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I tell of my struggles as I learn and go through the process of writing a book from page 1 |
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Welcome to my first attempt at blogging…here it goes. But a few things first. First, I am forever fearful of judgment so I must make this disclaimer: I am not terrible at English. While I will do my best to put forth the best of my abilities, I consider a blog to be little more than a publicized journal, and therefore nothing to lose sleep over if it doesn’t sound perfect. I already have one of those headaches, and I don’t need another. That said, if there is something that you mention that just makes you cringe, I will do my best to fix it or apologize profusely for the mental damage I have caused you. Also: This is going to be a really long post. As in 1,889 words long. I realize I am only making it longer, but I feel the need to warn you. Once we get introductions and my past out of the way, they will be MUCH shorter. Why Blog: As a wannabe writer I am coming across many difficult and often discouraging problems. I feel the only reason why I am still fighting this battle is because I want the world to know of my imaginary world, with the friends that I have made there who really want people to know who they are. Perhaps I am crazy, but then half the world is. I also thought that perhaps if other wannabe authors were to follow me, perhaps they would not feel so alone. (Or perhaps I am? Well if that were the case, this blog should be really interesting, but I doubt it.) They could feed off my knowledge gained, and maybe give me a few pointers as well. Others might be interested in what “kids are doing these days” and tune in for an interesting read. I figure if the latter were to happen, it keeps my annoying butt off the FAQ board with a million-and-one questions that I feel are rather petty (sorry to those who are a part of Writer’s digest.) I’ll just annoy you!  What I have done so far: I cannot tell you everything that I have learned so far, mainly because I am sure a lot of it is now second nature to me and I wouldn’t think of mentioning it to you. To compensate for that, let’s annoy the senior author unlucky enough to find this post a bit more so that if I don’t have the answer you give me, they might, and if not…back to the FAQ board. The following things, however, are what stick out to me. The first was the Snowflake Method. As a project for high-school, I wrote the first few chapters of my novel (Those chapters can be seen as my “Through the portal” series). It required a research essay and a visual, where I discovered this handy tool for outlining and writing the first draft of your novel/book/whatever. If you have time, look it up. Just type in “Snowflake Method” into google and you will find it. It’s based on a mathematical principle, but basically it is just taking something very generic and small and building on top of it until you have a novel. I have found this TREMENDOUSLY helpful in realizing the purpose of my novel, my characters habits and personalities, where the holes in the plot are (an, trust me, there are always holes) and so forth. I seriously recommend it. The next was Writing.com. Though if you are reading this, I think it is safe to assume that you have found that particular jewel. I will say here that the upgraded, if you don’t have it already, is well worth the 50 bucks (take a little) for the year membership. The next is a wonderful instructional book by Josip Novakovich called Writing Fiction Step by Step. He also has another entitled Fiction Writer’s Work Shop that is just as good. I haven’t even finished these books, and they have helped my writing style and process. If you want a class, but don’t want to spend thousands of dollars, Open learn uses the former for their free online class. Next comes Advancedfictionwriting.com. This is hosted by Randy Ingermanson. Perhaps you’ve heard of him? If not, you should. He knows his stuff and his website will tell you better than I can, so check it out. I personally love his blog, because people like me ask him questions and he answers them thoroughly, and he invites you to do the same. You can also find the Snowflake Method here. The final breakthrough is Writersdigest.com. This is more a place for you to get fast responses (within a day at most) to questions, but from what I can see, it can have as much use as all the aforementioned resources, plus the added ability to market the eventually finished book. Perhaps I am wrong…this is a new discovery, and I’ve only read a few articles and annoyed the people on the FAQ board. But the writing! I need help WRITING! How do I get rid of amateuristic sounding chapters? How do I make a scene? How much of a backstory is allowed? How do I create dialogue? All of the thousand and one questions that we keep putting into google or youtube and coming up with more sites and books to look at. The truth that I have discovered is it is as hard for the teacher as it is for the student, largely because THERE ARE NO RULES. Once you get past writing 101, you’re good. The rest is literally take it or leave it advice for a more mainstream novel that will be appealing to the agents that published the books of the people you’re asking advice from. On top of that you are asking generic questions that may differ between the genres. I am writing an epic fantasy. If you are not, then this may not be the blog to follow. I may have some generic things I have discovered, but you would be banging your head on the desk more than thanking me. Now. For some of the things I HAVE learned: One is that the mark of an amateur is how often they use variations of “said” so no he/she “whispers” “shouts” “sighs” “laughs” “screams” and all of the other things you can think of that are not “said.” The “professionals” denote the speaking character by having that character do an action. Look for it in one of your favorite books. More often than not, it’ll say something along the lines of “”What is that?” Cassie pointed to the top of the hill” rather than “What is that?” Cassie whispered worriedly. Another thing. Lay off the adverbs. Let the reader decide the mood. If you set the scene right, any adverbs you add on should be redundant. As for the backstory, I have learned there is no excuse for an info dump. (supposedly there is some leeway for fantasy so you can “world build” but it isn’t a well-liked concept). Work the backstory into the novel as it becomes relevant. If it’s not relevant, have one of the characters be curious, and figure it out somehow. But the backstory should be at most one short paragraph, and in dialogue, before continuing the story. (That’s not total…split it up so that at any one time there is only one paragraph). Or else in a flash back. And there’s a whole stigma about that, but I don’t like flashbacks, so if you want explanation, you’ll have to look somewhere else. I keep hearing “talk to yourself” or “record yourself having conversations” when it comes to dialogue. I talk to myself way too often to be considered sane, so dialogue has never been a problem for me short of making sure who’s talking is well known. Don’t worry about going crazy. We’re friendly and don’t bite hard. What about my book? I have been trying to write this book for the last decade. Keep in mind, a decade ago I was 11, so have that frame of reference. I was not a well-liked child at school for my own problems that really aren’t important, but the result of which is that I spent a lot of time alone. I spent most of my time in a fictional world, and – being 11 – I was in a place where people were perfect ( as in a literal sense) and had special abilities…I still have the “book”. Since then I my world has become – shall we say – more complex? The people are no longer perfect, but magic (as these “abilities” turned into) became as common as dirt and really didn’t raise much notice. My world began to have a past and filled with people with different cultures and sights full of wonder, and I began to have the common urge any writer gets: the need to share it. From the lore came the characters and I know them better than I know my friends. This however brings me to about my first year in high-school, so these characters – one of them in his forties – were dealing with problems in a very teenage-like way. This and an amateur voice throughout the chapters is one of the things that I have been trying to work out of my novel for the last couple of years, leading me to a lot of the resources mentioned above. I found it interesting, though, that even in my mind there is a sense of time. Initially I was writing about Olivia Smith, who was trapped in a society about ten times worse than the holocaust and her adventure was taking a plane over a giant wall that surrounded this society and escaping. However, as the years passed, I found myself moving more toward her daughter, who was born in a different reality – ours – and falls through a portal back into her own, of which she has no knowledge of. Now, if I were to go back to write about Olivia, I call the story stale. It’s like I am telling history. What’s more, it’s history that everyone knows. So, I write about Brina. And hope this story stays alive, because I SO want to share her life. The good thing about it is I have something to build on if I need to for another book. So where am I now? I am at the point where I write the beginning over and over again until I get discouraged after writing the first few words because they are the same, and the story has yet to be written. Not published…not even organized really. I just want it written. I sincerely believe that I need some form of class and have decided to read through Writing fiction Step by Step and do all of the exercises that it tells me to do. Should you so desire, I can post those as a different item, so you can see my progress a little more. I am also starting this blog so that *I* can see how far I’ve come, and perhaps get a few more pointers and herd a few more dreamers along the way. And that’s it. My first post. Feel free to comment or post anything you desire. This is open to all. |
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