I thought I ought to familiarize myself at a good forum for writing, and so far this looks like a serious enough place for helping and getting help and sharing with other writers, published or unpublished. I'm 22, from Sweden, but since my native language makes me cringe, I can only feel comfortable with anything I write if I write it in English. I'm a generally creative person so I draw and compose music as well, on occasion. I tend to do my creative hobbies sparingly though. Most of the things I've written had to be for school, but just a few times I did something outside of school for my own amusement and to see if I was capable of doing anything interesting. About two years ago I started writing something that I knew was going to be it. I wrote the 30 first pages of the book that I aim to finish one day, and it will be the one thing I've written that I aim to publish. It's going to be a hard journey and part of that journey is stopping by here to ask advice and learn some need to know stuff. But I'll try and find the right forums to ask those questions, so for now this is a simple introduction. The thing about the book I want to write is that it's going to be a real little devil to try to publish. I don't settle for normal. Compare it to the way movies are dumbed down these days to fit the PG-13 rating as well as the intellect of 13 year olds. I can't stand that sort of thing and refuse to mangle and cripple creativity of my soul to sell to a greater audience. No, what I write is going to be up to its neck in psychologically unpleasant things to read about as well as going against popular beliefs, ideals, social norms. When I started writing it, I instinctively was drawn towards writing in present tense as well as having many narrators between chapters. Now that I have read about present tense and seen that present tense is being looked down on, not for objective reasons that makes sense, but out of literary traditions and prejudice, I feel rather encouraged to go on writing in present tense. At first I just saw some posts about that present tense should be avoided for numerous reasons, but when I dug a bit deeper and saw the actual reasons, it turns out that it's based on authority and ignorance rather than reason, just like the things that I am criticizing in the story. It's perfect. I'm going to get my ass kicked by publishers, but I can at least pride myself on that I don't censor anything out in order to appeal to the mass. Even if I fail miserably, at least I took risks which I know can be hit and miss, but most of the greatest works of literature and movies were outside of the norms and mainstream, controversial even. But for various reasons, they made it big. Even if I don't make it, I'd feel complete just by finishing the story.
That's another thing I need advice on though. I'm trying to remain cautious about intellectual theft. If you post your greatest material online for everyone to see, there's a fairly good risk of it getting stolen, isn't there? I mean if some ideas are particularly good, someone might grab it and write their own thing based on some large plot points or general themes... Hopefully my story would be way too clogged with controversial stuff for anyone to want to rip it off though, plus I haven't shown it to any writer. Only some friends have seen it and they loved it. One in particular keeps kicking on me, wanting me to write more. Oh, and depending on taste, the setting and themes may encourage or discourage the reader because it's largely a taste thing. It's an urban fantasy type story involving a lot of supernatural creatures such as varieties of demons, werewolves, vampires, wraiths, etc. Building my own little world.
Welcome to Writing Forums, Wolfy Snackrib! 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
