Delivered to the desk of one PSO-World.com, a most mysterious package wrapped in slightly damp and damaged brown paper. An unusual sight among the photon weaponry and outlandish anime garments adorning the walls, like Victorian curtains and fixtures placed in a night club filled with glow sticks and drugs unspeakable. The librarians of PSO-World open the parcel, tearing the paper and unleashing the musky smell of an aged book that lie within. Upon flipping the book over to the front cover, the words on the front cover heat pressed into the fine leather:

"The Art of Fiction" a how-to by SpikeOtacon

The contents of which shall follow.

A Forward by the author:
Spoiler!


I.) The Plot, and how to not lose it.

The plot is the soil from which your story will grow. Your characters, locations, dialog, it all exists because of this. It is the reason you are writing. You have something you want to tell so make sure you know exactly what you want to say! Plots can be done in many fashions and genres. Some genres fit together better with certain styles than others. One thing to keep in mind as you begin writing is Narration.

Ia.) The narrator is the voice with which you give every detail. These come in two major flavors: First Person and Third Person. No, those aren't just kinds of shooting game camera styles!

A "First Person" narrator has the story being written and described by a character in the story. Perhaps not even the main character! The language used in first person narration includes using very personal descriptors for events and actions within the story world. "I", "Me", & "Mine". Everything is being told through the sensory details of that character you choose to write from, so they are limited to only telling what they know of or have personally experienced in the story. You must imagine yourself as that character and write everything from their perspective.

A "Third Person" narrator has the story being written and described outside of the characters in the story. You're telling the story "through the looking glass", watching and describing events like a camera in a movie. You can easily jump around to different characters and locations in third person compared to first person, which may require more work to help indicate just which character is taking command of the story at that point. "He/She", "They", & other such descriptors are used for every character, there is no "I" in Third Person (Ok so there is in the phrase but still) narration! Remember, you aren't telling the story through a character, or an outsider of the characters, but more like a camera peeking through a window into the world.'

To Illustrate:
First Person - "As I sit here on this cool autumn day writing this guide, I can smell the spice of decaying tree leaves in the air as it filters through my open window."

Third Person - "As Spike sat at his desk to add further to his guide, he could smell the spice of the decaying tree leaves in the air as it filtered through his open window."

I chose to use similar wording for both phrases to give a basic approximation of each style compared to each other. However, the perspective for third person is not just a replacement of descriptive words. It can mean using entirely different language and detailing!

Ib.) Plot style is also chosen and described by how it approaches the events that make up the story. You can have twisting plot paths that cross different locations and events together to present the story. You can also have a straight plot line, following a single character or group from beginning to end. Something to keep in mind about complexity and plot twisting/changes. Readers can only take so much when it comes to changing the plot twist.

To explain a "Plot Twist", this is when you take the story and all of the information it has given the reader up to this point, and flipped a particular expectation or detail to reveal another truth to the story than what you previously had them believe. A basic example would be like the main character's best friend backstabbing them and taking the team's intel to the enemy base. A bigger twist may involve a character finding out that the company they work for is actually a front for the Illuminati, a job that they never asked for.

A good rule of thumb is to keep the twists to as little as you need to play with your reader. Take any given episode of Scooby Doo for an example. It's a show geared towards a younger audience, however the writing does have a lesson we can apply to plot twists. They only apply one or two twists per 30 minute mystery. Thus, avoiding overkill and having to think too much because there were so many twits that scooby resembled a pretzel by the end of the episode. For more advanced writers, I point you to heist and thriller stories/movies. There can be a lot of small twists fired in rapid succession, however the execution for each twist must be polished to a mirror shine and every twist needs to make some sort of sense by the end of the story (unless you're going for the open-ended route of unanswered questions which is another can of worms entirely) but usually offer some sort of pay-off for the reader as they occur.

So to wrap up this section, a Plot is the Who, What and Why in its most concentrated form. Without this, you have nothing. Keep in mind that these are just some basic examples, I have left out lesser used literary forms like unreliable narration because they require a particularly strong grasp to pull together successfully. If your story is there to spell out a mystery full of intrigue or pulls a "Lebewski" and ends as it began and essentially got nothing done you will find that they can all be done while using those guidelines above.

II.) Characterizing your Characters.

Your characters are the humans/animals/other living organisms within the story that perform actions relevant to the plot. They are extremely important to design properly unless you are just writing about paint drying. Your characters need to be believable. They cannot be absolutely perfect without any flaws or quirks about them. That's not how a person, even a humanoid animal or other creature, would operate. You must also make sure that their personality is consistent with who they are. They cannot change drastically and be a completely different personality in one page turn and then another personality in another page. We call that Multiple Personality Syndrome, and they may want to see a psychiatrist about that.

IIa.) Character Progression has two very basic templates. "Static" and "Dynamic".

A Static character never changes through the entire story. They will maintain the same personality and world views from the first page to the last. Secondary characters are almost always like this, unless the plot in particular calls for a character to change that will affect the plot or main character directly. This is also perfectly fitting for main characters, though depending on what kind of story you are telling they may come off as "One-Note" characters and can clash with the voice and tone of the story.

A Dynamic character changes during the story and can become a very different person from the beginning of the story to the end of the story. They will change their opinions and views, and may even use some different language in their dialog to reflect their changing. This usually happens progressively as the story goes on, and is less commonly done as an instant change unless said character undergoes a lobotomy or traumatic experience. Using a dynamic character requires careful consideration into the mind of the character and the changes must be done as a reflection of their experience during the story. A popular example of a dynamic character change would be Alex from the novel "A Clockwork Orange", who undergoes treatment to be forced to become a "normal" person after living the criminal life of a hoodlum during the beginning of the novel. I'm not saying you should force change down your character's throat, as good of a David Bowie song as it is.

IIb.) Every person has their opinions of other people and emotions that they feel during certain times. Something that you'll want to do to establish a baseline for your characters is to keep a list of dominant emotions and attitudes they have. Make it short, 3-5 at most. If the character changes, these will also change. So make a new list for them and mark when that is relevant to them in the plotline. For example, is your character broody, contemplative, and disdainful? Or are they jolly, positive and priestly? While this step isn't exactly required, it can help you keep your thoughts and consistency with characters organized. You'll use these feelings and emotions to define how they act, how they speak, and separate them from every other character in the story.

For more ideas on specific character attitudes, do some reading on Archetypes. A great place to start is to check out Carl Jung's Archetypes.

III.) The Voice and The Vision.

In order to allow your reader to make sense of your story and everything going on within it you need to pick how you want to describe people, places and actions. You can choose a style that gives very basic details of locations, concise phrases to illustrate action and motion, and broad terminology to create a portrait of a character. This fashion is very common, especially in fanfictions as they tend to concentrate on action more often than not and feel that they don't wish to weigh their audience down with detail after detail after detail. This way usually makes the reader have to use their imagination to fill in the gaps and make the world feel real, which depending on how well you've executed it can be a good thing.

The other style used is what I refer to as "Tolkienesque". This style involves very lengthy detailed passages to describe a new locale, paragraphs that rival an entire season of Dragonball Z in terms of how much action is stuffed in there, and microscopic detail in describing a character. This fashion is often used inappropriately and often interrupts the flow of a story. Many also find that much attention to detail too much, especially if you take an entire chapter to tell everyone what color the treetops are. But if done in proper moderation, this style can produce stunning results that assist the imagination.

Whichever of these two styles (or mixes of) you choose, you'll also have to remember word choice during different scenes of the tale. Just like with different characters, a different scene may be an entirely different attitude from the one previous. Action scenes for instance will use dramatic words with a certain bite to them to emphasise the violent nature of each attack, or the swiftness with which every move must be made with. Romantic scenes will use more lush, descriptive words to highlight the passion in the scene and the slower pace and tone. It is important to note that the voice of the scene cannot drown out and overpower the voice of your character and cause them to become a different person "just because". They all work as layers, building blocks with which the foundation of the scene is built. Use the voice of the scene to display the mood and tension, but also imagine how your character(s) will act when in the different situations each voice is applied to.

As you write out each scene, don't forget to keep the writing with your heart and soul. Don't just add a bunch of words for the sake of adding words, people will notice when you are trying too hard. Vice versa, they will tell when you aren't trying hard enough. Don't lose sight of your own touches. Pay attention to what you've already wrote, and try to avoid repetition. You don't want to use the same word 100 times in the same paragraph as this blurs the sentences together and will cause the reader some frustration and possibly bore them. This is especially important during scenes of action, too much repetition can absolutely slaughter the flow. Keeping the reader happy and paying attention will equal a real page-turner.

IV.) Farewell to my Arms.

I hope that this guide will help you polish up your ideas and strengthen your bond to your writing. There are plenty of things this guide hasn't covered, and I may come back and add further to it I believe I have covered some of the most basic and important sections that you'll need to start with. If there's something in particular you want me to add to the guide then let me know and I might write up a new section for it or add it to a relevant section above. Good luck and good writing!