Hello there, fellow writers! I am quite obviously a newbie here, and I joined because I have a strong desire to write. However, I don't exactly know where to start. I want to write prose, as I'm much better at that than I am at verse. If any of you more veteran users out there would be willing to give me some pointers on how to collect my thoughts and get started, I'd appreciate it very much.
Sounds like me at one point.. I'm new here too, but I've been writing for a while.. What genras interest you most may I ask?
In reality, I'd be open to almost anything, but it must be a bit silly to not have any preference at all...hmm...genres that I enjoy reading stretch from classic Gothic and Romantic novels to Crime Fiction to Fantasy to Adventure/Thrillers. I guess I have quite a few thoughts to collect, after all
My advice is get yourself a character and start writing see where it takes you might be 200 words could be 100,000 words. There are some good sites with generators to give you ideas to start with. You are welcome to borrow one of my spares if you need one lol Don't worry about the quality to start with nothing in writing is unfixable. You can edit, change, rewrite, move etc, and thanks to the computer and word processing it is relatively easy. Just focus on creating characters and stories. There are plot and character generators - one site seventh sanctum has a number, if you are completely stuck for ideas they can be good for sparking one or two. I don't have a genre preference will have a shot at writing anything - do mostly fantasy and humour - but my stories may not end up in the genre I started off writing them in lol
Thanks Elgaisma Seventh Sanctum looks pretty useful; I'll see what I can come up with there. On the other hand, what you said made me think a little bit... Maybe I've been taking the wrong approach to "collecting my thoughts". Now I think I should start by coming up with a character or a small set of characters, then let the plot evolve from them, as opposed to doing it the other way around. Thank you
Every writer is different, personally i never have much of a plan when I start out my stories have been known to change genre midway through and don't often turn out the way I thought they would. My first started out as an action/adventure where a king was assasinated - but didn't realise he was dead and it is told from the point of view of a very confused king. Then part way through I changed it to the point of view of his seventeen year old son, found it more credible to move it to a made up country, next thing it moved to a different world. Then I needed my character to witness something and not be there so turned him into a falcon lol My action/adventure for adults, became a young adult fantasy. Last November I sat down to write what I thought would be a comedy time travel book - it still contains humour but it took a very dark turn 50K words in. A general fiction short story has now turned into a paranormal tale lol
Look at the news and write a story based on what's popular. Your first book doesn't need to be published. Try not to bite off more than you can chew.
Thanks for the help guys I think that I may just be thinking a little too much about all this. I just need to settle on something and write. Seventh Sanctum gave me some good ideas for characters, and I'm excited to see what I can do with them. I'm leaning towards a modern Thriller type thing. Edit: I guess we posted at the same time, impure Thanks for the advice, your comment cements in my mind the fact that I'm trying a little too hard.
Also have a think about the kind of atmosphere you want to create in your writing. Actually this is perhaps the hardest part to do! But a sense of atmosphere will help you create a voice to write in and a setting for your characters and a range of emotions and actions for your characters. Having said this, if you're succeeding with working around the characters you've created, don't question it, just get going ;-).
