The following is the fifth in a series of six tutorials designed to help novice writers build a better story.

You have all of your parts laid out before you. Your Concept is solid, your Tableau is set, you’ve worked out your Plot and you know the Technique you’re going to use. Now comes the hard part…Composition. Oh boy, now you actually have the write this thing! Well, believe it or not, this is the simplest part of the process. You know what you have to say and how you’re going to say it, you know who does what and when, you know how long you want it to be…if you’ve done a good job with the first four parts, then all you have to now is put the words on the page. In this tutorial, I’ll talk a little about the actual mechanics of writing, how to view the various stages of writing your story, and I’ll also look at Writer’s Block and some ways to avoid it.

First, let’s look at the more mechanical side of Composition with Spelling and Grammar, Vocabulary, Word Choices, Chapters and Things To Avoid…Generally.

Spelling and Grammar

Never lie to yourself, Spelling and Grammar are important. I can’t describe how important these are. If you take nothing else from these tutorials, please believe that these proper skills can make or break you. Pour Spelling is perhaps the best way to make yourself seem unprofessional. The best example I can give is the mistake in the last sentence. Did you notice it? Spellcheckers don’t notice when you use the wrong word if you’ve used an actual word, and no one should ever rely on them. Likewise with Grammar, people will notice if yours is poor. This isn’t to say your Grammar has to be flawless, there is a marked difference between proper Grammar and the kind of grammar that is acceptable in conversation, and ending your sentence with a preposition isn’t the end of the world. In fact, sometimes using perfect Grammar can hurt the story depending on how you’ve chosen to tell it. Still, the better your Grammar (including punctuation) is, the better your writing will be.

Vocabulary

As with Spelling and Grammar, Vocabulary is also very important and for many of the same reasons, but also for another. If your story takes place on a boat, how many times do you think you can use the word boat before the reader gets tired of it? Having a broader vocabulary will help you find alternatives…ship, vessel, seafarer, or more specific terms like yacht, catamaran or sloop. In addition to this are word choices, the words you use will have a great impact on how the reader takes the story, and they should always reflect the choices you’ve already made as to your story’s Voice. If your story is light, then the words you choose should reflect this, while if your story is dark and grave, the Vocabulary should be part of what demonstrates it.

Word Choices

It’s hard to know what rules to follow when dealing with something so subjective as actually writing your sentences, but this is the meat of what you’re doing, so it deserves attention. The first thing is that one sentence should lead into another with a certain fluidity, much like your Scenes. Each one should build on the last and progress the ideas you’re trying to relay.

Things To Avoid…Generally

The following is a list of things that are not rules you can’t break, but if you do them you should be sure that they’re done with purpose and to make a point.

• The infamous Run-on Sentence can be difficult to spot as a writer. I know I have been guilty of it more times than I’d care to admit, probably in these tutorials. A sentence isn’t a Run-on Sentence just because it’s long, though, as some would have you believe. A Run-on Sentence is one that offers one thought and then fails to end, instead making a protracted and awkward stretch into a second idea, one with at least a cursory connection to the first idea but which should indeed be in its own sentence, and a Run-on Sentence could be made into two or more sentences just by changing a comma to a period, and often could serve as their own paragraph. Yes, like that.
• The not so infamous Run-on Paragraph is another danger, though I’m not going to bother exemplifying it…I don’t have the room. Paragraph should be like a sentences, each one offering an idea and creating a flow from one to the next, and they should end when that idea is complete. Run-on Paragraphs are exactly what you’d think, paragraphs that go on too long and have too much going on in them. Again, not all long paragraphs are Run-on Paragraphs, and in fact I have seen paragraphs that were more than a page long and were right to be so.
• This sentence is a Non-sequitur. Actually, it’s not. A Non-sequitur is a break in the literary or conversational flow, a sudden and unheralded change of topic or idea, usually before a thought is complete. Spelling is very, very important! Alright, that one was a Non-sequitur. They can be used very effectively, but they should be used with equal rarity.

Next, once you begin writing longhand, let’s look at the various components that make up your story…Chapters, Introduction, Story Flow, Climax and Denouement…and how you should confront them.

Chapters

In the same way you look at sentences and paragraphs and paragraphs as conveying an individual idea in each one, Chapters should be divided into small stories that contain an individual thematic nature. You should already have spent some time evaluating these sequences while constructing your Episodes during the Plotting, and you should have a sense of how your Chapters will be structured while evaluating your Technique. Be careful, though, not to break a scene’s tension by ending them too soon, too early or in a wholly inappropriate place in the narrative. It’s generally good to end a Chapter with either a new twist in the story, a resolution to an ongoing idea or, even better, both. Refer back to your notes on Episodes often as you write, these are your most effective tools in setting the framework for your Chapters.

Introduction

This is a simple one, right? Wrong. Most writers will tell you that the beginning of a story is the hardest to write, and the reason is not hard to understand. The Introduction has a lot of jobs to perform and not long to do it. First and foremost, you have to begin the story, which begs the question how and where does the story begin? If you’ve done a good job constructing your Concept and Tableau, you’ll know more of the story than you’re actually going to tell, so at what point in the lives of the characters do you let the reader start watching? Does it begin with the Rebels stealing the secret plans or will you skip straight to The Empire chasing them down? This then begs the question of what characters do we get to meet when the story opens, and how long until we’ve met them all? The story’s beginning is also your chance to catch a reader’s attention and let them know there is something in the work that makes them want to keep going. While this doesn’t have to be dynamic or action-packed, it should be an indicator of what’s to come, be it through foreshadowing or just plain old excitement.

Story Flow

Once the story is moving along, it’s important to set a pace and keep it. This harkens back to the Progression I talked about in the Technique tutorial, but here you need to maintain it in words as well as sequence. Having an even and consistent pace is vital to keeping the reader interested as you begin to unfold the events that bridge Introduction and Climax. There’s going to be a lot of information and activity to come, and you need to make sure you’re not doling out too much exposition and not enough activity at any given time, or vice versa. You don’t want the story moving too slowly and the reader growing bored, nor too fast and the reader getting confused. Even the most action-packed story needs to pause for a breath now and then.

Climax

Ooh, the good part. This is the pay off of the story, the reason you’ve written it and the reason people are reading it, so don’t sell it short. The same rules of Story Flow apply, you need to keep the pace steady and consistent, but here you’re going to want to step it up a bit, build the tension…but be careful not to throw it into overdrive. A sudden shift in the pace will jar the reader, and while they won’t put the story down necessarily, they might not enjoy the ride. Think about a piece of music that rises to a crescendo versus one that just blasts loud noise at you suddenly. As you get closer to the Climax, you should be increasing the energy with which you write, signalling more and more what’s to come without giving it away. Most importantly, though, make it clear what’s happening. There is a level at which you can allow the reader to infer, but you should never be vague at this point.

There is a type of Climax that I want to address specifically, and that is something called deus ex machina, which means god out of the machine. This is when the Climax is brought about by an external force, like a god or an unexpected cavalry, and it happens without significant precursor or any kind of set-up.* Most of the time, though not all, this kind of Climax seems convenient and uninspired…usually because it is. Deus ex machina is very hard to pull off and is rarely an appropriate way to end a story. I recommend against it strongly.

*If you’ve laid the ground early in the story for an external force to show up, like sending a character off to find the cavalry or having a specific point of calling on a god to help, this is not deus ex machina.

Denouement

Okay, the story’s over, let’s all go home…hey, but wait! What happened to the guy with the hat? Did he get the girl and find his dog? The Denouement or Resolution is where everything slows down (including your pacing) and, usually, settles into the status quo. The reader has invested time into this story and these characters and they’re going to want to know where their future will take them, so give it to them. Your Denouement can be short and slightly cryptic if you choose, or it can be longer and detailed, but be careful. Too little information can leave the reader dissatisfied (as with a certain boy wizard story I could name but won’t) and too much can feel like you’re starting a new story altogether.

Finally in this tutorial, I want to take a look at one more important element of writing your story. It’s going to happen. I don’t care who you are or what you’re writing, at some point you’ll catch this dreaded disease: Writer’s Block. Your story is sitting there unfinished, perhaps unstarted, maybe even abandoned in the middle of a word. It’s a crushing feeling when you can’t/won’t/don’t want to write and it is the single biggest factor in failed writing. There are innumerable causes of Writer’s Block but sadly fewer cures. Here, I’ll talk a bit about tools you can use to prevent it, Patience, Determination and Writing Time, as well as How To Fight Writer’s Block when it comes along.

Patience

One of the most important personal aspects of writing is Patience. Writing is not an art form that is accomplished quickly and the rewards of it take even longer, which is not to mention the intricacies of detail or possible research that will require countless hours of your life. There is very little instant gratification like there can be with visual art or music, and every writer must be aware of this and prepare themselves for the long haul. Writing can be boring and thankless sometimes, and working under those conditions can (and will) become tedious. This is the brutality of writing, and if you don’t have Patience, chances are you’re in for a rough time.

Dedication

When I say Dedication, I don’t mean that page before the book begins with a pithy platitude that really just serves as an inside nod that nobody really cares about. I mean Dedication, devotion to your craft, the will, drive and determination to stick to the project and see it finished. I’ve already written in detail about Dedication in another essay (which I suggest reading) entitled Are You Serious? and as I’ve said there, I can’t overstate its importance. Dedication is the difference between people who want to write and people who write.

Writing Time

This is the most common piece of advice I give, and I’m afraid that it’s the least heeded. If you have trouble making time for writing, be it through time management or lack of inspiration, the solution is simple…schedule yourself time to write. However long and however often you decide, and be realistic, don’t schedule so much that you can’t meet it or so little that you’re barely doing it, make that the time you devote to writing. You don’t have to write during your Writing Time, but you can’t do anything else. No television, no computer games, no eating, no cleaning your room, no talking on the phone or texting…nothing. If you’re not writing during this time, you are staring at a blank wall.

How To Fight Writer’s Block

Sadly, there is no truly reliable way to get past Writer’s Block except time, and even that fails some authors. The best way to get back into the swing of the words, though, is to get the inspiration flowing again. Here are just a few ways to help you along, and each one of these methods has helped me many times.

• Write The End First - It’s not always a good idea to start out this way, but generally if you lose your way and referring to your notes isn’t helping, I’ve found that writing the ending can help. It reminds you where you’re going and you can figure out better how to get there.
• Write Something Else – Our projects can overwhelm us sometimes. Now and then, we need to focus on something else for a bit to rinse the mental palate. Working on another project or even just scribbling down nonsense can act like a glass of refreshing water.
• Back Up and Try Again – You’ve written yourself into a corner and you don’t know how to go forward. Maybe somewhere along the way, you took a wrong turn and you need to retrace your steps, find the place where you went wrong and try moving ahead from that point.
• Read What You Have – If you’ve lost the motivation to write, looking back at what you’ve written might jog your creative impulses.
• Take A Break – The best way to fight Writer’s Block is time, and sometimes nothing else is going to work. If you keep trying to get the words moving again and the ideas are still stalled somewhere between your brain and your fingers, maybe it’s time to let it sit for a while. It happens that you get too wrapped up in the work and words bottleneck, or maybe you’re just not happy with the way things are going but don’t know how to fix it. Take A Break. Most of the time, stepping away from the project can clear your mind and when you look at it again, you look at it with fresh eyes. Before you do, though, you should set a time limit so that your short break doesn’t become abandonment.

There you go! Now you should be well-armed to write your masterpiece and ready for some of the obstacles that will come along. Sound easy? Sound complicated? Well, it’s both, and that’s the beauty of working with words. Now that you’re actually writing that brilliant idea that’s been swimming in your head all this time, the only thing left is to undo it all when you begin your Review.

The following is the fourth in a series of six tutorials designed to help novice writers build a better story.

Okay, Technique…this one might have some people scratching their heads. To be honest, I scratch my own when I think about it sometimes too. Consider your work so far, Concept, Tableau and Plot as a song that you’ve written, and consider the next step, Composition as the playing of that song, then Technique is the equipment through which you’ll play it. The kind of instrument, the amplifier, your posture and so on. In writing an effective story, you’ll want to pay attention to your choices in Media, Chapters, Voice, Language and Tense. Technique is a subtle influence that frames your story and defines how your story will be told. It’s an important yet undervalued step that can help writing shine when done right or ruin it when done wrong.

As you read this tutorial in particular, it might help to remember something that might not occur to you…even this tutorial has been written with these things in mind.

Media

Writing is the base model for many different kinds of artistic work, including but not limited to prose, comic books, webcomics, playwriting (for stage) and screenwriting (for television, video and/or film). Each of these Media has different strengths and weaknesses, as well as different rules and guidelines with its own Techniques for writing them*. As a result, how you write your story will be influenced dramatically by the Medium in which you decide to work. Prose, for example, is wildly different from a comic script…in prose you can depict much more detail and emotion while script allows you to get across information in a more concise structure. Many of these also allow (or demand) collaboration on varying levels, and therefor require you to write in a manner that is both informative of your intended story but provides for interpretation by your collaborators.

Another important aspect of Media is that a story which works in prose will not always work as a script. For that matter, stage plays will not always translate well to the screen. Have you ever read a fantastic book only to see it butchered by Hollywood? Or Dark Horse? Consider the story you have crafted and ensure that the Media you choose is appropriate to the story you’re trying to tell. Understanding the unique needs of your chosen Medium is essential in telling your story well.

*I don’t have the space here to discuss the finer points of the various writing Media and the distinctions between them, as they are myriad. Look for another tutorial on this subject in the future, or for more immediate information visit your local search engine.

Chapters

For lack of a better term, this is the segments into which your story is divided. Are you writing a comic with 24 pages in each of four issues? Are you writing a graphic novel or a webcomic with more relaxed page counts? Are you writing a sitcom with a specific allowance for time and commercial breaks? Are you writing a series of tutorials on how to write a better story? It’s good to know how long your story sections will be and how many of them you’ll have before you start writing. It provides a stronger parameter for the Composition and gives you a good series of milestones to reach, and I’ll discuss this more in the next tutorial. See? That’s how Chapters work!

Voice

Essentially, this is the perspective from which your story is told. Whether it’s a secondary character or a god-like other party or even a story comprised only of dialogue and no narration, someone is telling your story. No matter how you tell your story, you will choose a voice, even if you don’t realize it. Most new authors tend to use a default Third Person narrative, or perhaps tell their tale from the view of the protagonist, but often it escapes us that there are other choices, and each of them has benefits and limitations.

• First Person – This is the protagonist (or antagonist) of your story, someone who experiences the events firsthand. This narrative style provides a closer connection with the events and the players in the story, and can make the story seem more real, but it can also restrict the narrator’s ability to relay certain information…if he or she didn’t see it, how do they know it happened? First person is best used in a story of personal journey or experience.
• Second Person – Second Person narration is rare and hard to write, but it is an option. Essentially, it relates the events in a story as happening to the reader. You move quickly up the stairs as the sound of footsteps follows behind you. Your heart races as you think “Where can I hide?” It’s used chiefly in Choose-Your-Adventure stories and is very effective in certain works, but it requires characterization that is very generic (the reader will have difficulty reading themselves with personality traits they lack) and limits the kinds of stories you can tell with it.
• Third Person Perspective – Whenever a secondary character in the story, a non-protagonist (or non-antagonist) is the narrator, this is Third Person Perspective. When done right, it can read much like you are saying to the reader Hey, let me tell you about this guy I knew once… The problem with this style is that it limits your narrator’s level of information more than any other. I recommend against this style, even with more accomplished writers, but there are stories in which it is the better choice.
• Third Person Omniscient – By far the most common style of narration, Third Person Omniscient is exactly that…a third party who knows everything. You know what the hero is thinking, you know what the villain is thinking, you know what the secondary characters are thinking, and you know every single action that takes place among them. This narrator can be an overseeing god or one of the characters who knows more than they would. The reason this style is most common is that it is the easiest to write with, but it lacks the personal connection of the others.
• Combinations – Many stories will have more than one narrative voice, and this can work very well in adding a dynamism, but it is tricky. A story with variable timelines would do well with more than one narrative style, but a story following a single protagonist on a single journey might not. Not every story is a good candidate for multiple narratives, and I tend to caution newer authors against it. As with my notes on Natural Progression in the Plot tutorial, it’s vital to make sure the Voices are complimentary.

Language

Language is tied very closely to Voice and is more than just the tongue in which the words are written. Think back to our examination of Characters in the second tutorial, looking at Demeanour and Speech Pattern. Your narrator will have these things as much as any character, and a good writer will understand the parameters of what the narrator and the narration will say. If your narrator is a young girl, the Language will usually be somewhat flowery and sweet, so using a lot of technical terminology would be inappropriate. Conversely, a dark and sinister villain telling the story wouldn’t describe something as being ‘delightful’…at least, not without a sneer. The personality of your narration should always inform your word choices, and the more you pay attention to this detail, the more coherent your narrative will be.

Tense

Also known as Past, Present and Future, you’ll need to decide if your story is happening as it is being told or if it’s already happened (or, for the more adventurous among you, if it hasn’t happened yet!) This sounds simple, and it is, but be careful. It’s a common error to switch Tenses without noticing during Composition. That doesn’t mean you have to use only one Tense or another when you write, but it does mean that when you alter tenses it should be meaningful and done with purpose. As with your Voice, it is possible and common to employ more than one tense, but different Tenses require their own considerations of Voice.

And there you go. Once you’ve decided upon your Technique, you have the tools you need to start your Composition.

The following is the third in a series of six tutorials designed to help novice writers build a better story.

Once you have your basic storyline down and you have a richer understanding of the people and places in it, it’s time to start focusing on pulling the story into a clearer, more detailed picture as we look at writing an effective Plot. The importance of having a concise and fully realized Plot cannot be overstated; if Theme is the vehicle driving the story and Tableau is the driver, then Plot is the road on which it drives, from Point A to Point Z and all stops in between. If an author doesn’t do a good job of mapping out where the story is going, how long it will take to get there and the markers it must hit on the way, then it becomes a meandering and directionless journey. Your readers don’t have to know where it’s going, in fact it’s better if they don’t. But they have to know that you do or they won’t follow you for long.

In constructing your Plot, there’s a lot to consider…so much that I could probably do another series of tutorials on that alone, but for now I’ll try to cover the major points you’ll need to know and the elements that many fledgling authors neglect. It’s worth saying that there is no such thing as the right way to plot a story, but there are indeed many ways to avoid doing it the wrong way.

Every writer has their own method of plotting, but there are certain elements that are common among most if not all of them. For the purposes of this tutorial, I’ll break it down into two sections. In the first, I’ll address quickly the uniformity of Plot, and in the second I’ll look more in depth at the process I use as a model of how the plotting process can be done.

First, let’s address the basics: Inciting Force, Action, Climax, and Resolution.

Inciting Force

Why is all of this happening? It’s all well and good to want to write a story about a great train-hopping trip across the country, but without an inciting reason for the characters deciding to hit the rails, the story is hollow. A bus driver becomes a doctor…why? Jimmy climbs a mountain…why would he do that? Everything needs a reason, whether it is detailed or not. You should always know why your story is happening. Otherwise no one will believe you and no one will care. Luke Skywalker didn’t just hop the first ship to Dagobah, he had a reason. Your Inciting Force can be commonplace* or surreal, but it should always be important to the characters. Nothing should ever happen just because. Consider as well that there can be many Inciting Forces, but be cautious not to overwhelm the reader with them.

*While Inciting Forces can be commonplace, they should never be mundane.

Action

This is the body of the story, the Point A, Point B, Point C, what happens and in what order. Whatever journey the characters are on as a result of the Inciting force takes place here. Action will be the bulk of your story and is the most variable element of plot. What you do and say here, along with the Climax, will largely define the story you are telling and is what will distinguish your work from every other written piece. I’ll elaborate on this in a moment.

Climax

Often, this is the point in the story where all of the action comes to a head and the Inciting Force is answered, when the mission is accomplished, where goals are met…or not! The mark of good writing is in building suspense so the reader doesn’t always know how the story will end, and a good writer will know when the story demands a happy ending or something else. In addition, your story can have more than one Climax, and can in fact contain many smaller ones along the way. In Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings, we can see one definite Climax when the ring is destroyed, but consider along the way as the balrog is defeated, as Saruman is toppled and when Minas Tirith is saved. These are all small Climaxes to what I call Episodes, which I’ll address further.

Resolution

Also known as Denouement, Resolution is exactly that…the resolution of the story, what happens as a result of Action and Climax. Everything that happens along the course of your story will have consequences, and you must be careful to resolve them, or if not resolved then be mindful of why. Illustrate the world in which your characters will live after their journey is done. If the ending is happy, let’s see the picket fence. If it isn’t, show us how the characters react to their failure. Tie up your loose ends!

Now that you have the basic fundamentals of Plot, what is left is the nuance, the variables. As I’ve said, there are innumerable ways to plot your story, some authors choose to plot meticulously while others plot loosely and allow themselves freedom to construct the details during Composition. For new writers, I always recommend the former, meticulous plotting. This doesn’t restrict you from constructing the details as you write, and in fact every writer should, and it provides a clearer path with which to work. The following is an approximation of the process I use*, Markers, Episodes, Chronology and The Story in Rough.

*This process works for me, but I advise all writers to explore their own .

Markers

Make a list of the major points you want to include in the story, be they specific acts or lines of dialogue you want to use or generic scenes. If you want one character to say “That’s what apples cost these days!” while flinging a hammer at a guy in a monkey suit, jot it down. If you want someone to be wearing a fake moustache but don’t know why, jot it down. From important elements in the storyline to trivial aspects in the background, make a list and keep adding to it. These are your Markers, like an artist will decide their colour pallate before they begin painting, you too will decide what ingredients your story will have. You’re not limited to these, mind you, and you’ll probably scratch more than a few of them off before you’re done, but this list serves as a guideline of where you want to go.

Episodes

After you have your list of Markers, you can begin grouping things that can happen together or consecutively. In this step, you don’t need to pay attention to continuity or what causes what, but focus instead on building the individual Scenes. This is the scene where Jack finds the steel chest in the jungle. This is the scene where the squirrels run through the kitchen. This is the scene where old man Clements throws the hammers. They don’t have to be in order as long as you have a clear picture of what’s happening in each one.

Helpful hint: Write each of your Markers down on its own index card. You can add notes for each at the bottom to help keep track of how you want to use them, or if they are connected to other Markers. You can then organize the index cards into Episodes. You will probably find that you are thinking of more Markers as you organize them, and this way makes it easier to fit them in, and if you need to move Markers from one Episode to another, simply pull out the card. If you have cards left over when your Episodes are constructed, you can reconsider whether those story elements should be included.

Progression and Chronology

Every event in your story should always lead into or be led into by another event, it should have a smooth narrative. Once your Episodes are put together, you need to make sure there is a natural Progression, that the story you are telling builds on itself. This is especially true if the narrative style you choose includes flashbacks or follows more than one main character, or any other kind of split narrative. It’s generally poor form to create a flow of suspense or anticipation and then diverge into a point of low suspense. Of course, this is not always true, and in fact doing this properly can heighten the suspense to great effect. To do it properly, however, you need to pay attention to how it fits in.

As an example, the big car chase is on and the hero is in hot pursuit of the villain over the countryside, knuckles are white and teeth are clenched! Cut to an old farm hand walking his cow to the barn on a lazy, sunny afternoon. He takes off his cap and wipes his forehead with his sleeve as he looks up at the clear blue sky. What’s next? Does the farmer notice the two cars speeding down the road and watch as they pass his farmhouse? Or do the cars smash violently through his field, narrowly missing the farmer and his cow and sending debris and chaos into the scene? Be mindful of how your story flows.

The other side of this coin is the Chronology, or timeline of your story. This is not only a case of knowing what is historically accurate for your story (King Arthur never told his knights to git r dun), but also making sure the events in your story are in in order, and that the timeline within your story is appropriate. Again, this is especially important in stories with split narrative or where time is a variable. If your story is set in 2009 and your character has been a cop for 15 years, make sure you don’t mention him going to see The Matrix in high school. When your band of ragtag WWII soldiers is done fighting the Japanese, they won’t be shipping off to fight the Nazis. If Jimmy loses his pocket knife in the third chapter, he shouldn’t have it again in chapter 12. More than one might ever realize, but these details can be the difference between an enjoyable read and the loss of the reader’s suspension of disbelief.

The Story in Rough

This should be the last step in putting together your plot, assembling everything you’ve done in proper order. Once you’ve turned your Markers into Episodes and you have a good Progression and the Chronology is sound, it’s time to assemble them all together and write out The Story in Rough. Some authors will believe that they can keep the episodes straight in their heads, or even refer to their notes when they progress to Composition, and this may even be true, but I will always always always advise people to make the effort to delineate their full Plot. Whether it be in point form or in longhand prose description, be it handwritten or typed, seeing how your story moves from start to finish will not only affix it in your head, but will also offer insight into how a reader will experience the finished product. I suggest doing it on a computer, as it lets you make changes easily as you need to…which you will. Having your Plot worked out in sequence will also help you focus on the next steps in the process.

Congratulations, you have your Plot! Or, at least, the rough version of it. You will find yourself making adjustments in the next steps as the needs of your process require them, but what you have now is the blueprint. You can refer to this as you begin to compose and see where you’re going, or going wrong.

While forging bravely through the wild and dangerous world of webcomics, one is sometimes called upon to create characters. While this is a daunting - some might say impossible - task, we writers and artists leap into the fray with deranged abandon, laying about us with the twin cudgels of creativity and inspiration until all of our foes lie broken before our majesty. It is a great burden to be asked to create a character, for we must call upon dark and terrible arts to uncover this, the most jealously guarded secret of the webcomic lords.

Creating a character is like creating life. Do not take this task lightly, for when you dream up a new character to put to use in your story, you are a god, creating new life to populate your creation. Just as the Bible says that God created Adam and Eve, you must first craft a Protagonist around whom your world will be constructed. Then, as Lucifer was cast from Heaven, you shall create an Antagonist. Finally, you will create a bunch of other characters that nobody really cares about, much like most of that other stuff in the Bible.

The Protagonist

Every good story has a single, primary protagonist on whom the reader’s attention rests. It’s okay for the story to occasionally center on other characters, but this protagonist in particular is the Main Character, and should therefore be the main focus of the story. Some stories boast multiple Main Characters, attempting to weave different plotlines together into a beautiful tapestry of drama and intrigue. This is a mistake! Any attempt to divide your efforts among multiple, equally-important protagonists will always end in a disastrous failure. Your story will be terrible and everyone will hate you.

The Main Character should be unique and exceptional, because nobody is going to bother with a story in which a fat baker makes bread or an unremarkable Russian noblewoman has an affair or something. He needs a special gimmick that’s never been done before, the better to grab the reader’s attention. Perhaps he is a master of his style of swordsmanship? Can he use mystical arts to perform amazing feats of speed and strength? Is he a plucky underdog who prevails through guts, determination, and fiery courage? The best answer, of course, is, “all of these.” The more special your protagonist is, the more special your story is! Always remember this helpful tip.

Your readers will identify with the protagonist. They will envision themselves in his shoes, doing whatever it is that he does. For this reason, you must ensure that he possesses qualities that some of your readers are likely to have. You could try making him somewhat shy in social situations, or perhaps he loves reading webcomics and dreams of making his own some day. Remember, though: the Main Character must be unique and exceptional! He should serve as a stand-in for the readers, allowing them to experience adventures and excitement in the guise of a devastatingly attractive renegade with a strong sense of justice.

The Antagonist

Once your Protagonist has been created, you need an Antagonist for him to face! You will note that “antagonist” sounds a little like “Anti-Protagonist,” which is fortunate, as that is exactly what an antagonist is. The Antagonist’s purpose is to rival the Protagonist at every turn, providing a “bad guy” for the readers to hate. He should either be driven by a need for revenge over some terrible injustice inflicted upon him, or caught in a moral dilemma which forces him to carry out his evil deeds. This forces the readers to reconsider their shallow ideas of morality, transfiguring them into much more intellectually flexible people through the healing power of webcomics.

The Antagonist can be approached in one of two ways. The easiest and best way is to make him a very simple character, since he exists mainly as an enemy for the Protagonist to defeat. It is okay if many of his decisions go completely unexplained, as he is a Bad Guy and Bad Guys do evil stuff just because they are so very bad (or driven by a lust for revenge, as noted above). The other option is to make him a very deep and complex character. This is a poor idea, as it takes attention away from your Protagonist. Nobody actually likes learning about a villain’s complex and intricate motivations, and whenever someone writes about them it’s just because he is a pretentious jerk.

The Supporting Cast

Now that the Protagonist and Antagonist have been created, you need other, lesser characters to populate the world around them. The main character needs a love interest and a motley gang of misfits to run around with, while the villain needs faceless goons and a traitorous lieutenant.

When designing a supporting character, simply think of what the character “is.” For example, the main character’s love interest is just that: “love interest.” You can think up his or her name later! For now, you know that a love interest should be lovely and interesting, so you decide that the character should be devastatingly attractive and also royalty from an exotic land. Hot damn, you’re halfway done already! See how easy this is? As another example, a villain’s “faceless goon” should be intimidating but featureless. For this reason, you decide that the villain employs a private army of ninjas, because ninjas are scary and wear masks. This method is used by all the pro writers, and the sooner you master it, the sooner you will be on your way to character-building greatness!

Details: Appearance

Once you’ve established the storyline characteristics of each character, it’s time to move on to their appearances. A character’s appearance is hugely important, since the reader will be looking at or imagining the character all the time.

Obviously the protagonist should be attractive, because nobody cares about a fantastically ugly man defeating evil with his inner beauty and finding acceptance. However, there are various other elements of physical appearance to consider, such as hair and eye colour, hair style, the character’s style of dress, his or her height and build.

If your protagonist is female and has an unusually large bosom, you should cleverly avoid making your female readers feel inadequate by occasionally posting links to comics with even bustier protagonists and then going off on rants about how demeaning and childish their creators are. If she is fairly flat, you should go to great lengths to have other characters compliment her on her sexy and petite figure, proving that small girls are beautiful too. Your readers will appreciate this kind of intellectual honesty, and will respect your wisdom in holding up society’s silly foibles to be examined in the noble medium of webcomics.

There is one exception to this advice: it is considered very forward-thinking and high-minded to make the protagonist very busty as a symbol of female empowerment and the liberation of the fairer sex. If you choose to do this, anyone who makes derogatory comments like, “why does every female character in your comic have DD breasts?” or, “that is not how boobs work, have you ever actually seen a woman?” is a sexist bigot.

The Antagonist should be either alluring or intimidating, depending on the qualities you want the Protagonist to show while fighting him. He can either be attractive and dangerous, so that the main character proves his strength of will by overcoming him, or huge and mighty, so that the main character proves how powerful he is by defeating him. Any other kind of appearance is to be avoided like the plague, as it complicates the moment, detracting from the sense of triumph that the reader feels when the Protagonist prevails against the evil Antagonist.

As a note, it is always okay to give a female Antagonist an extremely large bosom, because then she represents the excesses of our image-obsessed culture, and her defeat at the Protagonist’s hands symbolizes the triumph of individuality and inner beauty. If anyone comments negatively on the Antagonist’s bust size, you are within your rights to condescendingly explain that it’s ignorant to criticize something when you just don’t understand the symbolism.

When it comes to the supporting cast, simply use the same method that you used to create them! The words, “traitorous lieutenant” are very nasty-sounding and have a military ring, so make the lieutenant a tall, muscular, heavily-scarred man in a military uniform. If you can’t come up with anything using this method, just assign a single distinguishing characteristic, such as “has an ugly moustache” or “is fat” to each supporting character. It’s not a good idea to spend more than five minutes coming up with a single supporting character’s appearance. You have better things to do with your time!

Details: Personality

A good writer knows that a character’s personality is invisible, and therefore doesn’t need to be described in detail. It’s always best to keep things simple: just write a short list of a character’s most interesting personality traits. The Protagonist should have the most detailed and interesting personality, while the Antagonist’s should be simple and easy to understand. The supporting cast doesn’t really need any kind of personality, because they’re just in the story to give the Protagonist people to interact with and be better than.

To show you that I mean business, here are two example characters:

Sir Magnus Lightbeard (Protagonist)

- seems like an outcast but is actually a nice guy when you get to know him
- will never hit a woman
- has a fierce sense of justice and will never back down in the face of evil
- never breaks his word
- is a badass

Lord Jerkhammer (Antagonist)

- executes his minions when they fail him, and also sometimes when they don’t
- hits everyone he ever meets, just so they know who’s boss
- has a fierce sense of injustice and will never back down from a chance to be a dick to someone
- makes lots of promises just so that he can break them later and then laugh
- is bad, and an ass

As you can see, Sir Magnus Lightbeard and Lord Jerkhammer both have very rich and interesting personalities without being boring, stuffy, overly-philosophical weenies. Writing up a summary like this takes no longer than ten minutes, leaving you free to do important things, like describing the intricate engravings on the Protagonist’s sword in excruciating detail.

In Closing

That’s everything you need to know! You now have the experience required to create truly fascinating heroes and villains. Armed with this knowledge, it is only a matter of time before you take the webcomics community by storm. Your daring protagonists will trounce their way into the hearts of your readers, while your evil antagonists go down in infamy. If you follow the advice provided here, you will have people clamouring for updates year round, desperate to know what happens next in the gripping saga of Jimmy Sprogan, Swordfighting IT Specialist.

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