I been writing over 5 years, since I was in second grade. I would fill my notebook with shot stories. A deep passion of writing grew on me, I love writing. It's a dream to see my name on a book cover one day. I have problems with my writing. One, I know my grammar is not great because my english is not good. I need someone to tell me what to do to make my writing better. I need some heavy critique. All of my friends say I have good plots and chacacters. There just something there that makes my writing ugh... Anyone help?
Someone once said that you have to write about one million words before you get any good. Keep on writing. If grammar is a problem, thats an easy one to fix. Get a good book on it, read it and practice.
Put all my writings together and you got a million. I won't just quite writing, my passion is to deep for that. Yeah, try try again.. Well once, I could have got my name on a book but I didn't go through with it.... But I will keep going on, the only bad comment of my writing was the grammar and details. I have it in my mind but when I put it down, it's just not right? Does anyone have this problem?
Do you revise you work? I men really revise it, not just spell check and change a few sentences? Otherwise that should be one os the first steps to improve you writing. Write you text, let i rest for a few weeks and revise it with no mercy. Kill you darlings. Find the weak part of you texts and fix them.
I re-read over what I write, spell check it. I also have a free beta too. No mercy? Okay... I'll try that. I read it out loud, fixes my mistakes and anything that needs fixing. I spend about half an hour re-reading or sometimes up to an hour. Fixing mistakes nd ect..
1. Review the texts of some other people in the Review Room, to learn what makes a story good. 2. Post some of your own for review.
I see, an eye for a eye. That type thing? I already reviewed on a poem. Give feedback and then get some...?
most important is to work on getting good grades in all your writing-related classes in school... work harder on your grammar and spelling, which is all-important if you want to be an author... you're still learning the basics at your age, so don't expect to be able to write as well as an adult who's finished high school and maybe even gone to college... don't be in such a rush to be published... concentrate on learning and practice for the next few years... and be a constant reader of the best writing by the best writers of all time, as well as the best current ones, so you'll 'absorb' what good writing looks/reads/feels like... love and hugs, maia
I'm looking for a college.. So I can take classes. I been writing for about 6 years. I not in a rush, kind of. I keep working on short story on the word count, the longest story I wrote was over 1600 and still writing. So I just writing short stories, to make my writing better. I read good books, to see what good in a book. It makes my writing better. Thanks for all the hints and stuff.
OMG--this seems to be a classic problem for writers--having it perfect in your head but not being able to put it down on paper the way you really envisioned it. This happens to me all the time. I believe that with experience this sort of thing goes away, or at least it does so more often. I am sure that many writers would say that the revision process never really ends. There are always ways to make your writing better. I think the important thing is to write everyday no matter what, so that you stay in the flow and constantly improve. And you have started at a young age so there is plenty of time for success...
Thanks a lot. yes I started at a young age, I feel a lot better I'm not the only one. Thanks again. I have a go plan, I'm going to keep writing short stories until I'm ready for a real book. Then this time I might go through with it, because I was it's not the count of pages but the word count that makes the book. Writing everyday.. What if I get writer's block, I get that a lot...
Ha ha writer's block. Yes, that is a problem. Well, if you can't write through the block, then maybe it is best to take a break. Maybe the rule should be to TRY and write everyday. I would not get too hung up on word count. Yes, novels should be a minimum length and there must be sufficient developments of characters, various story elements, etc. But I like to concentrate on getting it all down--that's the main thing--and then revising. I have had past goals to write a novel per se, but my strength lies in short stories, where I don't have to worry about all the back stories, plot arcs, various acts, etc. You might set out to write a novel but find that it is just a long short story instead. Once again, you have plenty of time to become a novelist if that's what you want to do. Right now you should just write, read a lot--like I think you mentioned earlier that you do this--and critique others' work here. This will help your own writing I believe...
Thanks again. Yes I will try that good idea. My longest story was a bit over 16000 words and that's big for me. I would never stuck with a story that long, but a book is long over 16000 words. Most book I read are about 37000 words and up. I don't have a problem with the plot, sometimes with characters but never the plot. But yeah the characters have to do with the plot. Is it good to start at a young age, like I did? Yeah I critique other's work, I would like otehrs to do the same. But first I would have to post something for them to that do, lol. Just sometimes it feel like I don't have the time to write. Life is just so...
You'll be fine. You're already writing as much as you can without burning out, it sounds like, and taking yourself seriously over it, so all you need to do is carry on doing just that.
Just keep writing stories. I started when I was 8, writing a 2 short stories about a secret agent. Now at age 10.5, I still write, although it's evolved from secret agent pwning bad guys with ropes to Spaceship Commanders firing plasma cannons at Karsh(alien race) ships.
Yes. It' incredibly useful. I was surprised at how much I learned how quickly by reviewing other people's work.
Keep writing, you'll get there. If you got the fundamentals down, you're already in good shape. Grammar and structure are good. Revision is a good tool to have but sometimes authors can just easily overlook mistakes in their own work. So maybe you can have a friend help you revise it to see how another pair of eyes sees your work? Often something that you think is perfectly fine might not play well to somebody else. I don't really feel there is one perfectly right way to do it. You just gotta push on, accepting good advice but filtering out "advice" that prevents you from writing. As for 1 million words, IDK how true that is or if I reached that number yet. xD I probably have, and I still don't consider myself any good. I don't put much stock in numbers so I'll agree to disagree on that one. But good luck with the endeavors and if you ever need any specific help, just let me know and I'll try to provide some more specific help.
av... the main thing you must do if you want to be published in the us or uk is improve your english, since your posts are full of mistakes that are common for those to whom english is not their native tongue... until you can write in good, grammatical and idiomatic english, it won't matter how good your stories are... so while you practice your writing, you need to be working on learning to make it sound as if your first language is the one you're writing in...
I'll second what maia said, and suggest that the best way to improve your English is to a) read lots of books in English b) converse in English whenever possible, even with those who speak your native language (assuming they have proficiency in English) and c) watch films and television shows in English (I have some qualms about this because so much of what is produced these days is so bad, but it should serve for your purposes).
I'd say that that's only part of editing your work. It is an important part, especially if you already know that you have issues with grammar, spelling, punctuation and so on. But to me, editing your writing is about more than correcting mistakes. Instead, it's a process that takes the first draft and treats it as nothing more than raw material, to be rewritten and rearranged and often changed so much that it barely resembles that first draft. And then you might return a day or a year later, and realize that the whole thing needs to be completely rearranged and rewritten yet again. Now, this partly reflects the way that I write - I type away madly on my first draft and order my internal editor to shut up, so that _all_ of the editing happens afterward. But even if you do some internal editing before the characters hit the keyboard, any piece will probably need a lot of rearranging and rewriting anyway. Edited to add: I see that you mention a notebook, and my post above assumes that you're working with a computer. if you are hand-writing your stuff, i could see that being an issue with the editing - it's a whole lot more work to re-hand-write stuff over and over and over, than it is to type madly and then drag paragraphs around and type madly some more. But I still think that it's necessary to be prepared to do extensive editing. ChickenFreak
Thanks everyone for giving your time to me. I started writing at a young age too. Yes i'm going to keep writing short stories, (I mean by short, 25000 words or more.) to where my writing it better. When it's better, I'll make a book when the time is right. No hurry, I like my short stories. I have so many plot of books, it's not funny. But most of the time I just make them into a story. My friends enjoy my writing, they know I have a passion. They say, "One day, your make a great book writer." I take bad and good feedback because I learn from it. I learn from any feedback, quickly too. I'm a quick learner, but they is so much to learn with writing. Yes, I writing on paper and computer. I know English, Hebrew and three other languages. I pick thing quickly, most of the time. My grammar is a lot better from last year, I since it. But most of the problem with my grammar is being bad at English.
fyi, 25,000 words is definitely not a 'short story'... it's way too long for short stories and way too short for adult novels... about in the middle for novellas, but there's no market for those in the us... if meant as a novel for the youngest teen market, it's still pretty much on the short side, since they run around 40k...
Ohs, well normal I read a book with 50000 words. In a few year when I get a book in stores, it will be about 50000 words. http://www.fictionfactor.com/articles/wordcount.html
A great book is Strunk and White's Elements of Style: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0205313426/?tag=postedlinks04-20 It's a really good book about basic grammar and contains ways to improve your writing. Other than that, write, talk and think!
Thanks for anyhelp, people. I went to the grammar area, that helped a lot too. I also have problem keeping up with characters, I keep losing them.I think I have to many for my brain to hold, lol.
