Completely new to writing. Wat do nao?

Read a lot. Like, seriously, a lot. A lot of amateur writers (my sample is mostly FFnet), even where they have good ideas, characterization, et cetera, have problems with style, usage, technical things, and if these are bad then you give a bad impression to the reader even if otherwise you're the next Tolkien. Much of this can be fixed with an editor or beta reader, but it's good to get to the point where you're catching your own mistakes.

You might want to start out with fanfiction or in a shared world. My first real writing was in a shared universe called Druidawn, the creation of some creative writing teacher at my old school, and not needing to take care of all the world-building details at the start makes the process somewhat less intimidating. Fanfiction has a similar bonus, except more so because you're often using the canon characters as well as the canon world. This might or might not work for you personally, but it's something that helped me.

+1 plus Check out this in case you need help with . I am sure they will be helpful.

characters. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/SoYouWantTo/DevelopCharacterPersonality https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/SoYouWantTo/BeOriginal

And yes this a shameless self promotion lol

edited 29th Jul '11 12:00:56 PM by FallenLegend

What are your strengths? What aspects of writing do you consider yourself good at?

Outline.

^ I vehemently disagree. I have written almost 89,000 words of coherent continuous plot and world building and characterization and not once have I made an outline.

Sure I plan ahead for major plot points, but outlining before writing wastes valuable creativity time and energy. Sometimes spur of the moment plot ideas in the middle of writing that invalidate or defy the outline prove better than the outlined idea.

^Your Mileage May Vary.

Yeah, YMMV. While some writers, like QQQQQ, can write by the seat of their pants, it hasn't went well for writers like me. I went with an extremely loose outline that took me fifteen minutes to create for Manifestation Files, along with outlining for important sequences. It helped me a lot.

Remember, you don't have to stick with an outline. It's only a tool to prevent you from having to stop to figure out what goes next.

edited 29th Jul '11 10:29:12 PM by chihuahua0

I dunno, I know in my case, my outline is practically a rough draft to get all my ideas out of my head. Nothing is set in stone, of course, but it's nice to have a basic road map of how to get to the ending.

I tend to outline things in my head on instinct, so writing down the outline is just an aid to memory. Though you do have to be prepared to throw away bits of outline for spur-of-the-moment creativity; as someone said at one point or another, "the author reserves the right to have a better idea".

I treat outlining as I do public speaking or speechmaking of any kind: I need to have the speech in front of me, in as close to full as possible, before I open my mouth. I then disregard half to three-quarters of it, improvising at least that amount of what I actually say.

So I do have to have a certain amount planned out well in advance, but the devil is in the details, and they are only filled in when I actually write. Certain scenes in particular I've found need to be planned out to the very last detail before I start, because like a sequence of chess moves they need to happen in a specific way or it all falls apart. Others are improvised entirely, with the only outline being "these two characters talk to each other".

As you can see, outlining and planning are things that vary wildly from person to person. It's the sort of thing where you just have to try a bunch of stuff until you find something that works for you.

Just don't fall into the trap of endlessly planning, and never writing.

here. That episode in particular goes over knowing when to begin, but the rest of the episodes are pretty good. This episode might be helpful, too.

In my opinion:create characters and their personalities,the story writes itself from there on.Always steal from as many places as possible when your new,always think of cool ideas,characters etc. That's what I'm doing at least.

edited 31st Jul '11 12:45:16 PM by YoursBadDay

If you don't have a real project yet, write short stories. Think up a couple of characters, goals they're trying to achieve and the things standing in their way. Write the story. Then do it again. After you've written a couple of stories, go back and read them (again), and take note of things you like about them and things you don't. Then write more stories.

If there are things you want to convey, but you can't figure out why it's not working, go read/watch stories that do manage to convey it. Analyze the story (and looking at tropes can be a very good way of analyzing a story) and find out how it succeeds. When you've figured it out, rewrite the story or write a new one.

And you basicly keep doing that.

I wouldn't recommend "Always stealing" ... that seems a bit drastic.

Half of writing is the story and the other half is execution.

The last half is conflict.

Seriously, if you want writing "homework" or practice use the story generator on this site. It's like giving you an Ikea bed-frame and saying "build it."

Later, you'll cut your own wood.

My analogies are pretty shitty, I'm aware.

edited 3rd Aug '11 6:45:57 PM by Jewbacabra