Anyone writing a book?

[Maelstrom]

I wrote a short story called The Meteorite Hunter. I'm now working on one about a hippo and a parrot.

Your meteorite Hunter thing sounds cool!

 

[Madame Catfish]

Yup, Yup!! Just started writing yet another mystery. It's a bit less jovial than some of my other stuff, but there's plenty of dark humour as the story progresses. Having a bit of trouble with dialogue, as always, but I think the plot is turning out pretty well.

 

[Princezz]

I have made up characters, and thought of ideas of things to happen in stories, attemtpted to write them, but have kept on changing ideas and restarting stories. I hate it. I need advice on h w to stick with an idea and a writing style, in order to successfully progress in it.

 

[Maelstrom]

I have made up characters, and thought of ideas of things to happen in stories, attemtpted to write them, but have kept on changing ideas and restarting stories. I hate it. I need advice on h w to stick with an idea and a writing style, in order to successfully progress in it.

I struggle with that too, in my opinion there are two hard rules, RULE: 1 outline as much as possible of the story with pencil, break the story line into pieces,(chapters?), with small notations of critical events and character movements etcetera... so you can keep a fairly clear picture of how the story plays out in your head while writing. Small outline changes are okay, if you haven't written that far yet. RULE: 2 NO REWRITES and NO EDITING until last page is done, period, no cheating on this. And when you do start editing throwing out whole sections and starting them over is FORBIDDEN some small cutting and rewriting is inevitable but should be based on the finished material primarily.

 

[Sass]

I have a different process in terms of planning/outlining the story - I don't!

The way I write (and probably why it's taking me so long to finish the dang thing), is to write my main scenes as and when I'm inspired to do so, then go back and expand them and weave them together and reorganise them as needed. I have a very basic outline of what will happen. I know how it starts, my premise is great, and I sort of know how it ends. My writing style is quite lyrical, almost conversational and poetic combined, so planning it doesn't really work for me. I'm a bit jealous of people who can plan!

 

[Maelstrom]

I have a different process in terms of planning/outlining the story - I don't!

The way I write (and probably why it's taking me so long to finish the dang thing), is to write my main scenes as and when I'm inspired to do so, then go back and expand them and weave them together and reorganise them as needed. I have a very basic outline of what will happen. I know how it starts, my premise is great, and I sort of know how it ends. My writing style is quite lyrical, almost conversational and poetic combined, so planning it doesn't really work for me. I'm a bit jealous of people who can plan!

Hi Sass love the new pic. but miss the cute eyes. I get sucked into the same thing certain scenes roll though my head like movies and the temptation to write out of order can be overwhelming, but if I do that I get lost in the weeds and end up staring at the laptop screen like a zombi, so I am trying to be more disciplined to speed up the writing process, so I don't die of old age before finishing anything. I didn't say it was easy, just hopefully wise.

 

[Maelstrom]

I have a different process in terms of planning/outlining the story - I don't!

With the outlining I don't plan everything I just make marker notes on the main skeleton of the action there is still plenty of leeway on dialog. It's kind of like when you lightly mark in proportions and perspective in a drawing so things don't come out crooked. The main function is to remind yourself where everything is sort of and the general direction you are headed. Sometimes a brilliant idea will come along and make you change a outline, the trick is to not give in and do it retroactively or you'll never finish. You might want to consider doing some rough character cards so you can remember how they would think when you are working on the plot. I try to have a personality reference is this main character outgoing etcetera.., and a emotional currency does this person value money, or popularity etcetera, and maybe one large historical event mother died, was bullied etcetera. Then I can decide how that character would talk or react to a event. Or just pick someone you know and model your characters actions after them, take care on that, if it's too obvious you can get blow back when you publish, people love to play the guessing game are you in the book, and is it bad. Of course I'm a bit of a imaging savant with a wicked long term memory, so I can see my book stuff in my head at a pretty high level, but wish I had some of your editing skills. Sigh! I have a rough road on that front.