Copyright © 2019 by Markovas
All rights reserved. Reproduction or distribution of this book and its visual assets, in any kind of electronic or physical way, is prohibited without the permission of the publisher.

Chapter 1
Exordium

An author’s every fear,
Giving torque to wrongful steer.
Holds back, ancient claws,
Always leaving you in eternal pause.

It’s time to squash the cycle,
Become life’s free disciple.
Untidy, green, no matter,
Give those pages their rightful,
Chatter.

This is meant for those who are hesitant to enter the realm of wonder, exploration and beauty of writing. Every single person needs to at least once try to put words onto pages by their own choice and not the choice of someone else. Yes, I’m looking at you educational system!

Many of you have been scarred by the forcefulness of the educational system and have developed a negative outlook on creativity or art. Or, you’re afraid to fail or look funny in front of others. Well, this will give you the insight of how to easily cross into the realm of progress with hefty self-esteem, which will then be shaped into the confidence of your own abilities.

With the simple step into the light, by trying new experiences in your life, such will have immense influence for the future ahead, since the butterfly effectis a fact of truth. Every decision you make dictates the future for yourself and those around you, especially with the power of written art that can reach even those living on the other side of this good earth.

Choices change our lives, especially choices which leaf new pages never before looked upon.

I greet you to this new start!

---

Chapter 2
Personal Experience

I’ve been writing and editing for 2 years now. Throughout my life I’ve never held interest in writing as it was seen as an obligation the educational system required of me. Everything was structured in a creativity-killing way, therefore, I couldn’t have my own opinion about a piece of work, and I always had to have my thoughts in-line with those of withered critics or dead authors.

There was no space for creativity. It was shut down with hammer and fist… Well, not really, just with F-s and F-s. Good thing I didn’t grow up in those times when they’d beat you up with a stick or make you kneel on corn for the duration of the class.

The system made me disgusted at literature, poetry and writing. Most was done on paper as well, and nobody taught me structure, as probably they believed I can teach myself such if I wanted to.

My toughest forte was the English language upon which I held good control of, nevertheless, I found out I was extremely incompetent as time moved on with new knowledge flooding in.

I’ve probably read more than 3,000 pages worth of literature in less than 5 months, a bibleworth, and my mind found beauty within it all, fueled by enthusiasm’s energy.

I started with fanfiction, since it could boost my start into this strange unknown. I didn’t understand the legality, but I didn’t care, since there was no profit to be gained from such, only raw beam of emotions. Even if it’s classified as fanfiction, it isn’t any different than standard fiction.

The first chapter of my fanfiction? I didn’t know what the hell I was doing! I didn’t know how to structure dialogue or paragraphs, I didn’t know what to write in the dialogues and I didn’t know what my goal was, but I knew I wanted to keep writing because I was making something. I could feel excitement with every sentence finished.

And it was convoluted…

I didn’t know about capitalization, advanced punctuation, dependent/independent clauses, character/plot development, types of narrative and more of lots. And even so, that did not stop me from loudly forging on.

During these 2 years I’ve learned a lot, I’ve written more than 400,000 words, which is the equivalent of 1,200+ pages. I’ve also read fiction of established and successful authors, which I’d contrast to how my own work is structured and edited. My editing experience was of the size of my work plus other projects I had undertaken with other authors, which now amounts for more than 700 000+ words.

I developed structure for learning new information and storage for later use. I created sheets for keeping track of what’s going on, how many words were in a chapter, while calculating how many pages that actually was. I do agree most of my time was invested in creating these structures, as I had a goal to be a multi-functional Swiss Army Knife.

Such is still my goal, and I’m climbing strong.

Remember, if you’re replaceable, then you need to keep learning. And after you become irreplaceable? Well, why would you stop there? I wouldn’t!

None of this should discourage you, as it’s my example of what I’ve achieved through the perseverance of my efforts, which I, a normal person, have managed to do. Therefore, you can accomplish the same results, if not even grander and more magnificent to those of my labor!

There’s nothing stopping you from achieving betterment and exploring the realm of creativity. The barrier before you is that of your insecurities and lack of confidence within the self. Stop thinking of how’d you look or if what you’d write would be weak, use that as motivation to ignite your need to do better and climb the ladder of writing’s craftsmanship.

‘Everyone can be anything’ is the moto of Zootopia, and I do think there’s some truth in it, as long as one sticks to the objective reality. The objective reality is that you can be a writer, and nothing is stopping you from trying, only your own misplaced fears which need be crushed to a juiceless pulp.

---

Chapter 3
Finding Inspiration

Sounds easy, no? Well, it isn’t a hard process to initiate, you just have to get out of your head and observe the world around you or just engross yourself in art: be it a movie, book, video game or whatever else of color and productivity. Find what makes your insides bubble with curiosity and imagination, and use the energy to mold, develop and integrate concepts.

Usually books hold the greatest quality of atmosphere, which is achieved by your mind’s beliefs and opinions. They hold the deepest reach to the characters and the world around. Sure, you will meet issues with creating an exact picture of the world, but your emotions will connect, and it is the emotions which induce inspiration’s adrenal motivation.

Movies give us the visual representation, while it is absolutely atrocious for them to give us that deep connection to the characters, because we cannot roam inside their heads, hence, emotions are distanced and cold by the prevailing volume.

Video games, I see them as books and movies at the same time because there is lore and visuals within. Some are so full with lore that you can lose yourself in it: Word of Warcraft.

There are many books you can read about, yet you can live within those books by just playing the game. Isn’t that just a molotov cocktail of visions-endless? When you think about every in-game model, every environment and every tome of lore you’d go through, someone actually sat there and had to put everything of such to words, before artistic work could’ve even begun upon the game!

Everything was created by artists!

Creation is art.

---

Chapter 4
Rolling the Wheel

So you’ve got the guts to give exploration to this exciting new world? Excellent choice, you’ve never made a better decision in your life! Guh, sounds like an ad, yea?

You’ve decided to give it a go but do not know how or where to start? That’s is perfectly understandable, therefore, let’s see what are the requirements to push the cart with the currently square wheels.

Requirements:

• A computer or laptop on which you can write
• Word processor software

• Google Docs (free), LibreOffice (Linux, Mac and Windows free), Microsoft Word (paid), Scrivener (paid).
• If you’re planning to use Notepad, I’ll whack your hands bloody!
• An idea
• The idea is like a culmination or a critical point in the story. It must be the most critical moment in it, otherwise, your plot will be weak and ridiculous.
• Internet (Optional)
• A normal connection would suffice for usual browser usage.
• Platforms of distribution (Optional)
• Such platforms can be Deviantart, Wattpad, FictionPress, Fanfiction, AO3, your own website
• Please don’t over-extend and try to upload everywhere, as that will demoralize you due to the long amounts of time required. Choose 1-2 and stick to it.

---

Chapter 5
Bringing Order

Instead of jumping blindly like I had done, you can actually take some time to structure your work-environment and give yourself less hassle to deal with further down the road. Such is by putting a foundation underneath your fuzzy feet. Otherwise your situation will feel wobbly.

Basic Folder Structure:

This is important to the organization part of your start. It’s fairly easy to set-up even if you don’t know what you’re doing, and since I’m here to give you the hard push, you’d just have to follow the simple design and parrot the system of folders.

Having these folders will ensure that you will not be met with issues of scattered files or ideas, as they’d have their rightful place which will be known by you, even if you fall victim to the sharpest of amnesia.

You should adopt this discipline throughout your accumulation of experience. Organization equals easier progress, and easier progress results in more time for yourself and future additions to your ongoing or current projects.

In your WriteBase, you’d put important files that’d be beneficial for your writing knowledge, progression and materials. It’s a good way of stacking-up your education and arranging it to your convenience. See it as a university archive of your own creation-sweet.

Here is your idea archive, which is to be used for upcoming stories, chapters, characters or plots. You label and pile the ideas up. Whenever you get an idea, do not wait to save it, because the brain forgets and you may never manage to remember or create the same outstanding vision-now-lost.

Upon the Fiction Name folder, you create a folder with your fiction or non-fiction title, wherein would be the rest of the materials regarding the said project.

The Plot is the core of your story, because no matter how well-worded a book is, without a plot it is meaningless and bland, while the World is what gives the pillars around that core so you can build around and upon it.

With such come complications and specifics that can be logged into Style & Words, where you put made-up words, terms that relate to specific events of originality or lack of current-world existence. Of course, you can add words that exist in our world, since there are no restrictions.

Sometimes we lack the means to save the information digitally, so we can use physical paper on which to write, although I’d say you should refrain from such barbaric tendencies and just use your futuristic phone. But if you do write on paper, you have to re-type it in Notebook Drafts.

The Chapters part can appear rather scary and sophisticated. It’s not. The Legend from the 1^st Folder Structure picture tells us the Hexagons are documents, while the Rectangles are folders. When you create new chapters, they go into the WIP (Work in Progress) Chapters.

There they stay until they’re written, after which they’re moved to Archived Chapters and are integrated into Fiction Name Book, which is the title of your project. Within this collection of chapters you’re to put every chapter after it’s been migrated into the Archived Chapters folder.

Remember: when you add a chapter from Archived Chapters into Fiction Name Book, you are to use Chapter Status to log every change you make between files. Don’t log any changes you’d do in the collection of chapters that is your book, unless it’s vital, like if you need to get a chapter out so you can put it on your phone for editing, while moving it back to the computer to update the changes after they’ve been done. Neatness leads to sharpness.

The folders can be created on your computer or the cloud services like Google Drive, Dropbox, Onedrive. I prefer to use my computer’s hard drive, yet I keep backups on the cloud and other external drives.

Backups are crucial. What’s a backup? It’s a copy of your files that is stored on another drive or cloud server. This backup is your salvation if your hard drive fails. I know writers who had hard drive failures and lost their manuscripts, files and work…

Such a catastrophe can make you quit, and it can happen at any time. So please, do backups of your files. Don’t believe you’re a special snowflake.

I used to use Onedrive in the past, but as it had sync issues with my Android, I just moved with Google Drive and have used it ever since. It’s pretty handy as well if you’re using Google Docs, because you can just save your files on Google Drive and then download them directly to your computer.

Basic Terminology

Paragraph

A portion of text that has a beginning and an end. A new paragraph begins when there’s a line break or new indentation. Even a single word can make a paragraph on a page.

Line

This is a line that is in a paragraph. If we have two lines in a paragraph, then we have two lines!

Stanza

Used in poems. It’s when there is more than one line, while the usual size of a stanza is four lines or more.

Metaphor

A word or phrase that applies to an object or action with qualities which are literally impossible.

• The sun giggled with its rays.

Punctuation:

• A vital cog in the machine of writing, since a single comma could change the meaning of a sentence. You don’t need to dig deep in order to start, you don’t even need to get yourself involved with punctuation, because it’s an editor’s job to align all of those problems.
• Nevertheless, if you want to learn more, just head over to dependent/independent clauses in google and learn how punctuation works with them. Be wary, it’s nothing easy to grasp and integrate.

Plotting:

Developing the idea and road towards a goal is what a plot is. It’s the main structure of a story without which a story has no purpose or meaning, because random events are otherwise to happen without a concrete reason. It’s good for you to have a road to trek, hence, you should have an ending goal for your idea or ideas.

Questions that help with the process of this development can be ones like:

• ‘What do I want to achieve with this idea?’
• ‘How am I going to achieve this idea?’
• ‘What is the point of this idea?’
• ‘Why do I want to develop this idea?’
• ‘Who will not understand this idea?’
• ‘Has this ever been done? If yes, how can I make it better?’

There are more sophisticated ones, but this will suffice. The answers can be straightforward and concise, as you are not required to have 10 pages of your plot in order to move forward.

Even a few sentences can be enough for a plot, especially if you are a Gardener type of writer.

When you’ve developed the end goal, you then start thinking where to start. Everything else comes to play as you write and think about your story. Truth on the matter is: you don’t need to have your story fully planned. You just need an important moment of simmer’s need. Everything else can be fit into place easily during writing.

Think of it like a puzzle.

Don’t forget, the story changes as it’s written. The story can’t remain the same with the initial plan that was set in place. It evolves, and evolution is beneficial.

---

Chapter 6
Types of Writing

• Narrative

This can be fiction or non-fiction. The main goal of narrative writing is to unravel a story containing characters to whom events happen.

• Descriptive

Carried within fiction, poetry and diaries. Its purpose is to go in depth within the description of a setting, event, appearance of a character or atmosphere, so that all the Five Senses of the reader are to be activated and used to influence their own emotions. This type of writing is not easy to implement but does allow a broad range of opportunities for writers.

It is strongly recommended for Descriptive and Narrative writing to be mixed in balance.

• Expository

Found in the journalism world and academia. Its purpose is to inform the reader about facts separate from the author’s personal views and opinions, unless we’re talking about the Top 5 Ways to Grow Your Rooster or Orange Man Bad.

• Persuasive

Found in job applications and advertising. The idea of persuasive writing is to create a gripping atmosphere that would influence the reader with strong argumentation. Expression of personal opinion is highly present with ample amounts of evidence-given, so agreement can be achieved between the reader and the author’s words.

---

Chapter 7
Marrow of a Story

The content’s sum of a story is not a small range, so I’ll put the most important parts of it here. You don’t need to know everything in order to start the writing process, as you just need the basics.

Characters

• Protagonist

This character is the soul of your work, as they are the one character to whom the reader will have the deepest emotional attachment to. They move the story forward, while undergoing the process of the Hero’s Journey. Along the journey the protagonist faces challenges which would either be conquered or succumbed to. These challenges are derived from antagonists.

• Antagonist

This character goes against the beliefs of the protagonist, hence, the beliefs clash and create the antagonism and problems those antagonized need to overcome. There can be more than one or two antagonists in a story.

They shouldn’t be labeled or created as evil, unless such is the purpose of the plot and the type of story. Antagonists can just be characters who do not agree with the protagonist’s views or actions, while the actions and views of the protagonist can be wrong altogether.

• Antihero

This type of character works like a main character, but all they do is for their own self-interest, no matter the costs of their choices.

• Minor or Supporting Character

These characters just fill the atmosphere of the story. They’d show up one or twice and do not have a significant value to the plot.

Sizes:

• Short Story (600-2,000 words or 2-6 pages)

• Novelette (7,000-17,500 words or 20-51 pages)
• Novella (17,500-40,000 words or 51-117 pages)
• Novel (50,000-100,000+ words or 147-294 pages)

Narrative Structures:

• Linear narrative

This narrative follows a chronological order and doesn’t deviate from it. It walks one path that is forward, and has the mission to determine and introduce the main characters and plot.

• Non-linear narrative

It introduces sections from the story that aren’t in a chronological order. They can briefly include future events that are to happen. It uses switching between time and order to create effects of disinformation, or an introduction to a major plot point that is to keep the reader hooked on down the river of words.

---

Chapter 8
Narrative Tenses

1^st person, 2^nd person, 3^rd person

past, present, future

Past

My personal favorite narrative tense. It tells the story in the past like a story should be told. A story is something that should be about something that happens in the past, due to the meaning of a story being something that has already happened, consequently, the definition of a story!

Examples

• 3rd Person:

She went around the corner to see if it was there. There was nothing but empty air and a sight of stasis, as if time had frozen. Therefore, she scratched her head in confusion.

• 2nd Person:

You went around the corner to see if it was there. There was nothing but empty air and a sight of stasis, as if time had frozen. Therefore, you scratched your head in confusion.

• 1st Person:

I went around the corner to see if it was there. There was nothing but empty air and a sight of stasis, as if time had frozen. Therefore, I scratched my head in confusion.

Present

This tense unravels in the present as if everything you are reading is happening right now in front of your eyes… well, your mind’s eyes.

Examples

• 3rd Person:

She goes around the corner to see if it is there. There is nothing but empty air and a sight of stasis, as if time has frozen. Therefore, she scratches her head in confusion.

• 2nd Person:

You go around the corner to see if it is there. There is nothing but empty air and a sight of stasis, as if time has frozen. Therefore, you scratch your head in confusion.

• 1st Person:

I go around the corner to see if it is there. There is nothing but empty air and a sight of stasis, as if time has frozen. Therefore, I scratch my head in confusion.

Future

The tense unravels in the future. It is a strange one to use as it sounds and feels like the Star Wars persuasion tactics Jedi would force onto the simple-minded, heh. Not a fan of this tense, but it does open interesting creativity aspects. It could be used in trying to sway people’s opinion or try to make them do something, like a Jedi using the Force.

Heed, the future tense can also be used while writing in another tense, when the circumstances demand it. There is no golden rule specifying you must always be stuck on one tense throughout your whole story. But it’s easier if you do, sophisticated if you don’t. Why sweat in the sun when you can go under the tree’s bask of shade.

Examples

• 3rd Person:

She will go around the corner to see if it will be there. There will be nothing but empty air and a sight of stasis, as if time would have frozen. Therefore, she will scratch her head in confusion.

• 2nd Person:

You will go around the corner to see if it will be there. There will be nothing but empty air and a sight of stasis, as if time would have frozen. Therefore, you will scratch your head in confusion.

• 1st Person:

I will go around the corner to see if it will be there. There will be nothing but empty air and a sight of stasis, as if time would have frozen. Therefore, I will scratch my head in confusion.

---

Chapter 9
Types of Writers

There are many categorizations of writers, as they are labeled by their style of written art. Nevertheless, we could bring up the 2 most important types you should know about, since they’re most common, while the rest could be tagged as imaginary branches that’d spread from the trunk of a tree.

Both are pretty self-explanatory. Left side is perfection and order, while right side is unpredictability and randomness. It’s up to the writer to find what type they are and keep to the style throughout their journey.

Fun fact, did you know that George R. R. Martin is a Gardener? Not like a gardener, but a Gardener type of writer! And here you were, thinking Game of Thrones was the perfection of an architectural genius. The man just let the stream show him the way, hah.

---

Chapter 10
Writing Genres

This classifies what the fiction will have most influence within, and the tables provided below are a fun way of expressing what the biggest genres are about, with the generalized plot points frequently met in the industry.

As we know, examples say more than words, tho the examples have words… But you get the gist.

My favorite ones? Drama, Action, Smut (erotica), Criminal, War, Adventure, although you can’t see adventure here as it is classified as Action.

---

Types of Editing

It’s true that writing is separated from editing, as they are two different processes. A writer doesn’t need to be their own editor, yet it’s a sugary perk to have, but it takes a lot of your time and energy. So that’s why editors came to existence and overtook the market in their vulture-like talons!

An editor’s job is to make a writer’s work legible and comprehendible. It’s their job to bring-up issues within the work and give suggestions to the writer to have them fixed or changed.

Personally, I am my own editor as I learned the skill throughout the years. It’s hard and tiring to go through pages of text. I’d use proofing software to catch the obvious typos, but since software is limited and cannot find most issues, I’m forced to do line editing and copy editing, which isn’t fun at all for me.

I then fix those areas and give the material a final proofread that readies it for public consumption. Sure, it’s not perfect, as perfection would mean you’d have to do two or ten proofreads, but it does the job well.

The concept of editing is to receive a fully written manuscript and only then should editing proceed. I used to write a chapter, edit it and repeat. That’s not how it is done, but it was the only way I could learn as I climbed up.

I’ll quickly summarize, in chronological order, the 3 types of editing processes I mentioned a paragraph or so ago, because you are not expected to know any of them.

• Line editing

Job here is to look at sentences. But it’s not what you think, because the job doesn’t fix errors of grammar, spelling or punctuation.

Main goals of line editing are making sentences fluid, adjusting the atmosphere of scenes, adjusting language to have a clear expression, focusing the message of the story, making dialogue believable and giving sentences structure and order.

• Copy editing

This is the process that reviews the written material and implements changes that make it better in the forms of consistency, grammar, typos, spelling, clarity, repetition, flow, plot holes, plot and character improvements, etc.

Concisely labeled: grammar Nazis.

Such editing is a must, but it is not the final stepping stone for a polished book or chapter of a book, as it requires you to go through the Proofreading stage in order for your work to shine and glint in the darkness.

• Proofreading

Proofreading focuses on typos, spelling, punctuation and grammar. Yet, it is not meant to go over the issues copy editing tackles, because it only fixes the surface problems within the material. It doesn’t go any deeper.

Remember, proofreading is only to be done after a copy edit, otherwise you’d be doing a copy edit and not a proofread. If you have someone proofreading for you, then remember that they will not fix awful sentences or go out of their way to copy edit your work, especially if you’ve paid for it as a service.

It is advisable you either proofread your material or get someone trusted and experienced to do so for you. There are tricky typos and grammar problems that exist in the language world which are invisible to the inexperienced eye.