New Writers! Write. Short. Stories. · 4:48am Dec 13th, 2018
I should begin this blog, by stating to you, new writers, that this blog is not directed at you.
No, not at all. You lot are still sweet things. You're still writing words and seeing beyond them to the worlds they create. It's a magical and giddy time. It's exciting! It's new! It's a craft of expression and entertainment that mends the lonely soul into a more interesting one.
So please, new writers of this blog, do not take these words at surface value. Do not allow them to wound your ego, inflict pain on your ability to write, or even worse of all, cause your fingers to hover away from the keyboard.
Unless, of course, some of those new writers possess the Dunning-Kruger effect. If you do: enjoy it while it lasts—because it doesn't last long, kiddos.
We're clear now, right? Everything on the same page on not to take these words personally? Good. Very good. Now then. I love you all, the readers and the writers, but now, it's time for us to tackle a point that has been bugging me for a quite a while.
Why do new writers, on their first project, endeavor to write a novel?
Ho boah. Here we fuckin' go.
See this man? Gleeful despite his nose?
That's motherfuckin' Ray Bradbury. Most of the advice you're about to read in this blog, really, can be found in his Zen and the Art of Writing book. It's a good book. One of the few good books on writing out there.
It'll make you excited to write, bestow tips to keep you writing quickly, and above else, be a continuous supply of endless energy and motivation. For as long as I had this book, I have yet to burnout out on either my writing and drawing.
The book is ten dollars: pick it up.
The central advice in that book, at least to new writers, is to write a lot of short stories. It is there where you can fuck-up freely—where the mistakes are contained in under 5k and easily addressable. It's easy to analyze what your strengths or weakness are.
With every short story you write, you slowly reveal yourself as a writer. In short, you're experimenting with both your craft and your wit. You see what stick and what slides down the wall. Only short stories allow you to jump around so freely, allow you to submerge yourself in a genre deeply, without the feeling you've fucked something monolithically up.
With novels, you can't do that. You can't jump around when everyone is sitting down, or scream while everyone is whispering. Plot holes and the poorer quality of previous chapters will hunt you down to the present one, causing an endless stream of re-writes without any progress nor improvement.
Short stories allow you to asses yourself piece by piece.
Novels expect those pieces already to be in perfect order.
Now then. The point of this blog. There's an issue a lot of new writers have, either in fiction or Facebook, that has them trying to tackle the novel as their first project. They'll get a decent way in, chuckling with excitement as the story is shooting straight...
...until the story suddenly stops still.
What the fuck?
When B first came to this site, he didn't know about much writing—he didn't know much about the grammar or the English language, for that matter. All he had was a very neat idea he wanted to see happen. That, and the imagery of Spike carrying around Twilight in his arms was very sweet on me.
So I tried writing a novel-length fanfic. This was back in 2013 (please don't remind me how many years have passed since then.) The story got featured, which I loved, then hated upon, which I loved slightly less.
Attention was attention after all.
Do you know what my first response was to the hate? It was no to get mad, or delete comments. No. I went and apologized to everyone who had read the story, promised them that I would try to improve, and that the story would one day be worth the read.
I hold a quarter of that promise to this day.
I went and bought books. I asked and begged for editors to give me a second chance. I wrote continuously; I edited endlessly. Despite my best efforts, I was still fucking up, and becoming seriously frustrated as to why.
I left the site for a year due to my stupidity.
What was it I had failed to learn back in 2014?
I knew plenty about writing. When I read stories, I could see what made them great, and in the same vein, why other stories crashed and burned. Absorbing what I knew, I stored it in the database that is Knowledge.
I could feel witty citing the strengths and flaws of a story, which, I must admit, was a superficially pleasing too—but make to mistake. All that talking and assessing and debating did nothing to improve my prose, my dialogue, or my storytelling ability.
I knew much about writing, but I didn't do that much writing at all.
And this killed me. I'd sit down to prove myself at the keyboard, and what would I produce? Nothing! Utter shit as ink for my terrible prose. I was seeing how bad my stuff was as I t was coming out.
And I didn't keep a roll of toilet paper by my desk.
So take that as a message, kiddos. Don't be fooled by anyone who says fancy words about the craft of writing. Some of the time, and I do mean this in the rarest sense, but those who know a lot of writing, but can't write well themselves, will preach their knowledge in return for your satisfaction.
If you must be fooled, then let it be by the fiction on the page, rather than the lies out of some mouth.
So then, we've come to the heart of the problem. Reading and learning are required to become better writers and storytellers: there's no doubt about that, of course, forgiving a few exceptional cases.
But reading and learning a lot doesn't qualify you as a good writer. Writing good content does that. And I'm about to let you into a little trick in the trade; I'm gonna tell you something every writer sprouts.
You must write a lot.
Don't think. It will not help you. Plot, if you must, so long as it's done with words on a page. Playing scenes in your mind is fine; exploring characters thoughts all the better. Immerse yourself in another word, but for your own sake: Don't. Think!
Write. Write a lot. If you are someone who was once like me, then sorry buddy, but the answer is to write a lot. You have all these wisdom and adages stuck in your head, and while they may be useful, I promise you that focusing on them will only cause them to fade.
You must trust your subconscious for the time being. It's where all that knowledge is stored. I assure you, start trusting your subconscious while you're writing, and if you're lucky, a worthy adage will arrive during the composition of a scene, to which, it applies to.
It won't always be this way. Your subconscious may be dull. Awful parts of prose and story may fly through your eyes as you write. It's okay. There's nothing you can do about that. But don't think the act of writing has gone to waste: you are still very much sharpening your subconscious.
Or wit.
Whatever word you prefer.
But this must be done within the short story. It's only here where, once the work is done, you can go over it again, seeing where you have gone, allowing the message to sink into the home of your subconscious. You're making yourself aware of your problems, using the knowledge you possess, all to make your story better.
Write a lot to sharpen your wit. Create short stories to experiment where you are good, where you are decent, and where you are weak. Find what you love and discover what you hate. Exploring yourself through different, short tales, will be worth the adventure: I assure you.
So try it. A short story every week if you can manage it. Keep doing them until you've felt like you've improvemtn. Be sure to edit and to reflect: have others look over it. Most editors will flinch at the sound of a novel, but if you say, hey, the fic is under 5k—please help me? They will be more inclined to help, and sharper in their ability to locate your problems.
Sorry if this blog was me rambling! I assure you, that was because I spent the whole blog rambling. I'm still trying to get used to the idea of writing essays. They basically allow the writer to argue with themselves on the page!
Ain't that fuckin' great?
But at the same time, they can't always be about me. I have shit I want to say, and that shit, to some, may be useful. I sincerely believe the advice of this blog will help new writer—even if it would just be me from 2013.
Because I didn't know how to write. Short-Stories would have quickly shown me how. And as Ray Bradbury himself was fond of saying: “It's impossible to write fifty-two short stories and have them all be bad. At least one or two have shone through with quality.”
Not his exact words. But you get the point.
But where does this leave me? How much of myself should shine through these words? Do I make the essay more interesting by being inside of it? Do we care about what a writer writes about, or in some cases, do we care more about the writer himself? We find some topic boring, but read them because someone interesting has put themselves inside of it.
It's a matter of having an ego, but at the same time, not being egotistical.
That, and being more concise in my points.
Oh well. Suppose that's all I have for now. If you would like to see more advice, or really, have any questions at all, please be sure to send me a PM. I'm always glad to answer questions and help about.
And who knows? Maybe answering some of those questions will be material worthy of an essay? Either way. Gotta get back to writing now.
Keep those fingers typing, folks.
Question. Where is that third pic with the alien landscape from? I swear I've seen that before somewhere.
Not sure why you emphasized not taking this stuff personally, you're basically saying to practice and giving a technique on how to do it. It's real good advice, but I'm genuinely unsure as to how you thought this would be interpreted at all negatively by a new writer.
Good post though, would you reccomend creating short stories about particular characters if you plan to have someone like them in a future story?
You know, I think this was just what I needed to hear. Granted, my current story isn't exactly a "novel", per se, but it is turning out to be significantly longer than I originally anticipated, and it's so hard to motivate myself to tackle the edits that I know all too well must be done before I can write the next chapter.
Maybe after I finish this first story, I'll give short fics a shot. A couple thousand words, max. See how that goes.
4980376
Forgive me. The tone of this blog had changed half-way through: it was meant to attack my younger self more about the habits new writers nowadays still possess. The intro probably doesn't make sense now because of that.
To answer your second question: it depends. If you would like to do a prologue-like story—which is still a story in its own right, then sure! It depends on what level your writing skills are at. This blog is directed at those hoping to become competent at the craft: writing short stories is the best way to explore yourself as a writer. At least, in the beginning.
If you're already competent, then you already know what you need to do! Best of luck to ya.
You can't tell me what to do.
4980379
Get out of the tank!
Well. I was thinking of picking up a oneshot.
Guess I should probably do that, now.
Stephen King's writing advice combined with other stuff to become a term I don't think I've seen in other places but I use to describe my own shitty productivity:
Writer's Anxiety.
It's like Writer's Block, but instead of the shallow "I dunno what I'm doing at this point" it's far more encompassing. If you can't write a single thing, you have worse than writer's block, you get anxious whenever you try. You look at it and think "god could I ever do good?"
Of course, stopping at that point is a great way to ensure you never get good. But when has that stopped me?
(Often. It's stopped me often.)
Anyway, cool blog bro.
4980380
no u
4980383
See I have this issue, sometimes you've got to just get over yourself, and release the story. That's what I tell myself, at least. No matter how many editors/proofreaders etc. you have. It will never be "perfect", but you can get damn close if you do like B_25 mentioned, and just write a ton.
Experience in any field, when it comes to writing,engineering,playing an instrument,drawing....basically everything. Having experience is crucial for development in one's craft. Some people on this site end up being over ambitious. Causing a burn out quickly, or they get torn to pieces by criticism. Which causes them to second guess everything they put out from that point forward. It's sorta like a trap in a way.
Key thing to remember....tho. Just have Fun...thats why were all on this site, to make friends, read some cool stories and to leave with a smile. Anyways that's my two cents on the topic.
4980383
The issue if your expectation: you're stressing instead of writing. Part of the journey is discovering as you write. Don't think. Write. Be it a stream of consciousness, or rather, a character struggling with writer's block. If you write, the skills needed will come along. But if you don't write, and think too much, then all will be hopeless.
4980403
Good words.
It's a really good advice. as someone prideful, it took me some time to realize how bad i was to keep in track with everything happening in a long term story. Now that i have a full time job, writing has become more like an escape from reality than a hobby like it was before, yet, now that i have so little time I have learned to love this experience of making short fics and understanding my own skills on writing as i go.
As a developer i understood that i will never stop learning. that same rule applies here and in every other field.
Great blog lad.
My only problem with this is that I can't come up with ideas for short stories and well as huge, sprawling epics.
I want to write shorter, more fun stories, but I simply struggle to come up with ideas for stories that just aren't copies of other things.
But this is certainly good advice and you should share it around. Also, Ray Bradbury is a great author.
It's good advice, too often I see new writers that want to write their magnum opus without any previous experience. No matter how great an idea, they are simply not prepared for it.
4980568
I'm can relate that. I wanna write these great stories I have in my head and not be completely prepared to write them. For some reason, I can't put the words onto the paper. That's why those stories take forever for me to write. And whenever I do get a new chapter out, its either not what I wanted to write down or it was but really bad. I think that's why most of us new writers struggle so much when we try to do our grand story.
4980385
Ooff. Got me.
4980568
I concur. Short stories offer them everything they need. It also gives them the best chance to get reviewed or recgoinzed—Seattle Angles for instance.
The first thing I ever wrote on this site is still one of the longest things I've ever written here. And it's not finished, it will never be finished, because it's fucking terrible.
I much prefer writing short stories now, and have done almost ever since I threw that in the bin. There's so much more room for experimentation, so many more options to mess around with language and concepts and ideas. In fact, I'd take it all a step further and say you shouldn't publish anything you haven't finished. One of my biggest regrets about my stories is that I've published Mis-Shapes chapter by chapter. The problem with writing a bigger story like that bit by bit is that you're essentially only ever going to be able to publish the first draft. You can clean it up, you can make it all pretty, but you can't change it. Your earlier chapters are set in stone, so you better be damn sure it's exactly what you want, and you can't ever be that sure.
All that aside, I still think writing that terrible, long, first story was a valuable experience. I learned a lot while writing it because, as the advice goes, I just wrote a ton. And I got a lot better even between the first and last chapter. So I'm not sure if not trying to write a novel out the gate is as important as just writing something, whatever it may be. But I think it's important to be ready to abandon it, to understand that it will be crap that you'll probably have to throw away. But there's lessons to be learned from trying (and failing) to write a novel that can't be learned from short stories, and any practice is good practice.
4980653
I agree with this advice. But with that being said, the new writers stand a better chance at writing short stories? Why? Because like you said, it's grounds for experimentation and quick learning. It's because of its shortness that allows those works to be more willing to edit and critique by others.
But do not mistake this for disagreement. Writes should try and fail at the novel. The experience will teach them, after having short stories underneath their belt, how to create and maintain beyond that. Everyone should attempt the novel, but only they have some experience first.
With that out of the way, do you have some writing advice? It's your Flutterspike that got me into writing in the first place. Not only that, you were gone for well over two years, and just coming back again, you're already writing leauges above me. Got any advice to help a brother out?
4980662
Ah, sorry, I wasn't disagreeing with you either, although reading it back it definitely comes across that way. I just think that writing something longer right out of the gate helps with that initial, technical hurdle. The really basic stuff: your grammar, your varied sentence structure, flow, pacing etc etc. It's useful because the only way to get through that is to write a ton, read it back, write some more, read something else, write some more and do that over and over. Writing something longer, even if it never sees the light of day, is just a more solid way to get through that slog in my opinion than a ton of short stories, where it's harder to just sit down and grind away.
Once you're past that and we're into bigger stuff, overarching structure, show don't tell, introducing theme etc. etc., then short stories really start to shine. I tend to lose interest in writing longer stuff, personally; I often feel like they start to overstay their welcome, stretching the concept too thin.
I don't really like giving advice, because I honestly have no idea what I'm doing. Read a lot and write a lot is the only one I ever feel comfortable giving. I think the danger with advice is that you'll do something and not really understand why it's good. I've talked about show don't tell before but I spent a long time talking about why it's effective because I feel like that's the real important part of the advice, and it never gets talked about. But if you read critically, trying to suss out what the writer was going for, and you write just as critically, trying to work out how best to convey what you want, that's the absolute best way to improve. Because you don't just start to see what works, but why.
4980673
Good advice. Thank you.
This blog reminded me of 2 stories I use to read before the authors magically disappeared...
Both authors only uploaded a couple of chapters on each of their story before disappearing off the site and the thing is that both stories were doing really great but they just stopped updating them and left which to me is extremely annoying
I'm not trying to sound like an ass here but what the hell is the purpose of writing a long story if your not gonna continue it after the first few chapters....its annoying honestly