Writing Tips!!! · 12:15am Oct 16th, 2013
I thought I'd do something in honor of my one thousandth twelve hundreth subscriber. My choice is a predictable one, but there you go.
When I did my FAQ, I got a lot of questions about writing. A few of these were asking "What are the 3 most important things to write [x]?" If you asked those questions, I extend an apology. I don't think I should have. Writing has no such rigid building blocks. I gave good advice, I hope, but not likely my best.
I believe writing can be broken down into five simple tips. Here they are.
1. Write.
Now, you're probably rolling your eyes and saying "Yeah, no duh, I thought you were supposed to really teach us." But think about it: how often do you see fics unfinished? The answer is: too often.
The key to learning how to write is to just do it. Pull out the keyboard and start writing. Your first story will be terrible. When I wrote before coming here, my works were terrible. I don't like to think about them. In fact, I don't like a good deal of what I've written under this name, either. But I needed to write them so I could actually learn. I never had a teacher or a mentor, I just wrote. And as I did, I learned. I grew. I matured. And so will you, if you keep pushing forward.
Set aside some set time every day you can (every day) to write, until it becomes a habit. I try for about a thousand words a day of fanfiction, which usually takes me an hour, if I'm into my story. If you're having trouble focusing, block your internet access, unplug your TV, and hide your video games until it's habit.
The best advice I can give you is to not see writing as a job. If you approach writing as a chore, it will become one. Treat is as a hobby at least (which, if you only write fanfiction, is what it is), and a lifestyle at most. If you don't enjoy writing it, it won't be much solace if people enjoy reading it.
This is a "do as I say, not as I do" tip. I have this problem, as you can see by how late this it. I like to write 2000 words a day: a thousand of my novel, five hundred each of whatever fics I'm working on, plus my writings with TheMyth. Have a goal like this in mind when writing. 21 days until it becomes a habit.
Years ago I read a Danny Phantom / Teen Titans crossover on Fanfiction.net. I'm declining to link to it because the crossover of these shows made up approximately 5% of Danny Phantom fics back when it was still on the air. The point is, the author skimmed through the fight scenes because, in his own words, he wasn't good at them.
Do not do this. If you're having trouble writing something, write it anyway. Is it no good? Revise it, again and again until it looks good to you. If you're going to try and gloss over an important part of your story because it's too hard to write, you might as well give up writing altogether.
2. Read
You learn mainly by doing, but let it never be said you can't learn by watching as well. Set aside time everyday to read. Not fanfiction, no sir. Published authors, the ones who get paid to do what they do. Read anything, good or bad... in fact, read the bad, and learn what not to do. If you want to write romance, go read Twilight, then do the opposite of whatever Meyer does. And remember: if you've read a bad published novel, and you know you're work is better, there's hope for you.
Just about every writing rule (show, don't tell, etc.) becomes clear by seeing those rules violated in print. Read and observe, it will get you far.
Whatever you read is going to seep into your writing. I think there's influence of Dave Barry and Yahtzee Croshaw in my humor, and hopefully I can one day write an epic like Robert Jordan and Terry Goodkind, only cutting out all the prose BS for the former and diabolic torture of every character in the latter.
Read during your free time. Get audio books and listen to them. I read or listen to four books at a time: one to read on the road (currently H.P. Lovecraft: The Complete Fiction), one before I go to bed (Different Seasons, by Stephen King), an audio book at work (The Metamorphoses by Ovid), and an audiobook in my car (The Casual Vacancy, by J.K. Rowling).
I like books because they’re a medium untainted by the internet. Part of the problem with the internet is there’s no twist in this show that hasn’t been spoiled for me. Back when I was a kid, there was a joy in entering a video store or a video game shop and digging up some obscure gem I’d never heard of. Now, even the most obscure of these mediums is bound to be known by someone on the internet. For books... walking into a used bookstore is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get
Sorry, tangent over!
3. Treat criticism with care
You're going to be criticized. Mother Teresa has been criticized, Ghandi has been criticized. People on the internet look for things to complain about. You have no chance of not being judged. When you put something out to the public, you are giving them the right to critique your work.
Now, I'm going to tell you something: I have a temper. A bad one. I hope that's a surprise to you, because it means I've kept it off the internet before I said something stupid. So I get criticism is hard. No one really likes it. Heck, if I wanted criticism I could drive back to my college campus. There was always someone standing with a sign of everyone God hates, shouting that I was going to Hell because I think He has better things to worry about than sexuality.
So I get it, criticism can be hard to take, but you're going to get it. Your knee-jerk reaction will likely be to find some reason to dismiss it as not valid And the good news is that not all of it will need to be taken. My works tend to be favored more than disliked, even Wedding Bell Blues, thought I must say I see a lot of criticism directed toward that as valid. Since the upvotes far exceed the downvotes, I don't worry too much, unless there's an aspect everyone is commenting on.
When you get criticism, take the time to weigh it. Do you believe it's valid? If yes, take it into consideration. If not, ignore it. You can't please everyone, and it's unlikely you can change their mind. Let them have their opinion, and continue to work.
4. Remember that story is king.
Just so you know, Stephen King puts a lot of this better than I did in his book On Writing. Pick up a copy. But I was using the same techniques before I read it, and I'm glad I'm on the same page as such a talented writer in that regard, at least.
Story is not plot. You want plot? Go to Wikipedia, look up a book's page and read the synopsis, you'll get plot. Story is the characters and the situations they're in. Plot springs from that. Now you need the situation. Except for Post Nuptials, and even that to some degree, all my works started with me thinking up a situation. Sometimes more than one. A realistic look at Scootabuse and Spike's dealings with being an orphan (Families), two characters accidentally getting married (About Last Night), Scootaloo being an orphan because she was made, not born (Project: Ascension), and Chrysalis having been impersonating Cadance throughout Shining Armor's courtship (Wedding Bell Blues).
Where to get these situations? I don't know. Just think about things, and situations will come. Once the situation is in mind, the characters will react, and a story will begin to form.
Characters are complicated. You might think this part is done for you, you're writing for pre-existing characters, aren't you? But you're putting these characters in a new situation. How would Twilight and Applejack react to being married? Or Rainbow Dash react to finding her favorite filly is homeless or being abused? You don't know.
Characters don't always act the way you'd expect. When I was writing the first chapter of About Last Night, I wrote the scene where Rarity was talking to Pinkie and Big Mac. Then, suddenly, Rarity refused to go any farther. She refused to get drunk, it was unladylike. Then, Pinkie popped in and had the perfect way to fix that problem: the funnel and some puppy dog eyes.
Then Rarity woke up in Blueblood's bed. This was meant to be a mere running joke throughout the story, Rarity and Blueblood doing things while the camera stayed on the newlyweds. But Blueblood refused to let me. When I only mentioned him in The Nuptialverse, he was easy to dismiss. But the camera was on him now, and he refused to let me remove it. He did things that required observation, and he become fascinating to write about, a mix of sleazeball and competency. And I found that him wanting attention was a good thing, because he was an important piece of the overall story, I simply hadn't realized it yet.
The final note is to keep one thing in mind. Characters are the protagonists of their own story. They don't think of themselves in terms of archetypes. Even Discord's mad actions made perfect sense to him. Remember that.
5. Live
You'll learn dialogue by listening to people talk. You'll make ideas come easier to you by trying new things. You'll get your situation through long walks with your thoughts and hard contemplation. So get out there! Have your fun! Meet a girl (or guy, whatever), go on a hike, have fun! Ideas will come to you all the better.
Carpe Diem
i.imgur.com/TH8ejTf.jpg
Wow, way more thinking than I put into how I write. I just wing it, have fun, then look at the shitpile of a story I just made while I hastily spit polish and duct tape it into a somewhat workable piece.
I can't stress enough that item 4 is super important! You and I are similar. I have not read that book by King, but when I create stories, I come up with major plot points in a story, the big points, and then write around them if that makes sense. If I can get from point A to point B in an interesting fashion, it feels like a win. If it takes thousands of words to do it in a believable fashion, so be it! You have to let the characters live through the situations described by the plot points in the story. If something happens because you "decided it has to happen" it feels forced.
Also, your point about writing something even if you think you are "not good at it" really strikes a chord with me. I am that way with original characters, and I recently had to face that.
So yeah.
I'd add in that my major enemy is repetitive language. If reading your story feels like reading the same thing over and over and over, it gets boring. I usually have to go through every chapter I write to make sure I'm not doing this, because I still subconsciously do it while in my "regurgitation phase" as I call it.
1423360
Yeah, I had already caught that. Thank you.
Great post here. You're clearly very into literature and reading and whatnot! My writing is just a little something I do on the side as a hobby, writing and reading every day isn't something I have the time to commit to (I'm a scientist!
).
But hey, I guess that's why you're the hotshot and not me!
And yes, if you have a bad temper you have concealed it VERY well.
Yeah, I'm trying to put together a short guide to reading/writing fanfics, and the one thing I've found that has helped my writing more than anything is not criticism, it's the step beyond criticism: Feedback.
When you put your baby out on Google Docs so anypony can comment on it, you get a much finer detail of criticism, everything from the place you used 'remis' (a draw in chess) instead of 'remiss' (lacking care) up to deeper underlying issues with plot.
This was a really good read. Thanks for taking the time to put it together.
I've never tried setting a daily quota for myself. Twenty-one days to form a habit, you say? I'll give it a shot.
As for your point about criticism though, I think that the knee-jerk reaction you talked about is altogether egotistical. If someone's first inclination is to be defensive, they might need to figure out who they're writing for. If a person is writing for his/her own satisfaction, there's no need to take criticism seriously in the first place. On the other hand, if they have a genuine desire to entertain others, being butthurt over it is counter-productive because they're only pushing dissatisfied readers even farther away instead of drawing them back. In the first scenario, being offended is a waste of time, and in the second, it works against the author.
1423599 This intrigues me. How much feedback do you normally get on gdocs?
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ManlyTears
That is all
1423666 I've had up to 12 people throwing various levels of comments on various stories. Monster in the Twilight (Gdoc) was probably the biggest, from people who made just one or two little suggestions, to Andrew, Justin and Peter who helped throughout the whole thing (almost 100k words). Some of the best comments are also the worst, from "I don't get this" to "Where did this come from? I didn't see it coming." to "Who is this?" all of which are giant illuminated signs that say "Although you may know what you did, you did a lousy job of explaining it to the reader."
I like to put the Gdoc link on my blog when I get going on a story, and I try to keep track of everybody who helps out and credit them in the story description. (Sometimes I miss people, but I try) Also, don't forget to "Resolve" comments once the underlaying typo/plot point is fixed, or they get really cluttered.
1423823
This is just an INCREDIBLE IDEA. I already use gdocs, and have people who edit for me leave comments... I never thought of crowdsourcing it.