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New to writing. Want to write a story
winter_combat_knight
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hey fellas. Long story short, i've had a general idea for a story that i concepted in my mind a couple of years ago. i jotted some ideas down on paper, but never took it any further. The reason i didnt persue it was because, honestly, i hate writing. I don't know how to write dialogue, i'm unsure what is relevant to write down for the reader (e.g. whats going on, describing the environment etc.) and have a pretty poor vocabulary. I like good stories. But i struggle to put them down on paper.
I dont want to write a story to perfection, i just want to be able to have something i can give to someone and they get the basic idea of whats going on. should i just write in dot points? entirely description? Include dialogue? Whats the best way to get a story down, without having to stick to the formula of writing a story? if that makes sense
BTW, my idea, if it where a film, would be drama. it's mainly about an individuals thoughts.
Also, i know i sound lazy
I dont want to write a story to perfection, i just want to be able to have something i can give to someone and they get the basic idea of whats going on. should i just write in dot points? entirely description? Include dialogue? Whats the best way to get a story down, without having to stick to the formula of writing a story? if that makes sense
BTW, my idea, if it where a film, would be drama. it's mainly about an individuals thoughts.
Also, i know i sound lazy
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Check out the Writer's Block here at PA. Have a look at the writing people post there, and read the crits to get an idea of what works and what doesn't.
Vocabulary isn't all that important, as long as you can find the right words to say exactly what you want to say. You can tell a good story with very simple language. Avoid unnecessary words, inappropriate use of words, and too big words.
About description and dialogue: only mention things that are essential for the mood you want to convey, or necessary for the reader to follow the story. Less is generally more here. If we don't need to know the color of someone's hair, leave it out. Dialogue needs to sound believable and natural (unless the characters are meant to be unnatural), but only include the necessary parts. Don't underestimate the reader.
That's just me. Also, make yourself a list of your characters and jot down some ideas about them so you don't go off all willy nilly while you're writing.
Do you read much?
There's also Strunk and White's Elements of Style which is basically required reading. Also, the rules by Kurt Vonnegut:
Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
Start as close to the end as possible.
Be a sadist. No matter sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.
These are all pretty good guidelines to follow. Also, whatever you do don't attempt to right a novel the first time you've ever written anything. It sounds like you're attempting to write a short story which is much better - they're fun, fast, good practice and much less time consuming. Good luck!
King is a very successful writer, and when it comes to his realistic fiction he can be a pretty damn good writer (Dolores Claiborne is probably one of the better examples of this) but I think his writing philosophy has a few faults. I don't believe, as he says in many of his works, that plot trumps everything else in a story. I often prefer a good character study or exercise in technique - Lolita doesn't have a particularly interesting plot if you take away the brilliant prose, for instance. Despite this, I would rate Lolita above anything King ever wrote, and from what I've read of King I doubt he'd disagree. This isn't to say a book or a story which focusses on plot can't be good, or that a character study (or whatever) can't be bad. But it's apples and oranges.
Still, On Writing is as good a place to start as any. Definitely pick it up - just don't take everything in it as gospel.
On topic: If you want to write a story, you'll need to start writing. Every day, even when you aren't 'inspired'. Be prepared to never show much of what you write to anyone, and be prepared for the fact that you'll be writing a lot of rubbish. Writing is a skill that takes practice, you can't wait around for a muse who will whisper words of inspiration.
If you have that one idea you really want to turn into a story, perhaps that one idea should not be the first thing you start working on, just in case your first projects isn't brilliant.*
*It won't be, but that's okay. Cause the next one might be a bit better, and the one after that a bit better still. And so on.
-don't start any story with a description of weather.
-10% of writing is writing. The other 90% is editing, and essentially cutting away all the writing that wasn't necessary.
edit: Which is not to say all of it should be discarded. Some things you learn early on hold true until you put your last pen to your last piece of paper.
Although this would fall under "usually inadvisable" any advice to never do something is bogus.
....except this. And maybe a couple others.
Maybe the truthier statement is that general tips about writing are useless. So here are mine.
The simple fact is that there is no easy way to start writing. It's hard, frustrating, embarassing, time-consuming, and you'll never ever ever feel like you're making progress until all of a sudden you realize you have a story. And maybe you'll never have that feeling.
You're going to have what writers call a Process, and your Process is going to be totally different from that of other writers. But what works for other writers might also, sometimes, work for you. So your best bet is to take in every bit of advice, thrash the hell out of it for a couple of pages, and decide if you like the result. There are as more different ways to write well than there are writers. It may work for you, it may not. So try it and find out.
There is only one way to ever get better at writing, and that's to write. Reading helps, you'd be hard pressed to find a decent writer that hasnt read hundreds of books, but its no substitute for actually writing. Sit down and get to work figuring out your Process, and if you haven't got it sorted out for a while that's fine. I still don't know what the hell mine is after four years of trying to write, and letting that frustration stop me for about two years is one of the biggest regrets of my life.
Your writing will suck at first, no matter how much you do it. Every first draft is terrible. Nobody sits down and hacks out a story in one sitting and then just fixes the spelling errors and comma splices and publishes it. Any writer who tells you otherwise is a dirty lying whore. Editing is a big deal, but you can't worry about it until you have a draft. That's like worrying about how your meal is going to taste if you never actually cook it.
You're probably worried that your really cool, original, interesting, awesome idea for a story is going to be wasted by your shitty writing, and you want to become a great writer first so you can do your idea justice. Don't let that stop you. Yeah, you might never make it as perfect as you like, it might never be publishable material, it might be something you'd never ever share with people that you ever want to respect you again oh dear god why did you write that?
Yeah, this will probably happen on your first few dozen/hundred/thousand attempts at writing. But the old writing adage says "Kill Your Darlings." Don't let your ideas stop you from writing. The simple truth is that for most people, especially those drawn to writing, ideas are easy. Ideas are everywhere and you'll have more of them in a day than you have time to write down. Waste your good ideas on shitty writing, waste good writing on shitty ideas, it doesn't matter. Somewhere along the line it'll all click and you'll finally find yourself not embarassed to death over something you've written.
If you can force yourself to sit down and just do it you're going to be leaps and bounds ahead of most other people that call themselves writers. Myself included.
So theres my little rant on becoming a writer. As for actually improving your writing once you've started? Workshops are great, and the Writer's Block here is an excellent internet workshop. Just don't bring up the subject of hats down there....
On a more serious note, and something I had intended to mention in my earlier post: If you're looking to write a short story to communicate this particular idea of yours, there's no rule that states you need dialogue. You could try a very simple, fairy tale-esque style. Keep it simple if you simply want to tell your story and prose isn't something you're terribly worried about.
Not that simple stories can't have beautiful prose, of course.
I recommend stories you know instinctively. Fairy tales or what not.
edit - I'd also advise you not to write the story you really want to write as your first attempt at creative writing, since you are assured to mess up that first piece horribly, and will never want to read the story again.
Yeah, if you have a big, big dream idea, I'd maybe wait a while to write that. But as someone else said in this thread, you'll get more ideas than you could ever write down, so don't let the idea that your story is too good for your writing at this point slow you down or discourage you.
My suggestion would be to cultivate a few other, shorter ideas before embarking on the one you really want to write. Jot down a few short stories. This'll help you get into the groove of writing, and once you actually finish a few things you won't be as daunted by writing.
When you want to write something big, I'd suggest you have a sort of layout of where you want to go. Personally, I hate, hate, hate outlines. Even though most teachers would suggest 'em, I don't really like them. Just have a sort of thought on where you'd like the story to end up, but don't let yourself get tied to that. Things happen and stories change. I've written two full length novels so far, and both of them ended up absolutely 3,000% different than what I thought they would when I set out. That's okay. You book is basically a living, breathing thing. It'll change as you do, and as you notice and think of things for your characters.
Also, don't get yourself discouraged based on your perceived skill. After reading a few books yourself, you should notice that skills and styles of authors vary. They vary even in what people would call "classics." Some authors describe things to an absolute T. Others leave a lot of details to your imagination. Some authors are insanely formal. Others, however, sound like you're hearing the story from a long known friend. Nothing's set in stone. I'm sure once you write a few of those shorter things and get to work on your bigger piece, you'll have your own voice.
As for making characters, my advice is to try and think like your character might. When you have some downtime, get into that character and maybe say a few lines. When you're writing the character, maybe trying saying the lines out loud. Act things out a little, and that'll help a lot. You'll know what sounds totally weird in real life and what your character might actually be able to say with a straight face
Personally, when I write I like to isolate myself a lot. Music helps with this quite a bit. Pick out a few songs that you think convey the scene you're trying to write and put on some headphones. Get yourself a nice glass of water and maybe a snack (so you don't have to get up in the middle) and sit down to write. Let yourself get into a nice flow, and when you feel like you're forcing words to come out just take a break. Walk around a little or close your writing program (or notebook) and do something else for a bit.
Not lazy, but it does sound like you're trying to do something you don't want to do, and knowing the reason would help.
What do you want to do with this story? Is this just for you? Is it something you want to send to fiction magazines for potential publication? Is it something you want to use as a movie or graphic novel pitch? Answering this will give people a better idea of what to tell you.
From his first post it's not that he doesn't want to do it. It really seems like the only reason he doesn't is because he's unsure of his own abilities to do it. He doesn't know what to do, and just starting out seems pretty daunting.
I mean, yeah, you can interpret it that way. But it's equally possible that the guy has a story he wants to tell and just doesn't want to write it, but doesn't feel like there's any other way.
Both of these are valid problems, but they have much different solutions, and I think it's reasonable to infer either from what we've got here.
takyris -
I'm into animation and film, and im not sure how to begin writing an story for this area. Because i struggle with writing in general (essays, assignments) i dont feel i'd have the ability to write it in 'Novel' form. saying that, i wouldnt know how to write a script either...
So, basically, i guess im after advice on what is the best way to write a detailed outline for a story, for someone who enjoys concepting ideas and characters, but cant necessarily put them down on paper too well.
im sorry if im making little sense. I guess really, im unsure exactly what i want to do with my idea.
BTW, thanks all for the advice. its good to hear so many different views.
Practice and copius editing makes perfect.
(For example: He basically states flat-out that plotting is bad, and people who plot out their stories ahead of time are being dishonest. I've read a lot of advice from published novelists. Most of them not only plan a plot, they also outline it in detail in a separate document before starting on the story.)
I suggest Characters and Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card as a better start. Read it cover to cover, and look out for the few parts that are more about Card's method than about understanding what makes a story tick. Take those parts with a grain of salt (as with King's methods, they're worth trying, but not worth taking as objectively the best way to write a story).
Other than that book suggestion, let me refer to Robert Heinlein for five rules of writing:
1. You must write.
2. You must finish what you write.
3. You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order.
4. You must put the work on the market.
5. You must keep the work on the market until it is sold.
I'd take #3 with a grain of salt, but other than that, this advice is gold. Now let me add a few steps of my own:
1. You must read.
2. You must read outside of your comfort zone.
3. You must keep reading until you die, or go blind.
4. If you go blind you must start listening to audiobooks instead.
Reading and writing are the two most valuable tools you have to improve your writing. And always remember, it is a craft. It takes a long time and a lot of effort to master it. Even Harper Lee--by far the exception who proves the rule--apparently wrote "several long stories" before To Kill A Mockingbird. Even the geniuses have to put in time and practice. Most of us aren't geniuses.
Also, I have a hard time with characters as a whole as in I try and make them too complex and with my aforementioned scatterbrained personality it overloads my brain. I think that if I were to write seriously then I would literally have to have charts and graphs on each main character of a story to show every facet of their personality.
Writing academically is an entirely different beast than writing creatively. Some people can do one brilliantly but can't do the other at all. You won't know until you try it a bunch.
Scriptwriting is itself something completely different. It's got its own set of rules.
I've got nothing good to say about outlining, when it comes to creative writing. There's no subsitute for actually putting prose to paper. You don't have a deadline, you don't have a word limit, you don't get graded for being concise.
I suppose you might find that outlining a longer story can help you keep the plot on track. But i still wouldn't recommend it. Just start writing.
I agree that you don't need an outline for most short fiction, though.