So I decided about a year ago that I had an amazing story to tell. Its fiction and I’m a little obsessed it’s all that is in my mind and the characters are always playing out scenes in my day dreams and normal dreams I never stop thinking about it. I decided to start to type it out and found it a lot easier than I thought it would be the words flowed and I haven’t as yet had any block at all I just struggle to find the time with a young family and a lot of commitments and running my own business but I have not been deterred and I am on 50k so far. I know that it need editing like crazy and I want to go back and change the beginning slightly which I have already wrote just not tied in. I joined this forum to speak to likeminded people to see how people got on with their writing and to get help and ideas on how to be published. However on reading many many posts I feel that I have been so naive about the whole thing and it has really made me feel like I can’t do it. My grammar and punctuation is awful but my husband is fab and said he will proof read when I’m ready for him to, but also coming on hear and hearing people talking about dialog and how it should run for more than five lines how he/she said disappears so there’s no need to put in things like she whispered. Different ways to start a story how flash backs are bad but good if done in the right way well how will I know it’s the right way? I do read a lot but I don’t want to be the same as other writers so I’m not sure if I can compare things to the books that I read. Then reading that the chance of getting published is near on impossible unless it is the most polished peace of work has really dis heartened me I do just want to finish the book for myself but I do want to be published and I don’t think that is a bad thing. So really my question is should I just give up as I don’t feel I have the skills or the knowledge of how to write a book or should I continue to write my story as I see fit even if it doesn’t conform to all the rules?? Sorry about the length
Hi huskies first of all how old are you? and two you have started with an idea which is more then a lot of people do. Lots of writers find it hard to find ideas that are slightely different from others,but when they do they find it difficult to write in a way that pleases everyone. In order to become a brilliant writer you have to adhere to what your instincts is telling you and follow your nose so to speak. Ignore what publishers are about because it is not publsihing that gets the credit it is you to yourself and those who really enjoy reading your stories. There are thousands of books published everyday and books that are chosen specifically to be thought and yet not all of them are actually that good. I can think of books and poetries I was introduced at school and universities and they were sorry to say the most boring depressing material I have ever come cross and one of the reasons why I want to write. Reading books written by others is good and informative but writing your own book is more fun because you get to put the things you want to see that were not in the books you read. This what I usually do for example as an exercise I take a story I read say from childhood, and I rewrite according to me. I take all the nasty/scary bits for example and give it a new twist/look if you like. I start with small stories and make my way up. You have to imagine that you have a library of books in your memory/mind and you the writer is going through each one of those stories that stand out in your 'library mind'. You take one out of the shelf, you review it , take out the bits you do not like and write in the ones that you like like this Change the title/change the characters/change the plot/cities/names/ending/beginning/middle untik you are happy with it. Then you take it back to the shelf and you bring another one out. It is a good exercise and gives lots of starting points. Then when you have had enouhg, and you think that you 'libray mind' is looking more or less Ok, then you proceed to build a ''second new library mind''. your books/your stories/poems. Imagine that your new library mind must look colourful/exciting/enticing for all readers. You have to visualise it because your reader to notice and want to read from it. Does that make sense?
Think you answered your own question there mate. You know how you can 100% guarantee that you'll never get published? Never finish your book. Other than that, write the best novel you can and never accept failure. If you really can't get a publishing house to pick it up (after many, many submission), self publish it as an ebook, or write another one, or both. All "rules" are arbitrary. However it's never an excuse for bad grammar or bad writing. If you're going to mess with conventions you'd better know what you're doing. The "right way" is subjective, just write it and see if it "works". There is no one "right way" to write a novel. Just finish the damn thing already! Goodluck buddy
Don't give up. Carry on and finish your first draft. First drafts are often mere frameworks, and from there you can (and need to) work on them, to turn them into something great. You learn by doing. So, again, write a lot and keep on reading good books. Good luck
Thank you for the replys. Cacian i am 29 will be 30 this year. I think i have answered my own question, i also think i need to stop coming on here for a while as im thinking more about what i should be doing rather than what i want to do. Thank you again.
First of all, don't worry about being published. Not yet, anyway. Just concentrate on turning out a good piece of writing. This forum is a fine resource for all sorts of issues, but you always need to reserve judgment to yourself. You will see lots of people post things as hard-and-fast rules that are a lot more debatable than they make them sound, and even good pieces of advice should not be followed blindly ("show, don't tell" and "write what you know" being two of the most popular). By that I mean that while the advice may be correct, it needs to be leavened by your own judgment and experience. Folks on this forum (and, I suppose, writers everywhere) fall into two camps when it comes to editing - those who edit as they go and those who finish a first draft and then go back and edit. I am an adherent of the latter, especially when it comes to a first novel. As a first timer, you really more or less grope your way along - it's unfamiliar territory. Stopping periodically to go back and edit will tend to stop your creative flow, and you really don't want to do that. Moreover, repeated stoppages may tend to distract you and tempt you to make changes in your story, causing you to go back and rewrite that much more. Pushing through to the end of a first draft will allow you to put the entire plot together, tell your full story, and give you a sense of accomplishment when you've done it. Don't rob yourself of that. Good luck.
i'd advise you to follow ed's advice... and if you want to find out if your writing is as bad as you think it is, or may really be no worse than most new writer's first drafts, you can send me your first couple of pages and i'll let you know what's what, in my most motherly/grandmotherly way... meanwhile, be proud of yourself for tackling such a daunting challenge, especially given the demands of your 'real' life... love and hugs, maia
Thank you again for the advice. Ed i will just power through im not even thinking about editing yet. Maia thank you for the offer i would like to take you up on it but not just yet im still a little protective and very nervous so not ready to show yet.
I disagree. I'm in the camp of edit-as-you-go. I do that, and I've never felt my creative flow stopped; it's only been enhanced by getting in better touch with my material. And it's not a matter of stopping periodically. It's a matter of developing each paragraph as you go, working on it until you're proud of it, working on each page until you're proud of it. Maybe you feel a sense of accomplishment after telling your full story, but that doesn't work for me. When I'm done with a first draft with no editing along the way, I find myself facing a stack of manuscript pages that I know are full of garbage. I know I will have to write the entire damn story over again, but properly this time. It's an enormous, soul-destroying chore to do that, thinking every step of the way, "Why oh why didn't I write this properly the FIRST time? I wouldn't be plowing through this insufferable mess!" I like being proud of my first drafts. Sure, I rework them, revise them, removing scenes that shouldn't have been there in the first place and adding ones that needed to be there, but at least I'm not ashamed to show my first draft to someone else. I revise, like everybody should, but I like to revise something that I think is at least decent, and, sometimes, with any luck, inspired.
No, don't get discouraged! It always goes this way - we have a great first story to tell, we sit down to write it and then we realise there is a lot more to getting a manuscript ready for submission than what we originally thought. All these are just opinions, rules that usually work but sometimes can be broken to great effect. Yes, grammar, punctuation, paragraphs all that is getting the manuscript ready for submission. Editing takes a long time and any book worth it's salt wasn't written in one breath. Just be patient, give yourself time to learn all the different skills and then apply them as needed to your story. All writing is re-writing, that's what first and second and third and fifteenth draft are there for. Don't get discouraged at the very beginning, it will all start to make more sense at some point, don't worry
Just keep writing. I'm an edit-as-I-go type, but there's no 'should/shouldn't' to methods. Just don't get discouraged by what you think you don't know - you'll learn. Every writer does. Just tell your story the best you can, and worry about the rest later.
Keep writing anyway, don't worry about publishing-related things yet. Just finish the first draft and then you can decide what to do with it. If writing makes you happy and you enjoy it there is no reason why you shouldn't keep writing, even if it is just for fun, as a hobby. Don't fall in the trap of thinking that if the story you've written won't get published there's no point in writing, if you love it, that is all that matters. Good luck and compliments for getting this far, 50K is pretty far ahead.
wow thank you all for the support, it really makes a diffrence to my mind set reading your encourageing posts.
