Story Writing Advice

[Stasisesque]

The best tip i have for aspiring writers is show don't tell. Don't tell the reader what is happening, or what a character is doing, show it.

A simplistic example from off the top of my head; telling would be: Bob saw the enemy in the window and shot his rifle. His target fell, dead.
Showing would be: Bob spied movement in the second story window across the street, a sudden flash of red cloth catching his eye. Sighting down the barrel of his bolt action rifle he carressed the trigger, waiting for the perfect shot. The grain of the wooden stock rubbed agaisnt his check as bob steadied his breathing. Exhaling sfotly, his breath misting before him in the cool dawn, his finger pulled gently on the trigger. Instantly a harsh crack echoed throughout the area as his round found its mark, his target slumping over with a hole drilled through his head.

The second example is much more descriptive and interesting, drawing the reader in and sustaining interest. This applies to emotions and feelings aswell as interactions with other characters. Don't tell us that bob is friends with kyle, show us. Describe their easy comraderie and the little things like shared jokes and smiles that show the reader these two characters are friends without you having to explictly state it.

Show us what the characters are feeling, what their surroundings are like. Do bob's boots making a slapping sound against the concrete, does the jungle heat send beads of sweat down his collar, tickling his spine?

Show, don't tell is the best tip i can give an aspiring writer in terms of actually improving his writing. Most of the other stuff is just structural; plan out your stories, use puncuation, re read your work, write your story with structure, even if's its not the typical begging middle and end.

Storyboard out your main scenes and ideas, then plan out how you can link those scenes together. Get into your cahracter's heads, what are they doing, what are their motivations?

You know of the show-don't-tell method too? You sound just like Dr. Gauen (my English teacher). That advice has led me to really enjoy writing, and I think my writing is better for it.

Everyone who's ever studied English (*language of choice) Literature and/or Creative Writing knows that "method". Same with eschew obfusctation, espouse elucidation (or KISS (keep it simple, stupid) for those not studying at a University level/don't have HILARIOUS teachers).

They're staples of the creative writing process, and have been since the 7 rules of fantasy were laid out.

 

[TheAceTheOne]

The best tip i have for aspiring writers is show don't tell. Don't tell the reader what is happening, or what a character is doing, show it.

A simplistic example from off the top of my head; telling would be: Bob saw the enemy in the window and shot his rifle. His target fell, dead.
Showing would be: Bob spied movement in the second story window across the street, a sudden flash of red cloth catching his eye. Sighting down the barrel of his bolt action rifle he carressed the trigger, waiting for the perfect shot. The grain of the wooden stock rubbed agaisnt his check as bob steadied his breathing. Exhaling sfotly, his breath misting before him in the cool dawn, his finger pulled gently on the trigger. Instantly a harsh crack echoed throughout the area as his round found its mark, his target slumping over with a hole drilled through his head.

The second example is much more descriptive and interesting, drawing the reader in and sustaining interest. This applies to emotions and feelings aswell as interactions with other characters. Don't tell us that bob is friends with kyle, show us. Describe their easy comraderie and the little things like shared jokes and smiles that show the reader these two characters are friends without you having to explictly state it.

Show us what the characters are feeling, what their surroundings are like. Do bob's boots making a slapping sound against the concrete, does the jungle heat send beads of sweat down his collar, tickling his spine?

Show, don't tell is the best tip i can give an aspiring writer in terms of actually improving his writing. Most of the other stuff is just structural; plan out your stories, use puncuation, re read your work, write your story with structure, even if's its not the typical begging middle and end.

Storyboard out your main scenes and ideas, then plan out how you can link those scenes together. Get into your cahracter's heads, what are they doing, what are their motivations?

You know of the show-don't-tell method too? You sound just like Dr. Gauen (my English teacher). That advice has led me to really enjoy writing, and I think my writing is better for it.

Everyone who's ever studied English (*language of choice) Literature and/or Creative Writing knows that "method". Same with eschew obfusctation, espouse elucidation (or KISS (keep it simple, stupid) for those not studying at a University level/don't have HILARIOUS teachers).

They're staples of the creative writing process, and have been since the 7 rules of fantasy were laid out.

I didn't hear of it until last year (junior year), so I guess I'm uninformed. I blame Illinois' Public Education System. Bugger the educational system for a game of soldiers. Still, it's good advice.

 

[Vangaurd227]

This may sound a little bit odd but it works....its actually a good idea to create an ending first and then as your ideas grow start adding them together until you have a middle and a beginning...altho i may just be a tiny bit crazy..just a tiny bit

 

[Reaper195]

And also, is that Roland Deschain in your avatar?

Er, no. It's supposed to be Clint Eastwood.

Ah, was close. Stephen King created a character that was a fantasy copy of Eastwood. Good book series.

 

[CplDustov]

Depending how willing your going to go for this i know a site with further information on story advice. The basics. Have a character represent each of the ways of dealing with a problem.

The archetypes in opposite pairs are.

Logic and self control vs emotion and impulse.

pursuing the problem vs avoiding or preventing

Guiding and helping vs temption and hindering

support vs oppose

Have one character represent each. also things like proactive vs reactive.
then. mix them up so that they arent a stereotype.

Pick one character to represent the audiences point of view.
(Doesn't have to be the protagonist. The protagonist is just the character driving the story but you can look at them through other eyes)

Then give them a way of dealing with things that's fundamentally a part of them and choose another character to present an alternative to that. (Luke and Obi Wan style)

Eventually the impact character will present enough evidence to create a leap of faith because either they adopt the new system or reinforce the original view. This either turns out for good or for bad.

I hope this helps. I could probably explain better. Feel free to ask.

 

[HighPlainsSquinter]

If it helps, put on some instrumental music. The lack of voice in the the music will give you some relaxation and inspiration without putting words into your mouth.

I hadn't thought of that, though it's probably good advice. Recently I've been listening to Crash Test Dummies [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzNzCiZwk28] a lot, and I can't get the lyrics out of my head. Makes it hard to think straight.

 

[Talyn.Co]

Most of what I've learned about writing is what I've worked out myself, so take what I say with a pinch of salt.
As far as plot goes all of my favorite stories are written by ruthless, perhaps even sadistic writers.
They draw you in and get you emotionally invested in a character and then take things in any direction other than the one you expected (and wanted) at the critical moment. It's rather heart wrenching but it keeps you interested.
Ian Irvine's writing style is a good example of what I'm talking about. The result is captivating if executed successfully.
I've also noticed it makes the characters seem more realistic if they don't follow the cliche path that everyone predicts.
I hope this helps, I'm just practicing this myself and it's certainly made things more interesting thus far.

 

[The Random One]

Don't write what you know; know what you write.

After you polish the rough draft, show it to a lot of people so you can get a sense of how others see the story. It's amazing how things that sound obvious to us when we write come across as out of the blue to others, or vice versa. A cool tip I read in Machine of Death's website: give your story to someone and tell them to find the one illogical thing you hid in it. They'll be on the lookout for anything wrong and so will be sure to find something.

If writing dialogue, think of how they sound on your head to make sure they actually sound like something someone would say. Especially true if what you're writing is a script. You can get around this by letting actors ad-lib, but that's shirking your work.

If stumped, draw your plot using colorful markers. If still stumped, write any stupid thing you can think of, then go back to fix it.

Pick one character to represent the audiences point of view.

Don't do this. This is one of the strangest concepts to come out of American TV and movie writing. You only need an audience surrogate if your world is too complex to explain through character interaction and as a last resort.

 

[Loop Stricken]

I have a story.

It's got aliens, monsters, girls, sex, drugs, politics, secret organisations, genocide, genetic engineering, obsession, compulsion, addiction, religion, body horror, all set across a background story of thousands of years.
You'd think I'd have more to show for it than about two pages of horribly purple scribble. Alas.

All I tend to do is wait until I imagine an interesting scene, then try and cram it into the timeline somehow. Mostly because the story itself evolved from an idea for a webcomic which I gave up on after I quickly realised I was neither artistic or motivated enough to actually produce the thing, leaving the story with a basically-empty middle.

Might not be best to do what I did.

 

[careful]

get a whiteboard, draw little boxes representing scenes with a short 3 word description in the middle so you can quickly tell which box is which scene, link em with lines to create a graph structure, step back and look at the macroscopic picture while keeping the microscopic picture in your head, calculate the maximal entropy, solve the wave equation, and then you should understand visually the flow and what is missing in your scenes.

 

[Loop Stricken]

calculate the maximal entropy

And then disregard it because the Predacons were so much better.

 

[triggrhappy94]

Do you remember those really stupid spider web chart things they had you do in school?
They're actually really help when fleshing out the details in a story. One of the best things about is: there's no real time line for your story yet, so if you come up with something new you dont have to go back and change things.

 

[Coffinshaker]

put stuff down on index cards! if you have lots of scenes and ideas but no order to them, this will help! and timelines too.

 

[riverand]

You already have tons of amazing advice here, but I do have one more bit to add (I didn't see this, if someone already posted it, then I apologize):

Set a timer and free write. The first time I did this I thought nothing would come of it, but, after a sentence or two the flood gates opened and I had all of these crazy, wonderful ideas flowing.

Pick one of your scenes, reread it, set your timer and GO! Try to think about what happened before or after it. If your scenes are not fully developed, then take one free write session to just think about the details. if other scenes start to slip in, so be it, let them in - you may have stumbled upon the perfect connection. If your writing seems to go completely off track, let it go - only let the timer stop you. Your "off the track" journeys may teach you more about your character!

Repeat this process for each scene.

This will, in no way, be your final draft, but maybe it will draw out your plot, your character's depth and other important things currently missing from the mix.

It may be a long process, but with all the questions you have, it may be just the kind of soul searching you need!

Good luck and HAVE FUN (if you're not having fun, neither will your reader!).

All the Best!

 

[CplDustov]

Don't write what you know; know what you write.

After you polish the rough draft, show it to a lot of people so you can get a sense of how others see the story. It's amazing how things that sound obvious to us when we write come across as out of the blue to others, or vice versa. A cool tip I read in Machine of Death's website: give your story to someone and tell them to find the one illogical thing you hid in it. They'll be on the lookout for anything wrong and so will be sure to find something.

If writing dialogue, think of how they sound on your head to make sure they actually sound like something someone would say. Especially true if what you're writing is a script. You can get around this by letting actors ad-lib, but that's shirking your work.

If stumped, draw your plot using colorful markers. If still stumped, write any stupid thing you can think of, then go back to fix it.

Pick one character to represent the audiences point of view.

Don't do this. This is one of the strangest concepts to come out of American TV and movie writing. You only need an audience surrogate if your world is too complex to explain through character interaction and as a last resort.

Wasn't intended as an audience surrogate. Merely the character whose story we see more personally rather than an overall level. In addition you can have multiple stories in the same work. So if it's a larger work like a series, multiple main characters are possible

This site has some good podcasts on the topic
http://www.dramatica.com/

And here loads of example in applied settings
http://storyfanatic.com/articles/story-structure

 

[Keava]

I usually approach writing just as any other art form. I start with blocking out the rough shapes. Write the most basic script without any real details, just the basic structure of how it begins, what is the plot, how it's resolved, how it ends.
The idea is to avoid very specific details so you can easily refine it as the time goes.

As far as characterization goes, think about characters form a very outside angle. Don't get into their heads form the start, think of them in more general terms. Try to think about some relatively secondary trait, favourite colour, maybe a pet they are fond of, maybe something from their day to day life that can portray the character.
That way you get a focal point that will keep your characters from being too random, you can build whole reasoning of their behaviour based on small things. If you start with too many details it's easy to make the characters messy and thus lacking realism and consequence.

 

[LordOrin]

Most stories have an internal conflict and an external conflict. The external conflict might be the hero defeating the villain or winning over the girl, the internal conflict is more subtle and involves the hero grappling with inner demons and changing as a character.

The internal and external conflicts are usually intertwined in some way, so maybe the hero starts out brash and impulsive but after being repeatedly defeated by his enemy he learns the value of patience which ultimately allows him to win the day.

Without internal conflict, the heroes can feel two-dimensional and the story can read like a play-by-play. Conversely if the internal conflict is too overt the story can seem cliché or feel like a morality tale.

That's the most basic piece of advice I know. There's also the whole Joseph Campbell "Hero's Journey" thing. Or you could browse tvtropes, provided you're prepared to spend the next several hours trapped by tab explosion.

 

[Anezay]

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage
Lurk this site. Live there. You will learn, young padawan.