I am guessing that mostly everyone on /book/ is a writer so, how should I start writing a story? And what makes any story "addicting"?
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Anonymous2009-11-27 6:56
If you want to make a lot of money, you just have to write people's fantasies. Soppy sexual fantasies for women (Twilight, etc.); action fantasies for men (Matthew Reilly, etc.).
Write a story about a guy who fucks a lot of women in graphic ways (but lovingly) and fights towelheads with twin missile launchers. You'll never be respected by anyone of note in the literary community, but you'll have a lot of pathetic fans and piles of money to keep you company.
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Anonymous2009-11-27 17:09
Take your favorite book, read the opening, and copy it with slight variation.
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Anonymous2009-11-30 0:31
Addictive, not addicting. Your first step is to read Strunk and White's style manual.
Tips:
Too many adjectives water down a scene. What is more powerful, your ability to describe your imagination to a reader, or the reader's imagination? Let the reader help you.
Read your ass off, take note of what you like and what you don't, and there's your advice.
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Anonymous2009-11-30 4:06
If you're having problems getting a beginning, or intro, down on paper, skip the fucker. It might surprise you, but starting at a point 'near' the beginning often leads to a more well defined and congruent idea on how it should read and feel.
Remember, it's an intro, not an abstract.
If you plan on starting at page one and writing linearly to the end, you're doomed to fail... well, unless your the next Twain. But I, and most likely yourself, doubt that.
Try putting together a sort of flow-chart. which would contain: major plot shifts, character ties to one-another, flow of time, potential twists, alternate plot courses (Writing a story, changes the story. Heisenberg defined more than physics), and lastly define, in words, what emotions the reader 'should' be feeling at that moment.
If you can come up with something you're happy with, well fuck. That's more progress than writing 50 pages one day, only to delete 40 the following day.
Happy writing. Remember, fuck the reader. You're writing for you, if someone comes along and enjoys it as well, bonus.
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Anonymous2009-11-30 21:30
>>5
I have asked this many times and this is the first time that the answer made sense. Most of the time they just say start at the end which I always thought was irrational.
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Anonymous2009-12-02 12:50
>>1
You're writing the story because you've got a marvellous culmination planned. You thought up something and want to write about it, right?
Now listen.
Start with that very thing. Don't do any retarded introductions. Don't do buildups. Buildups do not exist in good fiction. They say it's a buildup, but actually it's just a strong scene culminating at the beginning of an even stronger scene. A-a-and, this doesn't happen in short stories. Short story is a problem and it's resolution. Bam, and it's over.
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Anonymous2009-12-02 12:53
>>6
Huh? 5 is full of shit and he's an obvious teenager. "Start at end" is the best possible advice. Wanna hear proof 5 doesn't know what he's talking about, beside "your" that is? That's more progress than writing 50 pages one day, only to delete 40 the following day.
This is the only possible way to write good prose. His favourite Mark Twain did just that. Every writer does this. I repeat, it's the only possible way.
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Anonymous2009-12-03 4:02
Write about EVERYTHING. Writing is an exercise, so do it on a daily basis. Sure, you'll come up with a ton of bad prose, but it gets better as you get more practiced.
It also helps to read a lot. Voraciously. If it even sounds interesting, pick it up and read, and I don't mean scan, I mean READ. If you want to become a writer, you must become a reader, and as your mastery of writing progresses, so will your taste in your reading material. The more you read, the more mental material you have to draw upon as a writer, the more references you can make.
If anyone ever says, "Originality comes from within" or some bullshit that'll allow you to justify not drawing upon the past...FUCK THEM and the horse they came in on.
To be a good writer of fiction, one must have a healthy respect for the past, even those dead, white men who wrote books that are no longer fashionable, like Allan Quartermain or Kim.
If you seek examples of good writing, you have thousands of years to draw upon; standing upon the shoulders of giants has worked for centuries, so do so. Even if you depart from conventional prose, at least you know WHAT you're departing from, and why.
Big ideas aren't always the best. One of the best short stories ever written was about an old Cuban in a boat taking on a single fish. Some of the worst fiction ever written involves the destruction of an entire universe.
The idea, essentially, is that your ability to write determines how well you can channel your imagination and the past as you understand it onto the real world. Without ability to describe what hasn't happened or cannot be seen, you're going to be a crappy writer, so practice, practice, practice, and read, read, read.
And lastly, this is my personal opinion, but buy a word processor, or better yet, a typewriter. While computers have done many good things for us, nothing really makes you think about what your going to write like feeling the creaking in your joints as you type out your thoughts...one letter at a time.