Hello fellow writers! I'm a somewhat lost 20 something year old girl finding my way through life. I am looking to get a literary degree and possibly write stories for the gaming industry if the opportunity arises someday. I hope to learn many things from this website and from all of you. I hope to get better at plot making, in depth characters, how to properly grab the attention of anyone reading my material and much more. Those I definitely struggle with though. Hope y'all have a good day and stay strong in these uncertain times! What advice would you give to someone starting out, and or to your younger self?
Don't beat yourself up because you aren't a literary master immediately. Don't write what you think is popular, write about what you want to read. You will find people who don't like what you write, no matter how good you are. So don't take negativity as an indication your content is automatically bad. And, as @Gladiolus83 put in her status bar the other day - You will never please everybody, so don't try to. Good luck with the degree, Shadro. I hope you get a luckier break than the awful stuff I was made to read during my A-level in literature. Oh, and welcome!
Advice I'd give my younger self and beginners? Learn about POV (point of view) and learn how to use it properly. It's the source of a lot of issues that could easily be straightened out just with a proper understanding. When I got here I thought POV consisted entirely of 1s person, 2nd person (which nobody uses) and 3rd person, but it breaks down much finer than that, and the details are very important. In my last blog post here I put together a little chart to remind myself of what I've been studying so I can always find it and refer to it when I need to. There's more info about each block, but I just needed the basic info put down for quick reference. As for learning the various POVs, I recommend writing a lot of little pieces focusing on different POVs. You want to crank out a bunch of stories from beginning to end rapidly, to get as much experience as you can doing the whole thing. Each time you're starting one, research the POV you plan to use, find lots of websites and blog posts and articles on them all, each gives a different focus and sometimes says things some of the others don't mention. Another thing you want to pay attention to (you'll run into it a lot here on the boards) is active versus passive voice (Show, don't Tell). I'll stop at that. Welcome!!
Hi Shadro I’m one of the forum moderators, and I want to welcome you to the forum. I've been waiting to do the formal welcome, because I was hoping we could get a section set up specifically for writing stories for gaming. You're not the first person who has expressed an interest in this form of writing recently. When the website was set up, many moons ago, writing for games wasn't a particularly popular form of writing. I'm hoping to get a 'prefix' for computer games installed in our "By Writing Form" section, so that you can connect with others who have the same interest. It takes time for all the Staff to connect here, so this might take a while. Only the Adminstrator and the Owner can add these categories. However, writing stories for gaming will include Plot Development, Setting Development and Character Development, so these categories are already set up. Feel free to use them to post threads there (and read other threads that might already be dealing with the issues that concern you.) Basic storytelling skills work across all forms of writing, I reckon. Anyway.... In order to help you get oriented and get settled, here are a couple of links I strongly recommend that you read at the start, if you haven’t already. They will give you a good idea of how we operate here on the forum: New Member Quick Start Forum Rules You will notice in the New Member Quick Start that in order to post your work in the Workshop area—the only area of the forum where you are allowed to post your work and ask for feedback—you will need to do at least two critiques for other people, in exchange for receiving feedback on one of your own pieces of work. This site is designed around the concept of members helping each other out by ‘paying it forward’—through our two-for-one critique system. So do two critiques, THEN you can post something of your own. This advance 2:1 ratio lasts as long as your membership here—although it is your own responsibility to keep track of your own ratio. The software doesn't keep track of it for you, beyond your first two critiques. In order to help you get started doing critiques, here is a link to a good article written by one of our former moderators: https://www.writingforums.org/threads/constructive-critiques.20627/ One of the popular areas of our forum is our contest section. There is a monthly contest running for Short Stories, Flash Fiction and Poetry. You can enter these ongoing contests, even as a new member. And we really encourage you to visit the site, read the current entries, and vote for your favourite when the voting period starts. This means a lot to the people who have written these entries. And it will also give you a good idea of what our members are capable of writing. https://www.writingforums.org/writing-contests/ While the Role Playing Game section is not new, it’s being given a revamp. So if you are interested in playing and writing Role Playing Games, you might want to visit this section and get in on the fun. https://www.writingforums.org/threads/resurrecting-the-dead-rpg-section-rebuild.165055/ (Note: this is not a section for posing questions about writing games ...it's a section for actually writing and playing games with other members.) I hope you have fun getting to know us and let us get to know you, via the posts you make. Please feel free to explore the forum. There is a lot under the hood. This site map might help you find your way around more quickly than the menu bars do, so feel free to use it. https://www.writingforums.org/faq/ If you encounter any difficulties, don’t hesitate to contact me or one of the other moderators, whose names appear in yellow at the bottom of the Community page. We will be glad to help. Again, welcome! Cheers for now, Jan
Hi again, Shadro We have limited ability on Writers' Forum to change our formatting to accomodate all genres and all writing forms. It would be ideal to have separate sections in both our By The Genre category and By Writing Form specifically for memoirs/autobiographies, games-writing and the like. Some day we might. But in the meantime, our Technical Administrator has set up a workaround so you can label (and read) other offerings from other writers in a particular genre or writing form. The workaround is called "Prefix." NOTE: These categories are NOT for posting any of your work for review. That can only be done in the Workshop, after you've fulfilled Workshop requirements. By the Genre and By Writing Form are for asking specific questions related to writing autobiographies and memoirs, writing games, etc, and tagging the questions by subject matter. Go to the Community (main) page, browse the list in the top section (Creative Writing.) Near the bottom of the list you will find two categories: By The Genre and By Writing Form Here is how to start a thread question and get it tagged with your Prefix. Go to By the Genre and click on it Click on Post New Thread Choose the little arrow next to No Prefix Choose Autobiography (or one of 32 other genre options) Write your title and proceed or Go to By Writing Form Click on Post New Thread Choose the little arrow next to No Prefix Choose from: Flash Fiction Screenwriting Graphic Novels Autobiographical/Memoir Children’s books Essays Songwriting Games Write your title and proceed ……… To read all offerings with a particular prefix, go to: Thread Display Options at the bottom of the page choose the Prefix you want to look at choose Set Options the list should appear for you to browse …....... When you’re finished, you will probably want to re-do the Thread Display Options, and re-set to “Any”
