Characters

When you create characters for a story, one thing that is fairly important is variety. You can't have everyone be dry, or have them all bouncing off the walls, or have them all so straight you'd suspect they all have sticks up their butts (pardon me for the language). You have to give them different personalities, different likes and dislikes, all the things that makes a person unique!

Here are a few questions to ask yourself when you're working with making characters that are all different from each other while also identifying their personalities--if these sound familiar, I got them from a book by a guy named Art Roche:

Just giving credit where credit is due. (I've just recently read this book myself and took a few notes.)

• How would each character respond to giving a speech in front of a crowd of 1,000 people?
• What does each character want most in life?
• What is each character's biggest personality flaws?
• If each of these characters had to make a choice between money and happiness, which would they choose and why?
• How would each character react to someone cutting in line in front of them?

These may not sound very big, but from just these little questions you can learn alot about the very character YOU created, while proving to yourself that they're all special, and not drones all given the same brain.

Good luck!

Timelines

Here's another problem that many writers have trouble with: what happens in what order. In this case, I usuallly make myself a little timeline.

This works best on a computer, since you can even add things in between, and even cut and paste parts. If for some reason you can't (and who on earth knows why?) then you might be able to use notecards, which are also pretty handy (you should probably find away to color code them or something if there too many, so you don't get confused from it all).

Each bit of the timeline doesn't have to be brewing with tons of detail, only the things that are signifigant to the story. This way, you can try to figure out if it makes sense by putting the whole series of events before your eyes. If one event seems not to fit, either move it, edit it, remove it, or replace it, whichever you feel is necessary. It's key to remember that no matter how good you think an event is, if it's not really improtant and you can't seem to fit in in properly, you usually have to take it out--but don't worry, if you keep writing, you can find a place for it SOMEWHERE if you just have to use it. :)

Here's more animusic! It's a bit more mellow than the others, so just sit back and enjoy a small dream or something...:)

Destroying Writers' Block

Alright, we all have it at one point in time or another, with an empty page in front of us and our minds all blotted out. What can you do to destroy this wall we call writers' black?

Well, obviously, I plan on answering this question.

While this would be more effective with leisure writing, who knows when else it could be helpful, so try keeping what I tell you in mind.

Personally, writers' block comes about biweekly or perhaps even more often than that. These are tips that help me get over this more than half the time:

1: Read a book.
A book is the creation of someone who at one point was doing what you're doing--writing a story. This, though, is beside the point; when you read, you collect ideas that can go into your story, but be warned! Of course you can't repeat the whole story, or its subject to being sued! Duh! In which case, you think of different plot twists, maybe even add some things together from completely different stories.

2: Draw a picture of the scene.
Some writers' block happens when you don't know how to get the scene to keep going or whatever. In drawing it, even if you're bad a drawing, you can better picture the situation, and sometimes you can get ideas from what you may randomly add/find in your art, or maybe from the facial expressions that you may, accidentily or not, put upon a person's face.

3: Act it out.
This can be done with a friend or sibming, if they're cooperative in the making of your production, but it can also be don alone. If you act out the siuation, then you canfigure out by the progression of the scene what can be added and even some things that can be improved.

4: Ask for advice.
Ideas can come from the most random of people from the most random of places in the most bizarre forms (or even some normal ones!). Ask a random person a random question and see where it takes you; or, if it's someone who's read your story while it was in the process of creation, you could just ask them straight out what they have as an idea, or maybe just ask for their prediction so you can build toward or around their thoughts and ideas.

5: Think about daily life.
Situations in any story don't have to be all made up--actually, that can be pretty bad/boing if there's a little too much, unless the genre of the story is supposed to flow tht way. Some stories though need something like a real-life situation to bring them back down to earth. To enhance your thoughts you can even write a small memoir, or a collection of 'Snap Shots' from your past, and then see what you come up with!

6: Use personal interests.
If it interests you, it's bound to interest some one else, too. Don't be shy to put yourself in your writing just a little bit.

7: Take a break.
Non-stop writing leads to a dull brain. Try doodling, reading, or doing an outdoor activity, even if you're too lazy--you definitely won't regret it!

It's a bit of a list, but hopefully it will be a useful one the next time you run into writers' block. You can bet your britches (heh, another lame line in my arsenal) that more hints and tips will be on here to help you with the writing of your story/stories!

(Note: Whenever I refer to 'stories' I'm including mangas and such as well, I just don'twant to say both all the time.)

Mayhem Poets

check this out, its thr Mayhem Poets! These guys are completely AWESOME at poetry--I advize anyone reading this to look them up on YouTube or anywhere else! They are the best poets I have EVER gotten to see! They were even on the NEWS (it even shows them WALKING DOWN A STREET NOT TOO FAR FROM WHERE I SIT TYPING THIS!) For all of you poetry lovers, these are the guys you want to see: Kyle, Scott, and Mason!

Tips On Creating A Good Story/Manga

Alrighty, by reading the title, you can probably tell what this is all about.

Here's a list of questions you should answer before starting out with a story of your own:

• Do you like it enough to stick with it?
• Is there a moral at the end of your story?
• What will be the point of view?
• What is the conflict? Will it keep the reader hooked (is it intruging?)

The first thing you need to keep in mind before making a story, whether it be for a manga or for a book: Do you like it enough to stick with it? If you can't say you do, you'll never get anything done. Try to think of something that you ABSOLUTELY LOVE, whether that is dragons or other fantasy creatures, magic, school stories, making people laugh (comedies), adventures, mysteries, romance, anything at all. Go ahead, even make a character out of a purple dinosaur. Put yourself in the characters' shoes; maybe then you might get into it a bit more.

Next: Is there a moral at the end? Alot of people write to teach other people something, or get an idea into there heads about something else, or help them understand a feeling or whatever. Not every story has a moral, but they can make a book more interesting (this isn't usually used in mangas). Even if the reader doesn't learn anything, maybe a character in the story itself will learn it.

Do you know your point of view? Are you looking from just the main character's perspective? Are you omnipresent, or viewing several things at different times?
Or just simply looking through the main character's mind, only showing the main characters thoughts? This can make or break a good story. Omnipresent views can give away too much information too early, spoiling everything else unless you're extra careful. Some authors switch the point of view from chapter to chapter, looking through a different character's eyes each time, getting a different look at the story, usually picking up where the last character left off, or a bit before. In a manga, you can simply show only one person's thoughts through one chapter, then anothers in the next. Or you could just show any and all (make sure the readers can tell who's thinking what, though--it can be a disaster if you don't make it clear enough!)

Another thing you need to remember: if your plot is boring, your conflict dull, your work will loose its quality. So what if the characters are funny and/or adventurous? If there isn't a conflict, it'll just go downhill. Make the character(s) take a trip to the moon. How will they get back? Are they searching for something? Is someone trying to win someone's heart? Is the character trying to get over an old pain, an old fear? Do they have to defeat one person or another? Is there a mystery to solve? Once you know the conflict, all it takes is a little creative brainstorming to come up with how it comes to be! Or maybe it doesn't! That's how sequals come to be...!

Of course, there are many other questions one should ask themself when creating a story, but these are the first few. Remember, these are important, so keep them in mind! They are the stepping stones to becoming a good writer, or good mangaka, or whatever you're shooting for!

And finally, the second animusic on the sight! (see the welcome post for the first!