The first story I ever wrote was when I was seven. It was about a master thief who stole flowers. I think it really set the tone for the type of stories I would write later on. My first serious story was an epic space opera I started when I was 13. I still love that story, even if most of the writing makes me cringe when I read it now.
Oh my god, there are so many stages in this I keep learning and deciding I am the bestest writer there ever was. My first stories were all about princesses and magic shells and fish fingers, and kids locked in basements who ran away from home with the help of fairies, and someone was always called Sarah for some reason. The first thing I felt, as I reached the end, that I was actually writing at a readable standard, was this epic backstory history thing to other novels I'd written (I was about 16 then?) that was mostly about all the sex the politicians were or weren't having with the battles just this sort of side thing. That was when I first cracked complex characters and handled things like loss and rape and madness and stuff. Fun story. Immediately on the back of that I wrote the first thing I would consider set the standard for my writing to come, which was about elves living in the sky, and was properly plotted and had funky characters, and generally everything a story should. I've tried re-writing it with my better sense of words but I still haven't written a version I like as much as that. I guess in terms of plot, that is the first story I am actually satisfied with. For writing standard, it'd be 2 of the novels I've finished since being at university - Concrete Faery and Instant Noodles and Beer. Noodles is, I think, probably publishable, because I can think of nothing else I'd do with it, and Concrete Faery just needs some reading over for consistency with later stories after I figured out the course of the sequels, but again, if it was going to stand on its own instead, I'd say ready to go. I wrote those about the same time - not sure which one's the first I was satisfied with completely.
My first story ever I still have. It's HORRIBLE but so me. I was eight and I wanted to be a writer just like all my favorite authors. I wrote about a turtle. This turtle went on an epic journey to the watering hole. It took pages and pages and pages. My mother had it bound with my colored drawings. Says when I'm old I can give it to my grandchild who will want to be a writer. The oldest story I wrote that I'm still satisfied with for its time is Scars. That one is about a teen who was a burn victim as a child. She has scars along half of her body and has gone through a ton of surgeries. It's dramatic, angst filled, and had wonderfully awful names for all the shops. The best image though is the girl staring at herself in a steam covered mirror. That's why I'm satisfied because at 16 I was finally learning to capture a truth.
Gypsy, Mel, and Agreen those sound like great stories. I have always thought it's important to remember where we came from (no matter how embarrassing it may be). I know it gives me a greater sense of accomplishment. Somewhere, stored in my closet, is about five composition notebooks with archaic expressions scribbled all over the pages. Not one of my fondest memories, however.
^Agreen, I love space operas I have one idea of my own for that genre, and I'm pretty excited about it. Yay, thanks sis. I had forgotten about this thread of mine. Type away people
It definitely brought a grin to my face to remember Tula the Turtle. I even called my mom to see if she still had it. And yep, apparently it's on the shelf with the rest of our collection of children's stories. Hidden in about 10 shoe boxes is my first ever serial fiction. 5 books full of triple goddesses out to tear the world apart written on my first Brother word processor. I've duct taped them shut and I'm never reading them. :x Again
^You should try to salvage them. Really I just recently took out my collection of composition books from my trunk and went through them. I found that nearly four of them hadn't been finished. But the rest were busily used. And in one of them, I found the beginnings of my Nano novel. It was really enlightening to read over my ideas and to realize how busy my brain was those days. I wish it still was But I honestly enjoyed the look back. You might as well Tula? Oh - that's so cute
Yeah Tula - she was a good turtle. She just had NO sense of direction. Now those shoe boxes. I dunno. I wrote in a fevered dream for 2 years. Got the word processor for my 13th birthday. It was run down and half the keys didn't work by my 15th. I wrote and I wrote. And if I had any free time, I wrote some more. Wow I wish I had the drive I did back then. You might be right. I've strayed from writing fantasy after those books. But if anything I can possibly glean some awesome character names!
