Writing Passionates discussion
Advice
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How do you write a book?
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Brigid ✩
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May 02, 2009 09:19AM
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It's not so difficult if you can break it up into smaller chunks. A little in the..."
thanks! good advice :]
Ack! Me too. I really want to try nanowrimo again, but when it gets to November I'll probably procrastinate and fail again. Oh, and for those who have nano accounts, please friend me! :) My account is Kelairyy. (without the period) I had an older account, but I made a new one for a fresh start... hopefully I won't keep failing this time. XD@Kritika; ARGH, I WISH I HAD THAT TEACHER!! That would be so cool to do nanowrimo for school. :)
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Sella, ov vey! i haven't checked this group in months. ><
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Yay! :) I'm KelairyyI think I already said that but... oh well. xD
All one does is put one word in front of the other and lose track of time like how you lose track of the lines that make your fingerprints. The words don't have to be in order--they just have to be together somehow.
Redelliot;Well said, that is exactly how one should write a book.
I can't do this!! I'm trying very hard to actually write enough of a story to call it a novel and I can't even get through 3 chapters. Like I know random scenes that happen in the middle but I don't know how to bring the story towards my disconnected little 'epiphanies.'Help!
Do you have an idea of how you want the book to go?
When I'm starting something new I usually play around with ideas and characters first. I'll write a page or two about each and while I'm doing that I almost always come up with where that character is going in the story. Usually I'll have three or four beginnings before i have something I like, occasionally i'll go back to the first one. Never, ever delete any of this while you are working it out. You'd be surprised what will inspire you later.All of this I do in a notebook, for that reason. I can flip through it when I want.
Then I try to figure out an ending. This is rarely the ending I wind up using, but it gives the story a direction.
By the way, I have more stories than I care to mention that are less than five chapters in, and i've set them aside several times. But doing it this way I've completed 6 manuscripts. Two in adult horror, four in children's fiction. The children's books are obviously shorter, but they are complete, maybe you should try short stories first. It's less pressure, and you can expand from there.
Kritika,You can always write out of order. Go ahead and write down the scenes that are fresh in your mind, later you can go back and piece them together.
Also, you could add random little tidbits of information that eveolve into something more. Like, say you're writing an adventure story. One of your characters could say they have a fear of water, then they are faced later on with having to cross a river or something like that. I don't know if this helped you at all, but I hope it does.
With my story, it has three books to it. I already have different chapters written for different areas of all three. It helps me, to know where I want to get to.
Thanks everyone!! Now I am re-inspired to start writing more chapters and scenes.My problem is I know how I want to start things and random scenes in the middle, so I don't really have an end or a goal to work towards. I guess I'll work on that and string my story together piece by piece.
Everyone writes differently and has little things that work for them. You'll find the right way and you'll be surprised how quickly it comes. An ending is not an absolute must-have, it's just something that helps me keep my focus and inspires me with ideas to connect the rest of the story to that ending.
You'll find your "thing", good luck.
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Oh yeah I run into that problem a lot!! I hate all those stupid little gaps between the Important Parts. They can be tricky to get past, but I find that usually it's a good time to have some character development. Like, go more in depth ... write about the main character thinking about his/her situation, or about other characters. Put two of your characters in a room together and see where it goes ... You never know. Something surprising might happen. You might learn something about a character you didn't know before.
Also, doing some behind-the-scenes stuff helps: like making outlines and character inventories, for example. Or even just drawing pictures of your characters -- I do that all the time. lol. XD
great advice Brigid. I may do that character thing, mine would probably kill each other but that is better for me. I wonder if I put characters from different stories in there, what would happen? Interesting.....
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Can you imagine a story with two or more characters from other stories? You have inspired me and darn it, I don't have enough brain left to begin another story. Shoot, I'll make a not for later.
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i know, but when I think of the dialogue between the two characters, my mind leaps to what kind of story it would make. I know it won't be anything i'd use, but it would be interesting as an exercise.
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Try the get to know your character game! It's hilarious. Once I had all of my past characters show up at once. :D There were like, twenty, because I had characters from short stories, uncompleted long stories, and stories I was currently working on.
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I think I'm going to try that sometime. Maybe a party, or a natural disaster brings them into a room, or building together. I'd love to see the folks from happiness Hills run into Gabriel or Olivia, or Arthur. Perhaps Christophe knows the source of Arthur's voices. Hmmm...you have no idea what I'm talking about but it's very interesting in my head anyway.
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I had one character in my head for like, three months who I wanted to introduce into a story, and it kept bugging me, because I knew that he just wanted to be able to meet June! But if I were to explain it to anybody else, it probaly wouldn't make much sense. Also the fact that he started out as twelve, then was 13, then 14, then 15 or 16. I never decided how old harold was.
Renee wrote: "great advice Brigid. I may do that character thing, mine would probably kill each other but that is better for me. I wonder if I put characters from different stories in there, what would happen? I..."Well, Renee, that would be a wonderful little thing called a crossover fanfiction. Like taking Juliet and putting her in a room with Edward Cullen. That was one of the fun ones I read. It gets to be addictive.
Yes, I could see that. I am going to try it when I don't have so many projects on the go. too much right now, but later.
LOL that sounds like so much fun! That's actually our lit final this week... putting Cyclops, Tybalt, Beatty, and Ewell from The Odyssey, Romeo+Juliet, Fahrenheit 451, and To Kill a Mockingbird together in an anger management class. Our dialogue got so wild that we had to cut out some parts to make it presentable for our teacher :D
Hahahaha, I can imagine. You should post that on www.fanfiction.net. I'm on there (TwilighterRenthead), and all of us authors have so much fun. Also, I recommend, for any of you who are interested, www.fictionpress.com. You can publish original fiction online there. I am BroadwayAndChocolate.
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or maybe they would just kill each other. O_o lol
lol they would be cute, but Idk if Clio would be able to handle Blaze . . . he's just insane that way you know?
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Sella, ov vey! i haven't checked this group in months. ><
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Hmm...I don't think so. Clio would probably, like, kill Blaze or something. And Blaze would hate Clio, I think. Haha...it wouldn't really turn out well. lol ;)
I have random ideas for my stories and even stories I havn't even written down yet. so I have all these notebook pages and sticky notes and random scraps of paper w/ random stuff written on them.as far as writion goes I do it for recreation. i like making up stories & I someday hope to be published, but it probably won't happen. even so i will always write & probably never finish a story unless it is some kind of assignment I have to finish by a certain date. I currently have 3 big stories running and several more in my mind
one of them I have a problem w/ though. I;ve been working on it for like 4 pages and then I realize it was completely based off this anime I used to watch, so I have to start way changing my ideas or it'll be plagiarized.
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welllll they're BOTH pretty insane ... haha
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yeahhh i think blaze would find himself decapitated after about two minutes. lol.
although i allowed them to have a conversation in my head once and it didn't get too bad ... lol
message 242:
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Sella, ov vey! i haven't checked this group in months. ><
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although i allowed them to have a conversation in my head once and it didn't get too bad ... lol"
yes i agree. you might as well say goodbye to blaze. haha XD
lol. are they warming up to each other?? *gasp*
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LOL warming up ... it's a pun ... :P
message 244:
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Sella, ov vey! i haven't checked this group in months. ><
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OMG it is!! I didn't even realize it until you pointed it out...lol :D
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lol yeahhh i am very punny hehe
message 246:
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Sella, ov vey! i haven't checked this group in months. ><
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i love that word. PUNNY XD
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Haha, I have friends like that. Because I'm friends with different groups of people. And it's kinda like, "I wonder what would happen if you stuck these two people together. They would either hit it off, or tear each other's throats out, and I'm really not sure which."
AKSquared wrote: "Seriously. How the heck does anyone do it? 13,000-17,000 word stories (12-20 pages), I've got no problem handling, but the idea of attempting a book, with multiple characters, characters' growth,..."I started doing nanowrimo 5 years ago. The goal is to get 50,000 words. I followed the rough outline of the story in my head, and as I realized other things needed to happen first, before the scene in my head, or that things had to happen to foreshadow what was coming, or scenes were needed to show a character trait... I ended up with more like 170,000 words.
I've found my IRL writer's group really helpful, too.
Ephona-- I need a shirt like that!!
