Tips for people who are new at writing and or want to start writing

#1
Hello!

I just want to put some tips for writing a novel/story out there that should help you pretty much.

It makes me pretty sad seeing some people who are very creative and have good ideas ruining their story because they don´t have enough experience.

To the tips:

First is, keep the plot simple. At least in the beginning. Try growing a basic tree, that grows branches overtime.
There is nothing more unnerving as information-overload right in the beginning.

Instead of writing things like "the cold,shining, huge sword cut the man´s body."
write things like: "the  greatsword gave off an aura of coldness as it struck down with a shining slice in the man´s body.

The thing is: use as few adjectives as possible. Don´t use more than one adjective pro subjective in general. But never more than two.

Many adjectives make for a boring story, believe me.

Don´t make too long sentences. KISS. Keep it short and simple. Long complicated sentences disturb the readers flow, making it seem like a hassle to him. If you use Kiss the flow will be undisturbed making it an enjoyable, easy read letting the readers hunger for more.

Now, a very important point is, the introduction of more charactes. this is kind of complicated but the mainpoint I want to bring in here is easy to understand.
Many stories I read here are literally destroyed because  of the over-use and too fast introduction of too many characters.

If you have to  introduce many characters in your story to keep it "interesting", then it means, that your (main)characters don´t have enough depth and not enough personality.

Dont´t get me wrong you can even introduce a group of five people at once, but what you should never do is keep them company with the maincharcater all the time for the whole rest of the story.

Readers want to see characters grow, they want to feel the emotions of the characters, feel like they can smell the wood if the protagonist stands in the forest.

It´s not that difficult. If you write a sentence you just have to ask yourself afterwards: is it interesting?

Writing stories is not about giving information to the reader. It´s about clinging readers and sucking them into your world.

For that genuine characters and a solid  basic plot are essential.

If you use many characters at once, then the readers can not relate to them, they can not feel with them and can not feel their world. Because of that they will feel your story is boring and will drop it soon.


If you want to start writing a story I suggest you start writing short stories, write about five each 1-5 pages long.
While writing try to adjust your style. Read it afterwards, look if there´s a flow, if it´s easy to read. Look out for too much information at once. There´s no need to do that. If you have more information left it just means your story will become a little longer. And that´s good.

well that was it for now.
I hope it helped you.

:bye:

RE: Tips for people who are new at writing and or want to start writing

#3
Hmm I agree on a few points, and would modify others.  

Making a complicated plot is fine, but you should make it seem like a simple plot at first glance.  Don't throw anything at the reader that he doesn't need to know right now.  Unless the history is immediately relevant to the story, just don't.  Heck, don't go near history for the first two chapters even.  When you do get to history, use no more than one—maybe two—paragraphs worth of material at once through the narrator, You want to slowly feed your world to the reader with an eye dropper if you have to.  Too much too fast and it ruins it.  

The description is going in the right direction, but it needs to be more immediate.  It's rather wordy and over complicated. Let me introduce you to active descriptions  "Ned felt a sudden draft of cold and he just knew it was coming off the damned claymore the bastard was holding.  Just his luck, everyone else gets normal opponents, he gets a muscle bound freak with an enchanted claymore." This is an active description.  It mixes the description with the plot development so the reader doesn't even know he's reading a description.  

Adjectives aren't wrong in themselves, they're just horribly misused by most writers.  They're often redundant information that's implied elsewhere.  Look closely at the adjectives you use and really think about whether it's needed there.  Most of the time, it's not.  

The rule about long sentences is actually that you should switch between long and short sentences.  Too many short sentences, and it feels like you're reading something for a grade schooler, too many long ones, and the reader gets a headache.  

Couldn't agree more with you about the too many characters thing.  

My most basic rule is that you want everything to seem natural.  Anytime the reader stops and says to themselves "that would never happen" you've just killed his interest.

RE: Tips for people who are new at writing and or want to start writing

#4
Quote:If you want to start writing a story I suggest you start writing short stories, write about five each 1-5 pages long.
While writing try to adjust your style. Read it afterwards, look if there´s a flow, if it´s easy to read. Look out for too much information at once. There´s no need to do that. If you have more information left it just means your story will become a little longer. And that´s good.
+1

this is the most important part IMO: practice, practice and practice.


while learning theory is important, it won't make you able to swim without you actually go into water.

try to get someone to look at your story and have a discussion with him/her. It's better if he/she is someone with already established story (there're plenty in this site who is more than willing to help. All you need to do is find them)

if you want to avoid giving too much info-dump, the most important rule IMO is: show don't tell.
this is the most common mistake for someone new in writing
however, too many show will make your story overly details and it won't progress
then you need to find your own balance and suited style
how?
practice, practice and practice
My fiction, Rise of the dungeon