Hi all I've just joined today. Aalia from Birmingham. I want to start my first novel soon. I would appreciate any advice and tips. Im not really sure how things work on here but i think it will be a good experience I'm looking forward to hearing from y'all Take care
Welcome to the forum. The first thing you should do is read the rules of the forum, which are not especially onerous. You will find that some people here pass on bits of advice as if they were hard-and-fast rules. But there are actually very few absolute rules in writing, although there are a number of maxims that experience has shown comprise "best practices". But you should always make sure your writing is free of SPaG (that's spelling, punctuation and grammar) errors. It won't be upon completion of your first draft, so editing is an important skill to learn. You may want to have a copy of Strunk and White's Elements of Style on your desk, and possibly Fowler's English Usage. Fowler is a much thicker tome, wider ranging in topics but also written with a certain humor. In addition, always have access, either online or in paper, to a good dictionary and thesaurus. Good luck.
Hello there! It's great that you want to write - nothing better in the whole world! Anyway, welcome. When I wrote my first novel I was 17, having previously only ever done half-finished projects (to my shame, the first project I ever truly finished was a short story when I was 15 and a half ). But through sheer perseverance, I made it through to the end, and there is nothing quite like it. As for my advice, I would say plan as much as you can before you actually put the first sentence of your novel onto paper. I used the snowflake method to do this (but I did adapt it to my liking, even then): http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/art/snowflake.php Of course, you may not like this method, but it is just a suggestion. I also suggest you read outside of your genre and the things you like to read. It took my a while to listen to this advice myself, but it's amazing how many hints you can pick up for both ideas and writing style. I hope you continue with this forum, and I hope your novel turns out well for you!
Welcome! Already you've gotten some amazing tips on writing. Though I'm pretty new here myself and haven't really explored the forum, it looks like it'll only get better from here. I started writing my first novel when I was 13. I had a visceral hatred of doing extra work that wouldn't show up in my book so I just thought things out in my head and wrote the whole thing. Now that I look back at what I produced, I stunted myself severely and caused problems in my story by not doing that extra work I so hated. Not everyone needs to but I've found that an outline is incredibly helpful. I've rewritten the outline for my current book project at least three times and significant, wonderful improvements have come of each revision. I also have two spiral notebooks full of background information on the world I've created so that I can keep things consistent and logically solid. It's been a great help to me. Of course, this may not be your style. This has just been useful for me. I agree with everything else that's been said above! Especially, though, the part about reading a lot (including outside your preferred genre) and keeping a dictionary and thesaurus on hand. Invaluable advice, that.
Welcome to Writing Forums, Aalia! 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 requirements. 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. The requirements of the Writing Workshop don't apply to the contests, so new members are allowed (nay, encouraged!) to get stuck in and enter! If you have any questions or problems, then the moderators (myself, 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
