Post: #1

Anyone here write creatively for fun? I've been writing fiction since age eleven, it would be cool to correspond with RVF'ers and set up some kind of a review system. I'm not talking about ROK style articles or satires, I'm talking serious fiction writing. I've also found that articulate writers tend to have good game...

Post: #2

I do. After I finish and release my next 2 game books, the plan is to work on a novel.

I've also written 3 scripts, a tv series and a commercial campaign for a beer company.

Not saying this to brag; point is, writing is an escape and if I can make money off of it then even better.

What are you working on?

Post: #3

Do you guys have any resources for a beginner to get started?

Post: #4

I admire anyone who can write fiction.

I've taken numerous cracks at it and it never comes out right.

And I write professionally.

Post: #5

I do. I've got a bunch of blogs (that I get adsense revenue for) and I'm working on a fiction and non-fiction book.

My biggest problem in this areas is I don't devote enough time. Maybe because I'm doing too much at once, or just pure laziness, which is a very big weakness of mind.

I think you need to demand a goal for yourself, like a page today, or something like that.

Post: #6

I have published 3 novels. Also ran a blog for years, had thousands of subscribers. Have many more books to go.

Hit me up if you want, I can send you a link to my site. Not posting it here.

Post: #7

(10-09-2013 04:38 AM)klosck Wrote:  Do you guys have any resources for a beginner to get started?

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/687/03/

Post: #8

Read and write, read and write, read and write.

If you want to become an epic author, read the 100 best-selling books on Amazon (or on any other best-selling list for that matter).

Same with blogging, expect you're just immersing yourself in a different style of writing.

(10-10-2013 11:06 AM)King Solomon Wrote:  I have published 3 novels. Also ran a blog for years, had thousands of subscribers. Have many more books to go.

Hit me up if you want, I can send you a link to my site. Not posting it here.

I'd like to check that out, King Solomon. Drop me a pm.

Post: #9

(10-14-2013 03:49 AM)Beyond Borders Wrote:  Read and write, read and write, read and write.

If you want to become an epic author, read the 100 best-selling books on Amazon (or on any other best-selling list for that matter).

Same with blogging, expect you're just immersing yourself in a different style of writing.

(10-10-2013 11:06 AM)King Solomon Wrote:  I have published 3 novels. Also ran a blog for years, had thousands of subscribers. Have many more books to go.

Hit me up if you want, I can send you a link to my site. Not posting it here.

I'd like to check that out, King Solomon. Drop me a pm.

I too would be interested.

Post: #10

Would it be ok to post our short stories here?

Post: #11

(10-09-2013 04:38 AM)klosck Wrote:  Do you guys have any resources for a beginner to get started?

I posted this elsewhere in the forum-- it's what worked for me:

Every morning, get up an hour before you have to. As you take your morning shit, read a book by your favorite writer. I recommend Charles Bukowski.

Then sit down, every day, and just make your fingers move on the keyboard. Just write the first shit that comes into your head. Don’t worry about structure or getting jokes in there or expressing any particular idea. Write this material with the idea that NO ONE is EVER going to read it. You will have a voice in your head chiming in constantly saying OMIGOD THIS FUCKING SUCKS! YOU HAVE NO TALENT! IF ANYONE EVER SAW THIS IT’D BE LIKE EVERY GIRL IN JUNIOR HIGH SEEING YOUR NAKED DICK AFTER YOU WERE SWIMMING IN ICE WATER! You will need to get past this voice. It takes about a year.

Talk about EVERYTHING. The shit you took, what you jerked off to, the millimeter of bumpy brown nipple you saw in the cashier girl’s blouse when she bent over to bag your eighty five per cent lean ground beef, how that was the highlight of your day. Everything. Your job, your mother, your porn, your stupid Xbox games. Whatever is on your mind naturally. Force nothing.

If you are being honest, you will find yourself confessing a lot of stuff. Writing a lot of horribly self-deprecating things. At first it may compound your self-hatred and make you more miserable, dwelling on shit so much. Doesn’t matter. This is the gold, but you don’t know it at first.

The trick is: shit that is painful while you’re writing it is fucking hilarious a few days later. I can’t believe I was that hung up on my job, my mother, my porn, my stupid Xbox games. I can’t believe seeing half the fucking bag girl’s tit was the best part of my fucking day. Shit that you thought was a confession you would take to the grave suddenly doesn’t seem so bad, and in fact would make a fucking funny blog entry. The more it hurts when it’s happening the funnier it is later.

Eventually you get used to this, and writing becomes a therapeutic tool to get you over shit. Things don’t feel real until you write them down. Then they don’t feel real until you share them with your audience. You will have a sense of control over the world. If something shitty happens, part of you is thinking: fuck yeah, material. Some Steven Seagal shit, turning your pain’s momentum against it.

You will worry that your words aren’t any good. They will get better, and come to you easier. You will worry that no one gives a shit about your banal life. Well, most people lead banal lives, and reading someone’s similar story makes them feel less alone in the world. Plus the fucking bugs eating chicken bones in my trash can are engaged in epic life and death struggles to eat, fuck, and live another day. Stories are everywhere and nothing is too small. Just stay honest. Say exactly what you think and to hell with what anybody else thinks.

Also, I find it helps when you say “fuck” a lot.

Post: #12

(10-22-2013 12:08 AM)Edmund Dantes Wrote:  Would it be ok to post our short stories here?

Since no one else has answered, I'll go ahead and say yes. This is the only thing I've written in 20 years that I'm genuinely proud of.

Post: #13

(11-02-2013 12:28 AM)delicioustacos Wrote:  

(10-22-2013 12:08 AM)Edmund Dantes Wrote:  Would it be ok to post our short stories here?

Since no one else has answered, I'll go ahead and say yes. This is the only thing I've written in 20 years that I'm genuinely proud of.

Not bad at all.

Here's the intro to a short story that I never finished(hell, I never got much farther than the intro itself):

He stood out in the open garbed only in his beard. Eyes shadowed blue by woad-paint scanned the landscape. The waste was neverending and bleak and he could not discern a single man on its expanse. Tuk-tuk went the pestle against the grinding stone, the crushed soma pellets acrid and thick, the wind a howling knife in every pore of his form. He was naked, but he refused to be cold.

They had been running forever, it seemed. When would it end? Would it ever end? This period of griva-nyaya, of hound-eat-hound, where men hunted other men across the grassfields of the Cleft, neither party daring to touch the peaks that loomed black and monstrous over the verdant flatland? Men would come howling out of the tall grasses with spears of sky iron in their hands, and every clansman of the jana would be forced to meet them axe-to-lance while vultures circled overhead and wolves howled in expectance from some nearby bush. They would fight over every matter presented by the gods. A roving herd of bison could start a horseborne brawl; a mingling of herds would end in spilled blood; and, gods forbid, the presence of armed men in the pastures of another jana would lead to another roaring ruck in the rocks and grassbeds of the Cleft, and after the two sides limped home slashed and bloody the Trulls would dance out of the foothills and feast on the carcasses of the fallen. Would it ever end ? Was it ever meant to end? Or had the gods abandoned the jana to die in the Cleft of Jjalmi, felled by the swords of their kinfolk while monsters laughed at them from their caves?

So thought Mitra the priest as he crushed the soma seeds against his mortar, licking his fingers as the pestle smashed the yellow seeds into paste. The wild sliced cold and angry into his painted cheeks, but he noticed nothing. Tuk-tuk, tuk-tuk went the pestle against the grinding stone. The pastures of the Manuvaz gaped out before him flat and frosted. To the north and the south the Azakaen stretched like ragged black bars and it was from their depths that the wind was coming.

Mitra turned his eyes to the black slopes and his guts clenched like a fist. Those peaks were evil. His father had slept naked under their shadow; something tusked and apeish had dragged him into the foothills, and when Mitra and his brothers charged after its spoor they only found blanched bones and severed limbs. He had hated his father, bastard traitor that he was, but it behooved a man to avenge slain family, and to be so stymied had terrified him. He was not a weak man, he knew that, he could drink arkhi as well as any clansman, but the knowledge that monsters of such potency even existed had shaken him to his bones.

The wind cut at him again and he downed his kaumiss, closing his eyes as the milk warmed him from scalp to toe. Good gods above the wind was sharp. There were clouds over the peaks and he could smell snow on the air. The world would be blanketed white by the end of the month. The steppe would be impassable, the grassbeds full to their bellies with snowfall, the sky perpetually slategrey and lifeless. Then there would come Arctic darkness, frozen winds that shrieked death across the plains, nights blazing with aurora flame, and then at the peak of winter Bortai of the Uriankhai, the white witch of the icebound north, packs of Trulls capering through the snows, another harried hunted flight through a hell of icelocked rivers and deerless snowfields---would they survive? Good gods above, would they live through it, through another season of frostbitten babies and shivering ponies, through war snow and pestilence?

He didn’t know. He was a priest, but he did not know. Once upon a time this would have terrified him. Once, long ago, the not knowing had petrified him so thoroughly that he had hid within his tent for all that long winter and not emerged once, so deep was he in fevered prayer. He remembered that month, four long years ago. He had been a boy then. The memories made him shudder independent of the wind. He had spat out his arkhi whenever he drank it, like a child. He had run from the Trulls when they raided the tribe’s camp, like a coward. He had worn clothing against the cold, like a woman.

Not again. Never again. He was strong now. Strong. Like sky iron. He had killed men. Had taken a knife to the skin of a slaughtered Tatar and bound his quiver in the hide of that slain savage. He had drunk himself insensible. Had pissed into the cold. Strong. Strong, by heaven! Strong!

He pulped the soma cruelly. The memories were teeth in his soul. He was the atharvan, the high priest, the guide of the clan, and still the thought of another winter made his guts close like a vice.

Post: #14

So, 850 words and you haven't arrived at the true opening sentence yet. Do you plan on doing anything with this?

Post: #15

(11-11-2013 12:08 AM)Art Pimp Wrote:  So, 850 words and you haven't arrived at the true opening sentence yet. Do you plan on doing anything with this?

Eh, not really. I don't know what my problem is, I'm pretty good at writing introductions and first chapters, but I'm crappy at continuing them. A few years ago I wrote a hundred-page story that wasn't finished, but that's the furthest I've ever gotten.

Post: #16

A hundred pages is more like a novella. First chapters are always pretty easy. It's what comes after that's difficult.

I'd recommend you try to write a 10-15 page short story that feels truly complete. Seems like it would be a good exercise for you. Remember one of Vonnegut's rules: Start as close to the ending as possible.

Post: #17

I write short stories, mostly literotica, however, I FUCKING HATE editing and proof reading. Initially, I started writing in English, even started a book. But recently have discovered that I can write just as well, if not better, in Russian.

How do you guys get motivated for writing? Especially, when dealing with writer's block? Occasionally, I do Stream Of Consciousness exercise which helps a bit, but not always. I have a lot of ideas in my head, but I find it difficult to get started.

Post: #18

From an interview with John McPhee :

The routine produces. But each day, nevertheless, when you try to get started you have to transmogrify, transpose yourself; you have to go through some kind of change from being a normal human being, into becoming some kind of slave.

I simply don’t want to break through that membrane. I’d do anything to avoid it. You have to get there and you don’t want to go there because there’s so much pressure and so much strain and you just want to stay on the outside and be yourself. And so the day is a constant struggle to get going.

And if somebody says to me, You’re a prolific writer—it seems so odd. It’s like the difference between geological time and human time. On a certain scale, it does look like I do a lot. But that’s my day, all day long, sitting there wondering when I’m going to be able to get started. And the routine of doing this six days a week puts a little drop in a bucket each day, and that’s the key. Because if you put a drop in a bucket every day, after three hundred and sixty-five days, the bucket’s going to have some water in it.

Post: #19

I have two blogs and one self-published novel. Always wanted to be a writer, but bills, etc. These days I look at the stack of unfinished novels and sigh. I even tried to re-start another novel last week and spent 15 minutes staring at a blank page.
I have several author friends on Facebook. They spend most of the time posting and whining about the industry. It seems to me they should spend more time writing.

Post: #20

BUMP

I've got a novel and a few short stories on Amazon.

I've also got another novel outlined and about a third fleshed-out. A few others barely begun. And about three nonfiction books I've done a significant portion on but that still need a lot of work.

Right now I'm trying to put the majority of my focus into completing the second novel and one of the nonfiction books. I think for writers it's actually okay to have a few different projects going at once, though, because you can work on whichever you feel like.

Bad idea to overdo it, but for some people, it helps a lot to mix up your creative energy throughout the week. I actually got the idea from an author; I don't remember who.

(10-10-2013 11:06 AM)King Solomon Wrote:  I have published 3 novels. Also ran a blog for years, had thousands of subscribers. Have many more books to go.

Hit me up if you want, I can send you a link to my site. Not posting it here.

Did you ever send me this? I can't remember if ever pm'ed you about it.

(11-11-2013 12:08 AM)Art Pimp Wrote:  So, 850 words and you haven't arrived at the true opening sentence yet. Do you plan on doing anything with this?

C'mon - there's room for improvement, but it takes balls to throw it out there. The opening could use some work, but I found myself getting caught up in it.

(11-11-2013 12:36 AM)Agastya Wrote:  

(11-11-2013 12:08 AM)Art Pimp Wrote:  So, 850 words and you haven't arrived at the true opening sentence yet. Do you plan on doing anything with this?

Eh, not really. I don't know what my problem is, I'm pretty good at writing introductions and first chapters, but I'm crappy at continuing them. A few years ago I wrote a hundred-page story that wasn't finished, but that's the furthest I've ever gotten.

Your problem is you're human. All writers struggle with these issues.

Making more come out requires effort, like anything else worthwhile. Just keep sitting down and plugging away with it. It will take your creative side time to learn how to adapt to being deeper in the story, but it will get there. Hundred pages is nothing to sneeze at either. Why not pull it back out and try again?

Outlining might work for you too. I recommend a book called Million Dollar Outlines.

(11-11-2013 11:30 PM)ColSpanker Wrote:  I have two blogs and one self-published novel. Always wanted to be a writer, but bills, etc. These days I look at the stack of unfinished novels and sigh. I even tried to re-start another novel last week and spent 15 minutes staring at a blank page.

Maybe pick one and make it a goal for the next couple months?

Quote:I have several author friends on Facebook. They spend most of the time posting and whining about the industry. It seems to me they should spend more time writing.

Ain't that the truth. The unpublished spend all their time talking about books they are going to write and the published spend their time complaining about the industry.

Avoidance is a huge problem for writers.

I often find myself getting caught up in the idea of how to market my next novel or trying to key in on what's the next big thing as Amazon evolves. Then it occurs to me that hours, days, months are slipping by and I'm not writing.

I think a lot of writers also do this by reading books about character-building, world-building, the ins and outs of resonance, etc. These mechanical things are cool to read, but often they become mental masturbation, and you'll see top writers often break all the supposed rules.

Maybe best to read this stuff for outside perspective in your free time between writing but never let it keep you from starting.

Personally, I think the most productive things you can do as a fiction writer is read books by the masters or the most popular and write.

Post: #21

By the way, I'm thinking it would be cool for some of us to do a 1000-words per day challenge.

I can start a thread on it, but should we do more?

1500 words maybe?

I'm a freelancer, so we'll have to make a stipulation that it must be your own property. Fiction, non-fiction, blog, whatever. 1000 words of new, raw content per day.

The idea is to make the habit of writing everyday a top priority.

What do you guys think?

Post: #22

I would like to do that.

Don't know where I'm going to find the time, maybe get up 15 mins earlier and write with my morning coffee.

Post: #23

One of my earlier memories from school was putting my heart and soul into a short story. I enjoyed writing it and I thought it was epic.

I showed it to the teacher and she went ahead and pointed out all the mistakes and bits that didn't make sense. I never bothered again and I'm starting to think I should have as I express myself much better in written word.

Post: #24

Not that I'm published or anything - self-published in non-fiction in a niche area of knowledge - but I think I've made enough of a slog through of books about writing to provide a couple of recommendations (and dis-recommendations) for which books to look at.

Let's start with the mainstay of all would-be writers' lists of books you must apparently read: On Writing, by Stephen King. You'd think somebody who's had that most rare of things, a career in bestselling fiction, would have something substantial to say to beginning writers, some solid advice to offer, some solid principles for good storytelling?

Nope. The book is not completely bullshit, but fully half of it is autobiographical stuff you don't really need to know about King or about his technique. In his defence, King is not writing a book on how to write, he's writing a book subtitled "A Memoir of The Craft", so you can't sue him for false representation when it says nothing about openings, endings, or anything else. But don't be fooled: this is not Sun Tzu where every phrase contains boundless depths of instruction when unpacked after a few good tokes and writing experience. As education in writing goes, it's a pissy little overview at best.

The second thing is this: unless you are well up the seat-of-the-pants end of the spectrum of writers, you probably don't share a lot in common with Stephen King. King goes so far to say that when he outlines his stories -- which he did with Insomnia -- they turn out bad. Like a lot of phenomenally talented people in their disciplines, it's apparent that King has internalised the technique, the craft of it, so thoroughly that even he can't verbalise exactly what goes into his writing anymore or how exactly he does it. And it's a fault that most writers who write books about their craft share -- very few can break down their knowledge into a useable or referable form. (In passing, for a real look at somehow legitimately trying to take apart their own techniques and show how they learn, The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin is a revelation. If you haven't already seen the recommendation here on ROK, I will again underline it - it is pure liquid gold to anyone trying to learn a new skill.)

Anyway, Stephen King's advice on writing given in his book can be condensed down to:

(1) Don't use adverbs.
(2) Tell a story.
(3) Don't do cocaine, maaaan.

This is not a book you'll be coming back to again and again for reference. Get it out from the library once and then forget it, it's a piece of shit that gives you nothing substantial to work with.

Dan Simmons' website. Not a book, but a series of long essays (and still continuing) by the guy who wrote Hyperion and maintained under the Writing Well section of his website at http://www.dansimmons.com . Dan's later books don't match the high point of Hyperion, but he's a lot more no-bullshit than Stephen King and he's prepared to be a lot more erudite and specific about how the writing process works. His essays again are not directed at really basic stuff on writing, but there is a lot of good shit in there, enough to almost make you intimidated if not awestruck at the guy's capacity for research if not his intellect. In particular if you're reading ROK you'll align with his ideas that "feminist" writers (and "black", and "Asian", and "literary" writers) should do the world a favour and drop the adjective or stop being the noun.

Aspects of the Novel, E.M. Forster. Acclaimed as a classic, but it was written about a century ago and it was written for the extremely literary end of the novel spectrum, from the time period occupied by people like James Joyce, Virginia Woolf et. al. Has some useful bits and pieces, but again not a constant-reference work in my view. Same thing goes for collections of Henry James' notes to his novels -- assaulting a Henry James book is the literary equivalent of assaulting the exposed face of K-2, and the same thing goes for his advice on writing.

How Fiction Works, James Wood. Shorter than On Writing by about half and worth four times more. Biggest drawback: Wood is not an author but a literary critic. As a more general point of advice, I'd say take with a heavy grain of salt any book on writing that's written by anyone other than an actual author, mainly because you're always looking at someone who looks at writing from the outside in. But Wood is the real deal: highly intellectual, though not as brain-numbing as Harold Bloom in full flight, and his observations on how things such as metaphor and point of view work on our psyches are pretty damn good. Simmons recommends him; I bought his book on the strength of that -- it's literally the only book he exhorts would-be writers to read -- and it's pretty good advice, applicable not just for literary novels at all.

Reading Like A Writer, by the hilariously-appropriately-named Francine Prose. I'd suggest you read her before touching James Wood, because she touches on a number of the same subjects but in a much more approachable form, which Wood then expands on. She seems to come from the same writing background as Dan Simmons - although I came to her and Dan independently - and she hits on any number of subjects which teach you how to focus on the intermediate stuff, the technique of writing: detail, character, point of view, dialogue, all of these things and more. Her love of Anton Chekhov is so obvious that she'd probably administer a blowjob to his revenant corpse if given the opportunity, but the advice she gives is not high-falutin' literary criticism and teaches you how to actually do that bullshit piece of advice to "Read other writers and learn how they did X".

The Writer's Journey, Christopher Vogler. Vogler's book typifies a large stream of writers' books that basically plagiarise Joseph Campbell's The Hero With A Thousand Faces, suggesting that as long as your protagonist basically follows the Hero's Journey, you're set. In essence, if you're familiar with the Hero's Journey as Campbell suggests -- and it's pretty fucking easy to either get familiar with it on the Internet or save some time and pick up Campbell's well-known book -- you've basically read anything useful Vogler has to say. In addition, Vogler teaches scriptwriting fundamentally. It's not the same medium as a novel (although see below - there is an exception to the rule). Lastly, this book also does what a number of writing books in my view do, what I call "Square Pegging" -- they espouse a line that "all stories have form X, look at this random grab bag of books in which I twist or misread elements of a book to fit form X."

Writing the Bestseller Novel, Albert Zuckerman. Yes, it's a book by a literary agent, but at least it's Ken Follett's literary agent. It's a bit dated now, and being by a literary agent it's not as sharp on technique as other books mentioned here, but Zuckerman makes some solid points about "big" novels having to ratchet up plot tension and link the characters together in ever-new and unexpected ways. Not bad if you can get it secondhand.

Writing the Breakout Novel, Donald Maas. Another literary agent novel. Lot of people swear by him. The book has a decent amount of material in it, but there is another book which I think covers the same ground in a solid way. Good to decent value.

Story, Robert McKee. First caveats: McKee's a screenwriter. And has never sold a screenplay himself.

But: he has taught literally dozens of screenwriters who've gone on to win Academy Awards; McKee's ideas feature in the movie Adaptation if you can be bothered to find it. But as far as substantial material on the underlying guts of story goes - what plot is, what character is, how they work, how they move us - you will find no better teacher on the body of knowledge and technique that underlies the media of film and novels. In essence he updates (and relies on) Aristotle's Poetics - itself worth a read, but not essential - and once you've read his books, you cannot help but recognise the same advice being given to you by any number of writing books that are hitting exactly the same points, just without the erudition or clear enunciation. What sold me on McKee was in the first chapter or so of his book - that what he teaches are principles rather than rules. "Rules say, 'Do it this way'. Principles say, 'This works, and has through all recorded time.'" It is truly shameful that fiction writers have to turn to a source outside their medium for solid instruction on the underlying mechanics of story, but there it is.

Read him, or at least have a listen to the audiobook which summarises the book itself. You will not learn much about writing technique, but you'll learn a shitload about story. Is he perfect? No: in particular you'll chuckle on some of the basic mistakes he makes when using the plot of Star Wars to illustrate his point. But he analyses really solid film stories like Chinatown and Casablanca with considerable erudition, and off the strength of this 90% I think you can forgive the other 10%.

Post: #25

Double post: That should be Writing the Blockbuster Novel by Albert Zuckerman.