mode-de-vie

Motivating myself to write and keeping that motivation throughout a writing project is one of the biggest challenges I face as a writer. I get the impression a lot of other people struggle with it as well.There are a lot of tools out there such as the Write or Die program and National Novel Writing Month designed to keep you motivated, but they're just gimmicks in my opinion. Writing takes a lot of time and effort, and we as humans need a very compelling reason to exert ourselves in such an extreme manner. A timer or deadline typically isn't good enough.The only effective long-term motivator is a real, tangible reward. Finishing a novel is...

Everyone's heard that characters should have goals, something they want and must strive for, overcoming obstacles and antagonists in order to obtain. Because, well, a story is the record of your character's journey toward achieving a goal.While all of this is true, I think a lot of writers lose sight of an even more important aspect of character. That is, motivation. Sure, you know what your character wants.Why?That's the gist of motivation. What is the psychology and reasoning behind your character's goal? If your character is driven to make money, is his motivation greed? To pay off a debt? To support his family?Motivation is your charac...

What is a Beta Reader? Apart from being a writer's best friend, beta readers provide a cross between edits and a critique. A beta reader does not edit a manuscript, but will note the errors for the author to fix. Advice and critiques are other services a beta may perform. Establishing a Relationship You've just partnered with an author; what do you do first? Establish with your author what each of you expects from the relationship. A solid understanding of expectations starts the partnership on a productive path and avoids misunderstandings. Time Expectations Is the author expecting a 24 hour turn around, while you're thinking a week? If ...

Shifting Gears The great thing about punctuation is that there is rarely one single, correct, perfect way to punctuate a poem.  Given to a number of different poets, a poem could be punctuated and re-punctuated in as many different ways.  So let's take a breather from so many rules and look at Leave the Door Open , by KrystalIce :Crash! =Thud= ~~Twang~~ *Shatter* +BOOM+ Duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duht ^Pink^ , ^Pink^ , ^Pink^ , &Clatter& @Rollrollroll@ (Ri-i-i-i-i-i---ng) .STOP.“…” “Damn; I should've left the door open.”At first glance, this could make a grammarian twitch!  It's just a jumble of symbols and shapes and - hey, take a deep breath....

Some people believe poetry shouldn't be punctuated and others are still taught to put a comma after every new line. So where is the balance? What does one - especially one new or growing in poetry - do ? Well, that's simple: a poet must punctuate with purpose!In order to punctuate with purpose, however, a poet must understand two things: what she wants to achieve with the poem and what a piece of punctuation can achieve in a poem. This means a poet must understand more than the common rules of punctuation; she must know the effect that certain punctuation points can have on a reader or in a text.This overview tackles punctuation in poet...

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: Experience ...

Chapter 4: Quality of imagery 4-1: Figure of SpeechWe 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 "...

Disclaimer:1: This section applies to the following three deviations. https://www.deviantart.com/deviation/14921070/ https://www.deviantart.com/deviation/14921253/ https://www.deviantart.com/deviation/14921493/ 2: The screenshots have been used and manipulated with explicit written permission from their respective creators. No third party may use these screenshots without permission from :devpoeticks: and the creator, and :devpoeticks: will not give permission without first consulting the creator.3: Footnotes have not been added due to difficulty with the formatting available on deviantArt. All referenced quotations and  paraphrases have b...

Abstraction Abstract, abstraction and so on are words thrown around all the time in poetry, and often without much solid – or at least congruent – meaning.An abstraction is literally a ‘taking-away’ from something, a vaguer look at a solid concept. For example, we could say that ‘animal’ is an abstraction from ‘cow’, or that ‘person’ is an abstraction from ‘telephone repairman’.An abstraction may also be an abstract noun, though, such as ‘love’, ‘peace’, ‘death’, ‘fortune’, etc.Or it may be an abstract verb, such as ‘eat’ or ‘move’ or ‘take’. More concrete verbs might be ‘chew’, ‘walk’ and ‘grab’, or might entail phrases such as ‘eat with ...

Show and Tell The idea behind what constitutes ‘telling’ is probably the most often confused by critics who are new to poetry.The general notion of it has been around for centuries in all types of literature, but the approach to it was tightened considerably in the 1920s by those of the Modernist school of thought – most notably TE Hulme, HD and Ezra Pound who adapted many tenets of the French school of Symbolism into Imagism.This leaves us with the current poetic climate, which shuns the idea of a pseudo-poet narrator (as favoured in lyrical poetry – Shelley’s Ode to the West Wind, for example) in favour of less intrusive accounts.The gui...