Fiction in my head.

[Wechtlein Uns]

My writing skills are like a bowl of oatmeal-mushroom swiss broth: Incredibly refined, but as potent as an invisible lettuce leaf. Allow me to explain.

I have been writing for a long time, since the second grade, when I continued a single journal entry over three weeks to create a full-fledged story. It was a hit with the class and faculty, even if it was a shameless disney rip-off. Because of that episode, I have often wanted to write another good story. One that is not only good, but long. I wanted to write a novel.

Of course, novels take years, and there is the problem. I switch from project to project like a hummingbird on acid, and rarely finish projects I start in favor of new ones. So, the problem becomes, how can I write a novel that I will finish? The answer, so many times I have been told, is to write about something I truly care about.

This is another problem. As long as I have been writing, I have enjoyed it. But there came a time when I realized that I didn't really give a crap about my 2-dimensional, cardboard cut-out characters. Sadly, I didn't even like my three-dimensional ones either.

For me to write about a character, a character's story, the character must strike a chord deep within me, until it resonates with all the ferocity of a tightly wound grandmaster piano string. I don't know what character would be like that. I don't know what kind of character I can create, that would have me care about them enough to write a story.

And so, I'm writing about my writing woes on happy atheist forum, because I am a loser and can't get this stupid novel out of my mind. Maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to do something about it. But really, I could use all the help I could get. I don't like going to writing websites, because most of them are filled with... erm, immature people.(think "Twilight".   )

I do have a story that I recently decided to explore however. I don't have much of a story, actually, just an image. Imagine a windy, rugged-set mountaintop. Not so high that it's fiilled with snow, but at quite a high altitude. There is a young man on this mountain, sitting down on a lichen swept boulder, hunched over his legs and wrapping his jacket around him. It is cold, and thus he is making stew on the mountain, while the sun goes low towards the horizon. It's light hits everything, including the city below, which, due to strange circumstances, is surrounded by soldiers. Soldiers that, when looked at closely, resemble invading forces, seiging this city, and desperately hungry for glory, and, if you will, plunder. This young man is up on the mountain because the pass through it below is being manned by forces. Forces which kill any travelers attempting to reach the city. But he needs to reach the city, for there is something, or rather, someone, very dear to him within it's walls.

Such an image is one of the first vivid images I have had in a long time. I can see it in my head, as if it were a movie picture. Still, I am hesitant to write. I am not sure if I can take this image, and turn it into a novel.

But I hope I can.

[Sophus]

I think your passion my be so strong you keep wanting to jump from one thing to the next. An idea, when new, is exciting and kindles a fire in the gut. The older it gets the fire begins to extinguish. I've experienced this with some of my art. When a piece is quick and spontaneous the excitement is preserved in the piece. If I spend a great deal of time on it, which usually I do, I get bored, thus the piece becomes boring. For me, the cure is to constantly keep looking for improvement in that familiar piece to re-stir the fire each day I go to work on it. It's a conscious action to be passionate, to give your work a fresh eye with each look, and fall in love with it over and over again.

May not be the solution you're looking for. Another approach that may help is working on multiple items at once.

[Kyuuketsuki]

I write stuff too ... at the moment I am designing a background scenario so that other people can write stories within it and I have a few people interested in doing that already.

Kyu

[Wechtlein Uns]

Sophus, that sounds tricky, but I know what you mean. It's not like there's a magic pill that you can take and suddenly get the urge to stay with your original project. I'll give it a try.

kyuuketsu, really? What's the background scenario about?

[BadPoison]

When you write, do you usually start at the beginning and work your way to the end? Or do you plan out an outline and work on different sections of your story at different times. Sometimes it can help to write maybe the ending first, and work backwards. Of course, you'll most likely end up re-writing your ending three or four times, but maybe a different approach might help you stay focused?

As far as character development goes, I know a few people who have attended Orson Scott Card's workshops on just that! They all had nothing but high praise for his instruction. If you're not able to attend a workshop, I know he has a lot of essays he's written on the subject of writing, character development, and different approaches to story.

This is a page on his website that has many of his essays on the subject of writing.

http://hatrack.com/writingclass/index.shtml

Even if you're not an Orson Scott Card fan, you might find some of his essays helpful.

-BP


And be sure to post some of your writing for us!  

[karadan]

I love writing. My form is very unrefined and scrappy. I'm also incredibly lazy so I have dozens of unfinished books on my hard drive. I also don't like the idea of spending a week working on a chapter only to be told I have to re write it again. Most novelists will re write the first chapter of a novel anything up to 20 times!

Some authors write fast, others slow. Some switch genre every book and others use the same structure but with different character names every time.

I am crap at similes but good with story arcs. I'm awful at characterisation but great with structured conversation. I need tuition basically, but just do not have time to do that right now.

They say everyone has a good book in them. Well, my main one has been in my head festering for the last ten years. I keep adding ideas, themes, plot points and characters to it. If I were to actually get it down on paper, it would be the size of the Lord of the Rings and the Silmarillion combined!!

[Kyuuketsuki]

kyuuketsu, really? What's the background scenario about?

It's a science fiction based scenario loosely mimicking the Second World War the idea being the general break down of civilisation and so on. The easiest way to describe it is probably to show you the introduction page such as it is at present:

The time is about 10,000 years after The Great Exodus, a time known by local calendars as 10142 PF, ("Post Flight" ... the Gregorian calendar has long since bitten the dust). People first came to the cluster about 9,000 years ago when the cluster was several hundred LY separated from the galaxy main and reachable across a chance position "star bridge" (a chain of worlds allowing the huge fleet of over 10,000 ships to "jump" repeatedly with less than 10% loss and so reach it ... the "star bridge" has long since disappeared and relatively opposed velocities of the cluster and galaxy main have widened the gap still further with the cluster slowly moving out of the ecliptic so that now the cluster is close to 1500LY direct jump from the galaxy. Although thousand plus year old transmissions (very weak) have been picked up there is no communication between cluster and galaxy and the 3 expeditions sent back have never returned.

"The Cluster", as it is known, has about 3500 stars and (so far) 250 habitable planets some of which are only habitable due to "terraform" and "terramaint" techniques. Life has been discovered on some planets but none intelligent and, to date, there is no evidence that any prior civilisations have ever existed ... Cluster civilisation is therefore human only. Although humanity did originate on Earth (Western spiral arm of "The Galaxy") Earth/Terra is a legend (Kathol scripture has it that the first humans were expelled from the Gardens of Terra after drinking from the fountains of youth, beauty and knowledge against their God's express wishes). On all the core planets (core in the sense of being well-established, Capital planets) except Jova & Hev'n (both Ussan) science is typically well advanced with short-range light jump engines relatively affordable for under a million GrenKreds; GrenKreds (the "Greenwich Credit" or "credit") being the standard monetary system all spacers use, accepted on virtually all cluster planets and thus the currency against which all others are compared. Likewise, on such planets education, culture, art, literature, rights etc. will all be similarly advanced ... Jinga (Kynnari) & Shuuyoujo (Samar-i) tend to be educationally repressive and elitist, Vakkan (Kathol) & most Ussan planets tend to be restrictive in respects that they consider threaten their dictats. The civilisation of some 150 billion people is spread across the 250 or so planets of civilisation in roughly spherical region about 600 lights (a "light" or "light year" being based on the time it takes the Britt/Acallan planet Greenwich to orbit its star) so with most (150 or so) planets being within 35 lights of Greenwich (and all within a 100) a trip between core planets typically takes a little over a day whilst a trip to the outer colonies can take a week or more. With the cluster measuring a little over 1000 LY diameter it is estimated that there could be 10 times as many planets as those currently known are waiting to be discovered. Two newly discovered planets are still being fought over.

There are several major religions (Krissen, Kathol, Ithlam, Torahn, Zenst, Rass and Indu) all of which are powerful both financially and influentially and several thousand smaller religions and cults. All nations except Kathol & Torahn have more than 1 religion officially recognised religion, all nations except the Kattal (Urro) have a Kathol embassy and the Kathol are frequently criticised for spying (and occasionally espionage) activities by other nations.

CW II (the Second Cluster War) has just about burned itself out and, although tensions between nations are high, most are experiencing post war poverty and are rebuilding (apart from the nations of Ithlam and Selass).

In my document the following bit is a table so I apologise for the bad formatting:

Nations
Nation   Political   Planets
Nazz   Fascist   10
Ussan   Religious Dictatorship   15
Moskvan   Socialist   30
Kynnari   Communist   25
Samar-i   Feudal   20
Torahn   Semi-Democratic   1
Urro   Democratic   20
Kathol   Religious Dictatorship   1
Acallan   Democratic Dictatorship   20
Selass   Benevolent Dictatorship   25
Ithlam   Benevolent Dictatorship   10

Anyway, the idea is to allow people to write stories from a present (of the scenario), future or historical perspective with stories that can be science fiction or kinda not except in that they are set against an SF background. I will have provided a background and will act as overall editor, my plan (our actually, there are two of us cooperating on this though I'm the main person) being only to exert enough control to ensure the writing standards are high enough and the story fits into the scenario and the scenario should expand as authors provide more stuff.

Kyu

[Wechtlein Uns]

Wow! Do you think I could get in on that? I'd love to write a story for your compilation. Is there any more information on how I could do so?

[BadPoison]

Kyu, the premise of your 'universe' (I call it universe because I don't know what else to call it) is quite interesting. The allegorical nature of many of the themes your writers will explore could/will be an interesting medium for social commentary. You will keep us updated as things progress?

[Mister Joy]

Of course, novels take years, and there is the problem. I switch from project to project like a hummingbird on acid, and rarely finish projects I start in favor of new ones. So, the problem becomes, how can I write a novel that I will finish? The answer, so many times I have been told, is to write about something I truly care about.

You'll have also heard "write about what you know" a lot, which I think would be better phrased "don't write about what you don't know," if you ken the subtle distinction. I'd be very wary of pouring your heart and soul onto the page. I'd also avoid writing about things you 'really care about' because, as a writer, you need to have a certain calculating distance between yourself and your work so that you can see how it all fits together, as the reader would. It's good to remain reasonably unbiased. It gives you more artistic freedom as well, in that you're slightly less constrained by your own opinions. I think, to write well, you need to have a shard of ice in your heart.

This is another problem. As long as I have been writing, I have enjoyed it. But there came a time when I realized that I didn't really give a crap about my 2-dimensional, cardboard cut-out characters. Sadly, I didn't even like my three-dimensional ones either.

I don't know what advice to offer you here. With me, if I try too hard to make a character take shape, it never works. However, if I just approach it like a sandbox and try to have fun it happens automatically as I tap the keys. Just keep the clay unglazes, as it were, and leave your options open. Don't try to pin anything down: it's not "Character A is like this, therefore I must write him in this way," it's the other way around.

Also, as a general rule, try to keep everything as concrete as possible. Avoid abstract nouns - 'love' 'happiness' 'anger' etc. - and show, don't tell. Otherwise you'll find it impossible to flesh anything out in any truly solid way, characters included.

And so, I'm writing about my writing woes on happy atheist forum, because I am a loser and can't get this stupid novel out of my mind. Maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to do something about it. But really, I could use all the help I could get. I don't like going to writing websites, because most of them are filled with... erm, immature people.(think "Twilight". So long as you comment on our stuff as well.

I do have a story that I recently decided to explore however. I don't have much of a story, actually, just an image. Imagine a windy, rugged-set mountaintop. Not so high that it's fiilled with snow, but at quite a high altitude. There is a young man on this mountain, sitting down on a lichen swept boulder, hunched over his legs and wrapping his jacket around him. It is cold, and thus he is making stew on the mountain, while the sun goes low towards the horizon. It's light hits everything, including the city below, which, due to strange circumstances, is surrounded by soldiers. Soldiers that, when looked at closely, resemble invading forces, seiging this city, and desperately hungry for glory, and, if you will, plunder. This young man is up on the mountain because the pass through it below is being manned by forces. Forces which kill any travelers attempting to reach the city. But he needs to reach the city, for there is something, or rather, someone, very dear to him within it's walls.

You can recognise someone with a natural talent for this stuff when they suddenly shift into a stylistic flourish, half way through a forum post. They just breeze in and out of that fictional narrative modus operandi.

[Kyuuketsuki]

Wow! Do you think I could get in on that? I'd love to write a story for your compilation. Is there any more information on how I could do so?

I've PM'd you

Kyu, the premise of your 'universe' (I call it universe because I don't know what else to call it) is quite interesting. The allegorical nature of many of the themes your writers will explore could/will be an interesting medium for social commentary. You will keep us updated as things progress?

Well I hadn't planned to but I can ... the aim would be to create a website for it.

If anyone's interested I already did a Babylon 5/Star Trek (Next Gen) crossover which was fun (again had various author's including me involved but I set up the premise with the first story/chapter), have written other fiction stuff too.

Kyu

[Sophus]

Sophus, that sounds tricky, but I know what you mean. It's not like there's a magic pill that you can take and suddenly get the urge to stay with your original project. I'll give it a try.

kyuuketsu, really? What's the background scenario about?

True, it's not easy because it demands all of your passion. You have to get lost in it. But if you really do love it you'll master the art. Just give it time.  

[BadPoison]

Kyu, the premise of your 'universe' (I call it universe because I don't know what else to call it) is quite interesting. The allegorical nature of many of the themes your writers will explore could/will be an interesting medium for social commentary. You will keep us updated as things progress?

Well I hadn't planned to but I can ... the aim would be to create a website for it.

Kyu

Well then put me on your email list.

[chuff]

So, the problem becomes, how can I write a novel that I will finish?

There's always NaNoWriMo.

[Wechtlein Uns]

heh. NaNoWriMo. That bane of agony with which I have tortured myself for years.