Suggestions?

Captain_Tea

Active Member
I was wondering if you guys could recommend some good books about how to write stories? I was pretty good at writing back in high school, my English teachers encouraged me to go into creative writing. Its been 20 years since then and i'm afraid that i've forgotten most of what I knew about the process. I have been feeling drawn back to writing after all this time and would like to get started on the right foot. I want to go at it with some organization and good planning. I dont want to just start banging on the keyboard and hope a good story comes out :p.

Thanks
 
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I haven't read any books on it, but have just little snippets I've heard about specific authors and their methods. Basically, it all comes down to planning.

1) Know your audience. Who do you intend to have reading your story? Are you aiming for the teenage Beiber fangirls? Children? Adults? College kids? It makes a difference - your characters and plots will develop more completely when you keep your audience in mind.

2) Develop your characters, their back story, their beliefs, and all that stuff. Know how your characters feels about issues in their situation, know how they will respond to everything. Know their motivations, their fears, their desires. Know them.

3) Figure out your general plot lines. Is this a murder mystery? An action sequence?

4) Is this a tale about growing up in a real place or an imaginary one? If it's real, research EVERYTHING about the place. If it's imaginary, develop EVERYTHING about the place. Seriously, if it's a story about Columbus, GA during the Civil War...research it extensively. If it's about Edenville, the perfect little town that is dealing with it's first murder, know the neighborhood layouts, the police coverage, it's distance from Metropolis. Know the average education, income, nearby jobs, whether they shop at small markets or Superstores. If it's an adventure tale, draw maps so you know how the characters will travel (it gets messy if you try to describe where the characters are going without knowing yourself)

5) Create an outline. Yep, just like the ones you did in 10th grade English. Or a timeline, as in what you did in 11th grade history. Figure out the chain of events that will drive your storyline. But don't be afraid to explore side-tracks along the way. CS Lewis didn't know the entire storyline of The Lord of the Rings when he wrote it - that's how we get little off-shoots like Tom Bombadill.

6) Figure out where to start your story. You probably won't want to start your story at the beginning, because you'll want to be able to reveal more information later. Unless it really helps to introduce the story, you probably won't want to start with "John was born August 12, 1968 in Tuskaloosa while his father was in Vietnam. He ..blah blah blah." Find an event that shapes or changes his life, and start there. You can introduce the fact that he didn't meet his father until he was 8 at a later point in the story, if needed.

One very interesting book I read started by introducing a character reading an article in the local newspaper. He revealed his thoughts on the article, and continued from there. I don't do it justice, but it really was an incredible hook.

Most importantly, WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN. Nothing is too stupid, nothing is too petty, nothing is too contradictory. John could grow up with his mother, who is a huge patriot, yet he hate the government because his father was drafted and forced to kill people in a war. We tend to be overly complex when it comes to our emotions and beliefs... your characters should be complex and confused as well. It makes them more realistic to us as we watch them struggle through their beliefs and opinions.

One of the best authors in the last few decades began by writing everything down. Every plot bunny, every mechanism for making decisions, every character's basic story... most of it in small journals, scraps of paper, napkins from the coffee shop...

7) Jot, write, and scribble everything. Don't be afraid to re-arrange, re-work, and revise your sections. Don't be afraid to explore segments that weren't in your outline. If you have to take them out, SAVE THEM. If you work on the computer, get a journal program that will help you save various ideas, in case you decide to use them somewhere else... then you can just cut/paste.

8) Find a few trusted folks to be your beta-readers/editors. Get them to mark up printed copies... sometimes you need fresh eyes to catch when you make mistakes, when you haven't answered questions (sometimes intentionally...but those need to be well-planned), etc. Sometimes simple typos that Word won't catch can kill the way your work reads and is understood.
 
Wow, thank you :D.

I found a free open source software called StoryBook that looks like it may be helpful to the process. Do any of you use such software?

It's been so long since i've written anything creative. It feels like i'm starting over in grade school :p.
 
I don't really do much creative writing, especially not full stories (not that I'm against it, I just don't have a story in mind to tell yet). It looks like StoryBook would be good software for doing all the stuff I typed out above. Go figure.

I also looked at the SB Pro. It was only $26.11 and had neat features for tracking a bunch of different stuff I didn't consider. If I was going to write, I'd probably play with the free version for a while... if I got serious and liked the free version, I'd likely spend the $26 for the Pro
 
Sorry, although I am a published writer, I just write off the cuff. Never wrote anything like you are talking about. But I did want to acknowledge I read your post and did post a link our the TOJ facebook page. :) Maybe someone will visit from there.

I think Durruck has given some very good answers as well!
 
I have some software and good advice. Thanks guys. Now i just need a lot of time and some inspiration, neither of which i currently have :p.
 
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