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I'm trying to write a story at the moment. In my head it's switching between a comic / film / book / anime so im finding the writing of iit very hard. Aside from finding my preferred medium, I'm also having trouble on the lenght and arc of the overall story. When I was writing it as a comic I had it planned out episodically (is that a word?). But now I'm trying to stitch it all into one story but the flows is wrong so I'll probably have to abandon some bits and increase the significance of what's there. Just wondering if anyone's tried anything similar and has any advice. Cheers. |
Anyone ever try writing?
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Flightrisker 18,139 posts
Seen 6 years ago
Registered 16 years ago -
MetalDog 24,076 posts
Seen 3 years ago
Registered 20 years agoPick a medium and stick to it until you have the first whole draft, start to end. Don't constantly backtrack trying to fix things, just make notes as to what you want to change later and get that first draft done - it's the hardest part. Hemmingway rightly said 'the first draft of anything is shit'. Don't worry too much, just get it done.
Then let it sit for a while, start work on something else - make sure you have some distance from the work. Then go back and remember that 80% of revision is cutting =) -
Flightrisker 18,139 posts
Seen 6 years ago
Registered 16 years agoCheers dude.
I've been playing around with this story for a couple of years and just in the last few months i've started actually working on it. I think it's cos i've begun watching anime recently which has opened by eyes to different forms of story telling (as well as hilarious sexual misunderstanding, the most ridiculous i've seen was in Elfen Lied, I had tea coming out my nose). -
Story by Robert McKee is invaluable for that sort of stuff. Excellent on pacing, structure etc. It's intended for screen writing but a lot of it is applicable to novel writing too. -
Flightrisker 18,139 posts
Seen 6 years ago
Registered 16 years agoMetalDog wrote:
Hemmingway rightly said 'the first draft of anything is shit'. Don't worry too much, just get it done.
Did he really say that?! -
mal 29,326 posts
Seen 3 years ago
Registered 20 years agoNever written anything significant, and most of the stuff I've knocked up I get bored of before it approached completion. But I don't think there's a real knack to pacing. I'm always going back and expanding sections, merging sections, pissing around with conversation flow. I think you just need to have the patience to get it right, which is what I lack. Oh, that and the ability to come up with an interesting plot or believable characters, place.
How people ever wrote anything of length before there were computers I'll never know. I hear stories of authors with various madcap schemes involving post-it notes and index cards trying to get the plot, and therefore the pacing, sorted out.
Edit: Ooh, metaldog's point is an interesting one...
Edited by mal at 14:39:20 24-10-2005 -
MetalDog 24,076 posts
Seen 3 years ago
Registered 20 years agoFlightrisker wrote:
Did he really say that?!
Yes =) -
mrharvest 5,718 posts
Seen 2 weeks ago
Registered 18 years agoMy advice: read a lot, and read analytically taking apart the texts. Writing is mostly a matter of technique. -
Hunam85 4,114 posts
Seen 4 years ago
Registered 18 years agoWriting is something which i feel i can do. What i allways do is make a massive design document of idea's and points and a pad of things i want in the story. Then i start writing and i find that ive done something which i didnt think about when i started, so i follow the thread untill i get to where i want and i think thats the creative bit for me, just improv writing in the medium of the points id made but not limited too. Keep meaning to actully finish something, mostly just work on Silent Hill fanfics because SH is the best setting/universe ever devised. -
marilena 8,238 posts
Seen 2 weeks ago
Registered 18 years agoI think Hemingway also said "there are no good writers, just good re-writers". What you need to understand though is that starting to re-write before finishing a draft will make you never finish it. So, push forward, don't go back. -
sam_spade 15,745 posts
Seen 1 week ago
Registered 20 years agoFlightrisker wrote:
MetalDog wrote:
Hemmingway rightly said 'the first draft of anything is shit'. Don't worry too much, just get it done.
Did he really say that?!
I wonder what he thought of On The Road. -
mrharvest 5,718 posts
Seen 2 weeks ago
Registered 18 years agoKroms wrote:
(PS: For more professional advice, check Stephen King's On Writing, but I should warn you: it spoils The Stand and Carrie, also it kinda spoils The Shining and The Dead Zone.)
You can't spoil good novels.
Also for reading I recommend Italo Calvino's Six Memos for the Next Millenium. -
Derblington 35,161 posts
Seen 23 hours ago
Registered 17 years agoKroms wrote:
Anything I'd know of?
I'm sixteen and I've written two novels, a few short stories too...
I'm trying to write some stuff at the mo, as it happens. I have tons of ideas and no-idea on how to string them together :/ -
sam_spade 15,745 posts
Seen 1 week ago
Registered 20 years agoWrite a collection of short stories then? -
Derblington 35,161 posts
Seen 23 hours ago
Registered 17 years agosam_spade wrote:
If I could, I would.
Write a collection of short stories then? -
sam_spade 15,745 posts
Seen 1 week ago
Registered 20 years agoYou mean posteriority. -
Yeah, had a whole outline for a book formed in my head for the last year, was going to write it during the summer but lethargy kicked in. Eurogamer fuelled lethargy. Damn you all! -
Daryoon 5,912 posts
Seen 3 hours ago
Registered 20 years agoWell I'm (apparently) of a publishable standard. I tend to specialise in serialisation, and the longest thing I ever wrote reached about 70 chapters (worked out around 1700 pages), though that was only a third of the story x_x -
tengu 10,294 posts
Seen 14 years ago
Registered 18 years ago -
tengu 10,294 posts
Seen 14 years ago
Registered 18 years ago -
tengu 10,294 posts
Seen 14 years ago
Registered 18 years ago -
k.o.t.i wrote:
Quoted for posterity.
about 10% of a reference book which is about to install itself into the anals of gaming history
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Heheh. 
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