Aspiring writers, holler.

[chousenjin]

Hey, any writers here? Discuss your craft here.
I'm very serious about trying to become a great novelist. I look up to Neil Gaiman as my role model, and hope to write as stylishly and great as he can.
What's the writing process like for you?
I tried writing a novel write off the bat, but that turned out terribly.
Finally, I gave up and acknowledged I might have to practice with short stories or something.
I'm working on one now, but it's going painfully slowly.
It's about a guy who meets an angel in a bathroom. He receives God's sight, so when he closes his eyes, he can see people's personalities manifest themselves in some physical representation. He can't even sleep because as he lies next to his pregnant wife, he sees how horrible she acted, and the baby in her womb that's not even his.

Mmm, I would feel a little more comfortable with the story if I didn't realize that the story is awfully similar to what I've read of the manga Homonculus.
Do any of you ever get really good story idea only to realize that someone already did it?
I hate that.
So yeah, discuss writing here. We can consider this our pub to drink, relax, and talk about how much good writing hurts to produce.

And sorry if this is in the wrong section.

[PeNCILz]

I have been writing (every day) for about two years and in that time I have wrote three novels. Each one is from the same arc and follows a very intricate story line that would take a long time to explain here... I am hoping to get published by DAW since they publish a lot of my favorite novelists... (I don't see what is so hard about writing a long story other than the fact that mine was written on a typewriter... I hate those things but they are so fun.)

But before I discovered I wanted to write I was always sort of in a daze with stories forming in my mind and throwing me into a world that had dragons, magic, night elves, and many more. Soon I had this need to get my stories in some form and first tried manga. Not exactly what I wanted. Yeah I could draw but it just never came out right... Also, I just did not like drawing...

So then I decided to write it in novel form. I was with out computer at the time and so I pulled out my grandmother's old typewriter and started with my novel. When I was done (two weeks ago...) I had the novel separated into three different acts. I just finished counting the words for part one and part two and both are over ninety words and part three is over 80,000 so far... I then decided to make the novel into a trilogy each part being a consecutive novel.

[chousenjin]

Wow, writing everyday is a pretty respectable feat. I write about one or two days a week. The other days I spend thinking, trying to map out my plots or looking for fresh ideas.
I really have to pay respect to the genre of fantasy, and I want to make a fantasy production if I get into comics or some other medium, but as far as novels go, I'm trying to write something a little deeper than just swords and magic.
Not that swords and magic can't be deep. But it's much harder to make it good. I can only think of Terry Pratchett for writers who have managed to do that.

[Klawzie]

It's my intention to write and illustrate my own stories for my living. But I think it's likely that I won't be able to support myself on my writing right off, so I hone my crafts. ;3

I don't really worry about someone having gotten to where I want to go first. Particularly since I want to novelize fairy tales. ;) I'll always tell the story differently than the other person. Hopefully differently enough to be enjoyable. Particularly since I'd never intend to rip someone off.

[PeNCILz]

Wow, writing everyday is a pretty respectable feat. I write about one or two days a week. The other days I spend thinking, trying to map out my plots or looking for fresh ideas.
I really have to pay respect to the genre of fantasy, and I want to make a fantasy production if I get into comics or some other medium, but as far as novels go, I'm trying to write something a little deeper than just swords and magic.
Not that swords and magic can't be deep. But it's much harder to make it good. I can only think of Terry Pratchett for writers who have managed to do that.

I make sure I have at least written 500 words a day...(although most of the time I go beyond that or even double it... I don't go to regular high school so I have way too much time...)

I let my stories come as they arrive. I do not believe in that whole "plan out the novel in stupid stiff plot graphs or whatever*. My writing is more situational. I let the characters and story do/go from what arrives in my mind at that second...
My fantasy novel is very deep with a lot of hidden meanings and symbolism in it.

[chousenjin]

I used to think writing was much more spontaneous, where you just go till the steam runs out, but I found personally, that it produces crap.

Don't most pro writers plan out their stuff, though? I mean, take popular examples, say, Harry Potter or Naruto. The way it's all set up, it seems like J.K. Rowling had planned out what all the twists you discover in later volumes, and Kishimoto has a lot of untied ends that get resolved like, 200 chapters later.
But in the case of manga, it seems like when a series is popular, the writer will desperately veer off course from the planned plot and try to stretch the story, making it poorer in quality.

[PeNCILz]

Stephen King starts out a novel with no end in sight and almost all of his novels are bestsellers...

[Klawzie]

JKR basically set up "landmarks". She started out at point A and knew she was going to get to point K eventually. But it didn't really matter to her if she suddenly changed point B to point G and skipped point J altogether. If that makes sense? She didn't have it scripted entirely. She's changed the order of things, increased or decreased the importance of something from her original plans, and added stuff for us fans. (For example: I think she said somewhere on her website that she added more information about Blaise Zambini because the fans were fixated on the character's name.)

[Aratos]

I've attempted a couple of novels, realised they were headed the wrong way and scrapped them. Just waiting for the right idea to hit me.
In the meantime, I write a pretty damned good screenplay if I do say so myself.

[LadyTanyata]

I'm studying creative writing and english at the moment and I'm in the process of writing a novella for my course. But I also have several novels/trilogies going too that I do whenever I get the time. I never plan it out in detail. I put down a few ideas so I don't forget, like this is going to happen to her and this is how these two will meet. Just basic things like that. But it's in no set order, which is how I prefer it. I write mainly in the fantasy genre with a little romance in it as well but nothing special. I'm in the school of not being nice to your characters, but who knows maybe she'll have a happy ending after everyone's dead?

[Rednal]

Yo. *Raises hand* I've been writing for awhile now. And, naturally enough, the influence of manga has been shown in my work. *Laughs* At the moment, I have two novels I am working especially hard on. The first is unnamed, but centers around a girl who has been told by her Goddess of spread the news of salvation with her cursed bodyguard beside her. The bodyguard, however, is very suspicious of the innocent girl's Goddess, who claims to be the only diety around. Especially because he's met quite a few more.


The other story is a harem (think Love Hina) / horror (not the cheesy kind) / romance story. @.@ It's very fun to write, and is both very lighthearted and as twisted as it gets. My goal is to make each and every one of the readers very mad at me for making the characters so likable, then forcing said characters into horrible situations. The ultimate goal: Get people to realize that some of the things they do are wrong. XD Like I said, fun! It's known as Project Orion, and if you would like to read it, head over to www.fictionpress.com, look up Numinor29, and read 'Project Orion: Redux'.

Note: At the time of posting this, there is nothing actually dirty in the story. However, more content is to be uploaded later that is not suitable for young children or big babies. Please do NOT read it if you cannot handle mature content, okay? I'm warning you now.


^^ But I like having fun. Rest assured, with me, there's always a happy ending.

[sailortitan]

I want to become a novelist, mainly a fantasy novelist. I really mostly write longer works, like long books and trilogies.

Right now I'm writing a fanfic about Sailor Moon that's novel length in itself, and I'm also working on a short story for a Fiction Writing II class in college. I don't have any time to write anything else -.- in fact, I don't really have time to write the fanfic as much as I want to. I really hate college.

I do have several novel ideas seeping in my head for when I get out of college. One is a magical girl-type story with some strong fantasy elements. There's a couple of fantasy series I'll probably also write (probably Triologies.) For those of you into His Dark Materials, one of them features a paternalistic chauvenistic god like the Old Testament. Lots of stuff happens there. It's not God/Yhwh though, like in HDM. Just has some similiar features.

Another one involves a figure that's enshrined as a god on Earth but who's disappointingly human for the job.

I don't want to get into any more detail unless someone else decides to copy me on the forum, which I hope wouldn't happen, but whatever.

When I write stories, I usually jot down any good daydream ideas I get in a little pink journal I carry everywhere with me (it's about moleskine sized). When I actually go to write a story, I plot out the important stuff on an outline (often my stories are complicated and I need a clear view of where I'm going, especially since I can get forgetful) and then what happens between the basic outline is undecided and completely malleable--much like JK Rowling's process, I imagine.

[sailortitan]

So then I decided to write it in novel form. I was with out computer at the time and so I pulled out my grandmother's old typewriter and started with my novel. When I was done (two weeks ago...) I had the novel separated into three different acts. I just finished counting the words for part one and part two and both are over ninety words and part three is over 80,000 so far... I then decided to make the novel into a trilogy each part being a consecutive novel.

Do you mean 90 *words* or 90 *pages*? 90 words is tiny for a novel, so I'm going to assume you mean the latter. But 80,000 seems long for *pages*. So i'm going to assume you mean words in the later case. If not, your first two parts are much longer than your third, and you might want to consider combining them and splitting the story closer to down the middle somewhere.

If you mean 90 pages, 90 pages is very short for a novel, closer to a novella. In fact, if all three parts are in fact about 90 pages or 80,000 pages, that would make it 90+90+90=270 pages, about the size of a standard novel. So you should really think about sending your work in as one novel with three parts, instead of three very short novels.

[PeNCILz]

Sorry I wrote that and I was on the brink of falling asleep. I forgot the thousand after ninety lol.

Part One = 90,000 words
part Two = 90,087 words
Part Three = 85,000 words (Just finished counting the words for part three this morning.)

Now I am going to let them sit and then begin my revisions and that means they may double or maybe even lose a few but most likely double. When I do the first draft I basically get the basic ideas and actions and stuff down then draft two is more in depth but then draft three is like hell because then I just basically refine it until it is perfect in my eyes. (never happens because I set my standards too high...)

[chocopocko]

All of you sound like really good writers but I was wandering if anyone actually wrote manga.
Just because if my story was any good I would like to have it done in manga to avoid page long descriptions and to let people have some creativity(colors).
I dont know if im just not organized enough but I am not very fast at writing in the normal fahion and was wondering if it would be ok with a company if I turned in a script-like story (with a name followed by dialouge having brief descriptions of the place at the beginning and a few quick sketches of characters-I would add those at the end if my story was worth it)


On the other hand here is a brief of my story(do not hate me if it is bad I am only 14 and have not taken any creative writing. Also this is one of my more recent ideas(3 day ago) and not completly thought out.

A new boy moves to a house in a town within walking distance of the Downtown area. He moves with his mother, his father is still working in the city. He wants to write songs for a living, something his hippie/anti-violence mom loves. But school life will not be that easy, everyone their is part of a gang of somtime, for their protection. It really gets twisted when he falls for the Gothic Loli who is the daughter of one of the richest Mafia gangs in the country. She likes him to but both their parents hate eachother's guts and when they decide to have dinner together(the parents at that time unknowing) chaos ensures. Sort of like a modern Romeo and Juliet except for the major plot twist that is thrown in around Chapter 4.

Is it ok? Probably not. I think I am going to stick for my very first idea for RSoM.

[PeNCILz]

Well most manga are written in script form. (CLAMP does it!)

I am only fifteen and have not yet (next year!) taken a creative writing class.

[vainya]

I'm always writing whether it is essays, short stories, fanfics, or novels. I can't seem to end things correctly and always wind up scrapping the idea in the end. Ony a few of my stories have ever left the cutting room floor.

Do any of you ever get really good story idea only to realize that someone already did it?
I hate that.
Yes I really do hate that it seems like everything that I do someone has done it first

[Aratos]

If somebody already did it I do it anyway. You can't copyright an idea, and my idea's better anyway.

First rule of writing: If you copy someone elses work, it's plagarism. If you copy lots of peoples work, it's research.

[takethebackseat]

Do any of you ever get really good story idea only to realize that someone already did it?


Every single time :D If you go back far enough you'll find any idea in some form or other in literature. But I've learned that it's all about execution rather than originality of an idea. Look at every hit Disney movie. Great movies, classics even--but the main storyline was lifted from somewhere else. Lion King = Hamlet. Aladdin = Thousand and One Nights. Not to mention the fairy tale movies :p I'd say that innovation would be the most important thing in a successful writing venture. That and talent :o

[chousenjin]

Every single time :D If you go back far enough you'll find any idea in some form or other in literature. But I've learned that it's all about execution rather than originality of an idea. Look at every hit Disney movie. Great movies, classics even--but the main storyline was lifted from somewhere else. Lion King = Hamlet. Aladdin = Thousand and One Nights. Not to mention the fairy tale movies :p I'd say that innovation would be the most important thing in a successful writing venture. That and talent :o

Hehe, except Scar didn't get it on with Simba's mom :P
And I don't think a real Princess Jasmin would be allowed to show that much skin :P

[xdeathberry]

I used to want to write, but my teachers squashed all of that out of me by actually 'forcing' me to write.
That is definantly not enjoyable =___=

A true writer doesn't copy. They actually create their own ideas and change almost everything. ;)
The thing is, everything always turns out to be completely different. :)

You also need a wide variety of words in order to write. The very first lesson a lot of people learn is not to use 'said' everysingle time there is dialouge.
Although, you shouldn't go too overboard. :P
It's more fancy saying stuttered, mumbled, shrieked, lazily, ect. It also adds more imagery and indepth to the story or character.

Practicing with short stories and such will also help you. Even RPGing helps.
It helps you with developing characters and story plots.
You should try to take a 'Mary Sue or Lary Sue' test to see how well your chacter(s) have developed. :)

[chousenjin]

I used to want to write, but my teachers squashed all of that out of me by actually 'forcing' me to write.
That is definantly not enjoyable =___=

A true writer doesn't copy. They actually create their own ideas and change almost everything. ;)
The thing is, everything always turns out to be completely different. :)

You also need a wide variety of words in order to write. The very first lesson a lot of people learn is not to use 'said' everysingle time there is dialouge.
Although, you shouldn't go too overboard. :P
It's more fancy saying stuttered, mumbled, shrieked, lazily, ect. It also adds more imagery and indepth to the story or character.

Practicing with short stories and such will also help you. Even RPGing helps.
It helps you with developing characters and story plots.
You should try to take a 'Mary Sue or Lary Sue' test to see how well your chacter(s) have developed. :)

Unless you are a better writer than E.B. White, then you have some bad advice.
There is nothing wrong with using "said" 'every single time'. In fact, trying to substitute it with words like 'replied' can be quite bad.
That's according to E.B. White anyway.

Of course, completely biting another writer is not good, but surely everyone emulates what they admire. Whether it is consciencely or unconsciencely.

[Klawzie]

Well, no there's nothing 'wrong' with using 'said' every time, but providing variety is good! It apparently works for E.B. White (I'll have to search Amazon 'cause I don't recognise that name... - Ah, yes, I've read some of his stuff) - but it won't necessarily work for everyone.

That actually goes for a lot of writing tricks. Steven King can get away with a chapter of a book that is just one line of text. But not everyone can. Some writers can get away with stream-of-conciousness writing. Most people fail.

It all comes down to practice and a natural writing 'voice'. As you write, your 'voice' develops naturally. And hopefully, your 'voice' matches the genre(s) you're writing for. ;)

[PeNCILz]

*Faints with a few final words* You... spelled... Stephen King wrong... LOL

Where has Stephen King written one line for a chapter?

[Klawzie]

Misery, I think! I can go get my book. :D

And - sorry! I only ever read Misery anymore. I probably would have used the correct version of "Stephen" if I'd been paying more attention. XD

[PeNCILz]

Misery did not have chapters... IT had parts and each part had time spaces and those were just numbered...

[Klawzie]

Okay. We'll agree to disagree on that, then. :D

[PeNCILz]

If I remember this was the first sentence in the book...

1
"your biggest fan..."
2
(insert second sentence here)

The first one is to signify he heard that while he was unconscious...

[PeterAhlstrom]

I used to write a lot before I found out how much fun editing is, but I have a lot of friends who write. My friend Brandon Sanderson (http://www.brandonsanderson.com) published a book called Elantris and just got nominated for the John W. Campbell award for new SF/Fantasy writer. Elantris was the 6th book he wrote, and it got published when he was working on his 13th book. He has a new trilogy starting in a couple months, also coming out from Tor.

I started reading and critiquing his writing when he was working on his 7th book, and I was there with him at the party at World Fantasy convention where we chatted up Moshe Feder (a Tor editor) and he got permission to send him his novel (which sat on his desk for a year before he finally read it and realized it was so good he wanted to publish it) so I've been involved in the process for a long time and can give some advice from that angle.

First is that first-novel sales (you sell the first novel you ever write) are very, very rare (though it happened to Lois McMaster Bujold, who is my favorite writer). Most people have to write a lot before they get any good. I'm not sure who said it first, but the first million words you write will be crap. So just get out there and start writing novels. By the time you've written a million words, you'll have a lot of practice writing novels, and the next thing you write might actually be good enough to publish.

Except for the first 2 books Brandon wrote, they have all been standalone novels. Big secret (okay, not really): You cannot sell the 2nd novel in a trilogy. Nor the third. You can only sell the first. So don't write sequels until you've sold the first book. If you finish a book, send it out to publishers and start writing ANOTHER first book (or standalone). Don't write a sequel there's no chance to get published unless the first book gets picked up. (Unless you're just working on writing your million words of crap and have accepted that it will never sell anyway; but it's still good to write FIRST novels so you get practice setting up the beginnings of series.)

Not all those books Brandon wrote will ever get published. Some of them definitely won't. His 7th book was a ground-up rewrite of his first 2 books (not an edit; a complete do-over). He'll probably go back and do that one over again someday. His 8th book he had to abandon partway through when he realized it didn't work. His 9th and 10th books were experiments writing shorter books, but they turned out missing some critical element. So a couple books later, he took some of the social structure of the 8th book, added to the magic system of the 9th book and the universe of the 10th book, and BOOM he got his new series, Mistborn (coming out in a couple months) and it's fantastic.

Writing is a lot of work. You have to sit down and do it. Writers write. If you plan to write a novel someday, you're not a writer.

Anyone who has trouble getting themselves to get writing should consider participating in NaNoWriMo (http://www.nanowrimo.com) so you can get a good writing milestone under your belt.

[Klawzie]

NaNoWriMo is awesome. It proved a lot of things to me (re: productivity, etc). I highly recommend it to anyone. I'm going to rope my dad into doing it this year, since he's always talked about writing something, but never in my experience has he gotten started.

Editing... I suppose it does teach me a lot about my own writing when I edit other peoples'. ;D I suppose I've got a little editor in me, because I even mentally-edit the work of pros. I haven't quite got to the state where I take a red pen to books. But with Mercedes Lackey's, I've been tempted. >_>

[Kyaa the Catlord]

NaNoWriMo is awesome. It proved a lot of things to me (re: productivity, etc). I highly recommend it to anyone. I'm going to rope my dad into doing it this year, since he's always talked about writing something, but never in my experience has he gotten started.

Editing... I suppose it does teach me a lot about my own writing when I edit other peoples'. ;D I suppose I've got a little editor in me, because I even mentally-edit the work of pros. I haven't quite got to the state where I take a red pen to books. But with Mercedes Lackey's, I've been tempted. >_>

Woo wrimo! :D

I have a finished NaNovel on my laptop that desperately cries out for editting. But damn, I start reading it and realize I must have been smoking crack for the entire month of November. :D

[Klawzie]

LOL, Kyaa. ;D

I think they actually rather encourage that. Just the fact that you finished is the goal, not how crazy it gets in the middle. (Considering there's a group of people saying that any NaNoWriMo related writing counts towards the finished word count and I know for sure there were people having "conversations" with their characters as a digression in their books...)

I participated last year for the first time (I didn't understand what it was the first time I'd heard of it, and didn't participate the year before - and hadn't heard of it before that). I didn't finish my 50,000 words, but that's because I wasn't prepared. My setting was sort of Native American based and about a little more than halfway to the goal (I was actually about 4 days ahead of schedule) I stopped and went, "Oh hey, writing about kachinas as basically nature sprites might be really offensive. I had better research!" which lead me down an entirely new path, which meant the first half of the book had to be tweaked... So, yeah, I didn't finish it, though I'm going to go back and do so soon. :D

[Kyaa the Catlord]

Kachina are kinda nature spirits though. They're almost a cross between nature spirits and psychopomp with a touch of ancestor worship thrown in for good measure. :D

[chousenjin]

Wow, interesting program, Peter. Thanks for the heads up.
One of my teachers said a similar thing, that good writing comes after volume, something like that.
I think that the NanoWrimo program might teach me something because when I write fiction, the process is painstakingly precise, but seeing how much crap my mind can fart out might be good for me. Not that what I painstakingly produced wasn't crap either.

Too bad there isn't a guaranteed prize or anything. Nothing like a good ol' cash as an incentive.

Oh, and by the way, do you guys know of any word processing programs other than Microsoft Word? It'd be nice to have a program that emulated real paper by having a paperlike texture in the background or something. I hate the white glare of a blank screen.

[Klawzie]

Mmm. I use RoughDraft, but I don't know if changing the background is a feature. I found a LOT of word-processing software (freeware too!) through NaNoWriMo. RoughDraft is sort of like the in-between state (features-wise) between Wordpad and Word.

(Kyaa - I'm still going to use the idea I had... I'm just not going to call them kachinas to avoid any possible insult. Because *how* they come about is possibly controversial... Happy to yammer about it if you're interested enough to PM me. XD )

[artemisfowl22]

I've been writing 4 close to six years now and I really want to become a famous author.
My role models are J.K. Rowling and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
My style , 4 right now, is bascilly mystery, suspense, action, and horror ^-^
I'm currently working on a series of stories title 'The Casebook of Colin Holmes' .It's about the main character, Colin, and he's a desendant of the Great Detective himself..Sherlock Holmes!
He'll solve any mystery you set before him,BUT, it'll cost ya!
So yeah, I'll write it long hand first(which I'm doing now) Then I'll work at typing it up, and I'll post it on fictionpress.com!

Wish me luck

[PeNCILz]

mystery, suspense,action, and horror are genres...

[Aratos]

Suspense is more of a sub-genre...

Personally, I write postcyberpunk. And dark 'n' gritty fantasy with someop fhte themes associated with cyberpunk. I'm wierd.

[Kyaa the Catlord]

I write smut.

And I'm damn proud of it.

[PeNCILz]

I always knew anyone named The Catlord would most likely be a pervy smut writer... LOL (Hopefully Kyaa writes stuff with pretty cat boys...)

I write fantasy but I have sort of turned back to drawing so yeah...

[Aratos]

And what'sw rong with smut exactly? Freedom of speech aint it? Or at least freedom of pleasure.

[PeNCILz]

o.O I did not say there was anything wrong with it... People need to learn to read... <.< I actually said I hope she wrote stuff about pretty cat boys...

[Aratos]

A fact I chose to delete from memory half a second later.

[PeNCILz]

Well thats your problem... :P

[PeterAhlstrom]

Well, Romance novels are the largest percentage of the fiction market right now...there's megabucks in it...

[Aratos]

Anyone up for a challenge? Here's the idea. Roll up two characters on a generator from this page (http://www.seventhsanctum.com/index-char.php) of seventh sanctum. Now write a story featuring them in some way, preferably no more than 100 pages although obviously it'd be daft to actually say such a rule is neccessary. Could be interesting, no?

[PeNCILz]

Sounds like fun.... Would we have to write it on the computer... (I like to use muh typewriter....)

[Klawzie]

Do you know how freaky it is for me for Spider Jerusalem to give me a writing challenge?

(I'm juggling a lot at the moment, but I'll give it a shot when I'm procrastinating on my pitch, how about that? :3 )

[PeNCILz]

That character generator... is not very good... (My grandma comes up with better characters than this...LOL)

[Klawzie]

I think that's part of the challenge, Pencilz. ;D

[PeNCILz]

Okay but I might just call my grandma and ask her for some characters... Beware she may tell me to make a woman that is afraid of cats, cheese, and vegetables but must overcome her fear in the struggle of the world ruled by men... >.>

[sailortitan]

Unless you are a better writer than E.B. White, then you have some bad advice.
There is nothing wrong with using "said" 'every single time'. In fact, trying to substitute it with words like 'replied' can be quite bad.
That's according to E.B. White anyway.

Of course, completely biting another writer is not good, but surely everyone emulates what they admire. Whether it is consciencely or unconsciencely.

chousenjin, your advice is right. While you shouldn't necessarily use "said" every single time, either, only use alternative "said" verbs unless they're really necessary, or sprinkle them very, very lightly in a work. Using them too much is awkward and it sounds forced.

A lot of people are mistakenly given the advice of not using said. Whoever started telling people this (originally! not the person who said it in the thread!) needs to be smacked for misleading 90% of beginning writers, including myself at first.