Heeello there, I am new here but not new to writing. I've written since I was a teen and have always loved immersing myself into a world I have created. I used it, and still do, as a form of escapism but I also have aspirations of becoming a published author. I have never finished a story and that is due to the incessant, nagging self doubt that begins as soon as I start leaving words across my page. That and I'm quite fickle and jump from idea to idea regularly. Although I have been writing and reading for many years I never learned the 'technicalities,' of writing. This is one of the main reasons I joined this forum, I want to learn the "guidelines," if there are any. I've read so many articles that say what you should and shouldn't do, I personally do not like the idea of being reigned in, but I also see that there are good writers and bad writers, and I would like to be in the first category thank you very much! I want to write as often as I can and recieve feedback from fellow literary lovers as well as giving my own humble feedback on other peoples work. From this I want to perfect my art form. I believe I have some talent with words but I believe it needs to be finely tuned and I hope to do that here! I look forward to getting to know some of you, reading your work and receiving your feedback about my own. Lots of love!
sounds like we have a similar experience. I just had to reformat my screenplay twice. So much conflicting advice on the web it's hard to figure out what is what a lot of the time.
Welcome to Writing Forums, EricaJRothwell! I hope you find what you're looking for here, whatever your interests in writing. This forum aims to provide the best workshopping resources on the internet, and to that end we have a few rules which you should familiarise yourself with before you get stuck in. The main section of the site is the Writing Workshop, where members can post their writing in order to receive critique of their work. However, before we allow members to post their work, they must have met some basic requirments. Firstly, you must have been a member for fourteen days, and have made twenty posts on the forum overall (please note, posts in Word Games do not count towards this). This is so that members, when they post their work, have familiarised themselves with the forums and contributed to them (as well as hopefully learned something for themselves). Secondly, members must provide two constructive reviews of other people's work for each piece of their own that they wish to post. This is because we believe that the focus of workshopping should be equally upon giving reviews as receiving them, as they allow a writer to practice and improve their editing skills, which they can then apply to their own writing. Beyond the Writing Workshop, you will find that we have extensive forums for discussion of aspects of writing, as well as a community area for general discussion. We also run periodic short story and poetry contests, which are good for challenging yourself and expanding your skills. If you have any questions or problems, then the moderators (myself, Cogito, Lemex and Dante Dases) should be your first port of call. Any technical problems with the site itself should be directed to Daniel, the site administrator and owner. I would recommend you have a look over the rules so that you know what to expect, and what is expected. But aside from that, I hope you enjoy your time here. Banzai
Welcome! You sound just like me, actually--lots of ideas, never sticking one out to the end. My kind of girl, haha. By all means try and gleam all the tricks and tips you can from other writers here, but don't mourn not having been taught the technical skills of writing too much. I have (been taught them), and let me tell you there are about a million rules you can follow, but almost exactly half condradict the others. And the ones that don't condradict each other are the super simple ones like 'every story follows a pattern of introduction, complication, climax, and conclusion' or 'if your crime fiction story is getting a little dull, make a character do some sneaking about: the fear of being caught will stoke the fire back up'. So I've spent about 15 grand on a Masters of Writing, Editing and Publishing, but its not like everything's clear to me now or anything, haha. But feedback and help from other writers is always a good learning tool, so I guess we've come to the right place?
Welcome. I'm sure you'll get lots of great advice and feedback here. One thing that helped me with finishing things was starting with something small. Write a short story and really finish it. Get it as good and complete and you can. And then get some readers to tell you how to make it better. And critiquing others is a great way to see what works and what doesn't.
