Tips On Writing

[CityRose]

After taking a look around the Writer’s Forum, I thought I might take a shot at giving some tips on writing. I’m far from a professional, but I have been writing for a good portion of my life now, made friends with published writers, and critiqued a lot of works. Hopefully this post will be useful for some people. As always, if you wish to add to anything, feel free!

I’m writing from personal experience, as well as repeating the ‘tried and true’ pieces of advice I received from others.

Because this is such a large subject, I will only post portions at a time. If you need to ask any questions, feel free to ask. ^_^


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The Essentials

Yes, there is a formula that will help you to become a good writer. This formula isn’t a secret, however it is often ignored. To become a good writer, you must both read and write a lot. There is no way to get around this basic formula, this rule of the thumb.


Read because you love to read, not because you ‘have to study the craft’. That’s not what it’s about. If you love to read, and read often, you are building the knowledge needed to create a book of your own. It is something that will happen subconsciously.
The more books you read, the more tools you are giving yourself to put into your writer’s tool belt. If you read everything (don’t just get hung on science-fiction or fantasy- read everything), then your work will be creative and original. Why? Because the more knowledge you build from reading, the greater the selection you have when it comes to writing something of your own.


As with anything, you will only improve with practice. This is why you must also write a lot. Don’t just write ‘when the inspiration hits you’. The Muse is a bugger to work with- if you don’t get the car rolling first; he’s not going to help you push it to the side of the road. You must write when you’re inspired, and when it’s the last thing you want to do. If you don’t, you won’t get your brain to fall into routine, and your Muse is going to pack his bags and catch the next bus out of there. Forced writing never turns out good, but neither does not writing at all. Get the car rolling. Hire a tow truck if you need to.


(c)cityrose

[CityRose]

Successful Beginnings


“The sun came through the window, and woke up Jeremy. Through squinted eyes, Jeremy looked at his bedside clock. It read 7:27am. He would have to get out of bed soon, because today was Monday. He’d have to go to school soon, and Jeremy always gets into trouble if he turns up late. Jeremy lazily rolled out of bed, put on his watch, and walked into the kitchen to have breakfast………….”


Yuck. That’s not a successful beginning. The worst thing is that every writer has done it at some point in his or her life, or some equally boring alteration. It’s passive, slow and there’s nothing going on. We’re watching the character from a distance- we know very little about how he feels or what he’s thinking. It’s a boring list of the facts, from an omniscient point of view, rather than getting into Jeremy’s shoes. Avoid starting anything- a story, a chapter- with someone waking up and getting ready for school/work/etc. It’s boring. We’d rather start the story at school, or at work, where the action is.


Take this example* of what could be happening at work:


“The body lay at the back of the alley and, looking at it, Detective-Sergeant Patrick Briggs of the Ottawa Police Force bit down hard on the well-chewed stem of his unlit briar. He thought he might be sick. Under the bright glare of the police photographer’s lights, there was no avoiding the gruesome sight. The body lay in sprawl. The head, half severed from the neck, was on its side, facing Briggs, its glazed eyes holding his gaze with a vacant stare……………………….It looked, Briggs thought, as though something had chewed right through the neck.”


* Excerpt taken from the novel ‘Mulengro’ by Charles De Lint. I’ve taken out some of the description of the state of the body to keep things a little more kiddy-friendly.


Oooh- much more interesting. No, it’s not perfect. For example, the first sentence is too long. But the story immediately grabs us. We are constantly in Briggs’ shoes. The writer hasn’t just given us a distant description of everything around the alley (the other cops, the standers by, etc). He focuses in on exactly what Briggs is looking at, “its glazed eyes holding his gaze with a vacant stare”. The descriptions could be a little less clichéd, however we must all agree that this passage is much better than the first example. The sentences are of varying length, we know exactly what is going on (no distant history explaining here) and there’s action. We want to read on.


Again, writing a successful beginning is something that is partially learnt from reading successful beginnings, and partially from writing them. Practice, and you’ll nail it sooner or later.


New writers for some reason have the misconception that the beginning of the story is when you must introduce things. Well*, this is partially true, but not in the misguided way that new writers believe. Don’t write long passages of narration that are simply there to explain the setting, the character, or the character’s history. When you write, your goal isn’t to tell the reader of the history of the world or the history of the character- it’s to tell the reader the story. Or rather, show. Immerse your reader in the world. Let them feel what the character feels. Remember that sight isn’t the only human sensory function. Sight, Sound, Smell, Taste, Touch……these are all things you can use to your advantage.


*As a side note, never start a sentence with ‘well’ in your writing. It’s sloppy.

(c)cityrose

[CityRose]

Showing The Picture

People have often wondered why home videos always have the knack of sending your family to sleep. It’s because of all the sentimental bullshite that gets filmed- no one wants to watch an hour of the newborn baby sitting there starting at the camera. So it is with writing. If you can chop it out and your story still survives, it should be chopped out. Spare me the long paragraphs of ‘inner dialogue’ describing the depression that Mary is going through. Why write all that when all you have to do is sit her down and make her eat a tub of ice cream? Or perhaps Normally-Wildcat-Mary shuts herself in her room, and takes the phone off the hook. Show us what’s going on, don’t tell us, and show us as quickly and precisely as possible. I’m not asking you to hurry through descriptions, or to leave things out- I’m just asking you to choose wisely.

Look! There’s a house over there. The front lawn is overgrown, and the mailbox is askew. The wooden porch is crooked, and some of the floorboards are missing. On the steps sits a skinny man wearing a pair of faded jeans. He’s hunched over, whittling away at a small block of wood with his pocketknife. Slowly, a small shape forms. Perhaps it’s a pig, or a dog. It is so very hard to control the knife properly, with those gnarly hands.

That’s really all we need to know. Sure, as we read on, we may find out more about the skinny man. We might even find out what it is he’s carving into the block of wood. But there are a lot of things left unanswered. What exactly does the house look like? What about the mailbox? These things are unimportant. Give the reader enough key details to build a strong picture in their minds, and leave it at that. Every small detail you give the reader pushes one of their details out the door. What if I said that the house was an old Queenslander? I doubt even half my readers would know what the Queenslander design looks like. Don’t distance your readers. Give them a picture and move on- you’re trying to tell a story here!

©cityrose

[Kwiix]

This is a very good thing you're doing here, CityRose. I would like to see you add more to this as time goes by. God only knows I need all the help I can get to improve my writing skills.

I wrote a whole reply with my own tips on how to improve but I had second thoughts. I really want to hear what more you have to say.

Your effort is appreciated! :)

[tokenblackguy]

Dewd, I'm so glad I decided to look at this...I've seen the update about a gazillion times but I just thought it was another dumb thread...this is a great thing you're doin' here...I read what you have so far and I think I've learned sumthin...

however...I do have a kestion...what is a good way to start of a story? I've tried a lot of differnt ways, but many of them suck, or they don't sound right at all? This is one I just worked on earlier today...but I don't like it

"Andrew Martinez, a medium-height, average looking high school, student, walks toward his school. It’s Monday morning, the start of a new school year, and the sun is shinning brightly over-head. He walks slowly, enjoying his last few moments of freedom and the warm weather. After a few minutes of walking alone, he hears someone call out his name, and turning to see who it is, he notices a girl about his age, with the same school uniform, his best friend Hyami Shinoki. She finally reaches him and begins to blush."

After that last sentence, It goes into a bunch of unneeded dialogue...which leads me to another kestion...how can I avoid pages and pages worth of dialogue? This is sumthin I've been wantin to work on also. Well ( ha there goes that sloppy writing technique again) I think I covered most of the kestin's I have so...I'll just leave it at that

-peace outside-

[CityRose]

Thanks a bunch for the comment, Kwiix- I was wondering if anyone was reading this! :D I’m glad you are- hopefully it’ll help some people out.


A dumb thread? From me?? Never! LOL ;)


"Andrew Martinez, a medium-height, average looking high school, student, walks toward his school. It’s Monday morning, the start of a new school year, and the sun is shinning brightly over-head. He walks slowly, enjoying his last few moments of freedom and the warm weather. After a few minutes of walking alone, he hears someone call out his name, and turning to see who it is, he notices a girl about his age, with the same school uniform, his best friend Hyami Shinoki. She finally reaches him and begins to blush."


The first thing I noticed was the tense. You’ve written ‘walks’ instead of ‘walked’ and ‘turning’ instead of ‘turned’. This is hard to keep up throughout the length of a book. It seems like you’re already running into problems; “After a few minutes of walking alone,” and “She finally reaches him and begins to blush” are problem phrases. Because you’re writing within the moment, you need ‘placeholders’ to show that time is passing- otherwise you have describe every single moment. I believe that your type of writing is suitable for an RPG, but not for a story or book. I think this might be the thing that’s tweaking your brain as being ‘off’.


“…turning to see who it is, he notices a girl about his age, with the same school uniform, his best friend Hyami Shinoki”


Keep in mind that if your character is best friends with this girl, he’s not going to think these things; “a girl about his age” is a small info dump on our readers- not something our character would be thinking (stay in the character’s shoes…stay in the character’s shoes…). Also, her whole name probably wouldn’t be mentioned (mental note; write a section on character description). Stay in character- do you call your friend by their whole name? You can introduce her whole name if necessary through other means. For example, she might get a telegram (I doubt it, but humour me…), “Telegram for Hyami Shinoki?”


As a side note, the second last sentence may be a touch too long. See if you can reword some things and break the sentence into two or three.


As I mentioned in my other post, you need to start in the action. You’ve been a good boy- ;) things are going on, things are happening. However, you are doing a lot of introductions. The first thing you write is an introduction of the character, then you introduce the setting (the time and place) through pure narrative. As much as possible, introduce these things through casual description and dialogue. Also remember that there is such thing as implication- you can successfully imply the setting by shooting off a couple key details in their surroundings.


I’m guessing that your ‘pages and pages’ of dialogue are mostly more introducing things, or slipping in little facts about the characters? I’ll try and touch on this in another section (I’m not particularly great at dialogue myself). Just remember what I mentioned before- if you can chop it out and the story survives, it should be chopped out. Use key descriptions and phrases in your dialogue to establish what the reader needs to know. It’s tricky, but if you read plenty you’ll see how other writers do it. If you practice, you’ll learn to pull it off yourself. Don’t give up yet.


I hope that helps! ^_^ More sections on the way……….

[Reign of Tears]

The best part of your post is that it is obviously written from the point of view of a writer who has been through alot. As a person that has been writting for years in all sorts of genre including writting my own comic book, and currently being a major contributor in creating a Traditional RPG setting it is great to see such a well thought out pov
The most important thing about writing I have had to learn (the hard way mind you) is to always keep an open mind. You really never know when someones idea/opinion/thoughts might open you up to avenues you have never considered. Even when the ideas are so foreign to you that they seem silly. More than once I have looked back on something some one has said that I originally thought was absurd, only to find myself accepting, and many times, aggreeing with them.

And ignore my horrible spelling, if it weren't for spellcheck and backspace most people would think I were illiterate :D

[Aires]

Feel free to crituque my work city for i know i can learn from some of this