~WordCount project or makes a statement about prose. It can be serious, silly, or anything in between--just make it your own.

The winning entrant will receive his/her choice of one of the following:

A 3-month subscription to deviantART (that can also be donated to someone else)

A Lit Mug (for examples, click here)

A Wishlist print not to exceed $15.00

If possible, the winning entry, with a little help from our friends, will be splashed on a dA Mug (or made into a postcard-like print) and donated to `ArtistsForCharity, where all proceeds from its sale will help to support Habitat for Humanity and other charitable organizations. Of course, we haven't finalized the details of that just yet--but it's what we'd like to do (with permission from all parties).

How do I enter?

Please upload your creation as a deviation or scrap to your deviantART gallery and then send the link, in a note entitled "CONTEST ENTRY", to the ~WordCount account. If you do not want to upload your catchphrase, feel free to simply include it in the body of the note.

When's the Deadline?

Links to all entries should be noted to the ~WordCount account on or before 18 May 2007.

Okay, okay: did you say something about Staff?

Yes! ~WordCount is currently looking for staff. Please be sure to check out our journal for more information.