But I'm undecided on setting and theme. But before I get onto that, I'll give you some backstory so you can better understand where I'm standing. Proverbially of course.
If you can't be bothered/ don't want to know, then skip to the Can't Be Fucked To Read section (CBFTR)
For the rest of you, here's the story. I've been toying with the idea of writing a book for some time, had the idea a couple of years ago, but never had the heart to get into writing a whole 300 pages or so, the most I have ever written is 14 for a short story as coursework for school, or 26 pages as an in depth analysis, once again for school. I've decided now that it might be a good hobby for me, as I don't have one, and never really have done. My experience of creative writing has all been from school, where I've been tasked with is for homework/coursework. Since my first short story (excluding the crap one I did at the age of 8 or so, well you can't really blame me for excluding it) I have been noted by teachers as having "an exceptional talent for original writing". That's just a teacher's praise from an 11 year old's work, I never took it on board. The next short story I wrote, two years later, received similar praise and comments as the first, beautifully descriptions I remember being one of key comments. At that point I realized I did have a knack for it, and no wonder considering the amount of reading I did at home. Fast forwarding another two years, when I was 15, I received an A* with full marks for my Original Writing coursework assignment, this is only GCSE but it's was a great achievement for me, seeming as I've always considered English being a weak subject for me (the analysis parts I always had trouble on). That story was 14 pages long, as I stated earlier, and my English teacher, who has been teaching for 20+ years, and who is also the head of the English department at my school, considered it to be one of the best pieces of original writing that's he's ever marked. Now that did make me feel good.
I'm not pretending to be some sort of book writing genius, far from it I believe, nor am I sure that I could ever make it out as a novelist, but I want to try, if only to do something productive that I feel is an achievement. I do not plan a career out of this, nor as a way of making extra money.
CBFTR section:
Ok, you skipped the backstory, or maybe not. It's not important anyway to the issue at hand. What the thread is for, when it comes down to it, is ideas and support. This is new to me, so if anyone has written a novel, or anything like it, I would appreciate advice etc. I would also like to involve facepunch, I would like some ideas for characters. I don't need this, I just thought it would be nice for you to see a character you've created in a novel, well if it ever gets published. Ambitious? Very. I can only dream at the moment, but you never know.
I'm straying a little from what I intended, so I'll get more to the point. I have three ideas for my novel. The first is a fantasy novel, I got this idea while playing Oblivion for too many hours a few months ago. So imagine the world of Oblivion, and that's a good picture of the setting for the novel. There won't be any Argonians, Khaijit etc, nor any places relating to Tamriel. There will be swords, bows, magic and monsters, and each character will have a class, rouge, warrior etc. I won't set it out as that, but there will be a character skilled with shields and heavy armour, another great with bows and poisons. In that sense it's much like Oblivion.
The second idea is a Warhammer novel. One thing I have wanted to read is an Orc based novel, I haven't seen any, so I was considering writing one myself. It would revolve around a warband of orcs, and their adventures to, well, do what orcs do really. Chop and loot and chop and then do some choppin. I haven't got a story planned out, but it would mainly involve the warband attacking dwarves and humans, as they do, running into trouble with other orc warbands, and getting into other mischief. This would be set in the fantasy Warhammer, not 40k.
My third and final idea, which is also the one I am leaning mostly towards, is essentially a mix of Borderlands and Fallout. Futuristic tech, but an older culture, the story would follow a merc, who arrives at the planet in search of work. He acts as a bounty hunter, guard, and hired muscle in the story, gaining allies to assist him etc etc. It is similar to Borderlands due to the ridiculous guns, and the enemies that the merc kills, leaders relating to Nine Toes, Sledge, not copies of them, but that style.
So, give me your thoughts on the type of story that you would most like to see. I will only be writing a novel based on the ideas above, so no, you cannot request that full fledged sexy TF2 story that you wish to be written.
Refer to [URL=http://www.facepunch.com/threads/1036382-Batmoutarde-s-Short-Story-Corner]batmarde's story corner[/url] for an example of the best writing ever
I'm planning on disparaging your writing of a book.
I don't want to be rude or anything but I think the creationism corner would offer you the best advice.
[url]http://www.facepunch.com/forums/75-Creationism-Corner[/url]
I feel that my plans are changing after reading this:
[quote]I'm not pretending to be some sort of book writing genius, far from it I believe, nor am I sure that I could ever make it out as a novelist, but I want to try, if only to do something productive that I feel is an achievement. I do not plan a career out of this, nor as a way of making extra money.[/quote]
go write a book then.
My plans have came to nought.
I think if you have a plan, and although it won't be particularly revolutionary in terms of character development, you haven't intended that to be the case, and hopefully you will masterfully create a rich world in which the characters interact.
[QUOTE=Negrul1;31919460]go write a book then.[/QUOTE]
Did you even read it? I even added a nice section so you know where to read if you're lazy. And if you don't care about the thread then don't bother replying.
[editline]24th August 2011[/editline]
[QUOTE=Mr.T;31919443]I don't want to be rude or anything but I think the creationism corner would offer you the best advice.
[url]http://www.facepunch.com/forums/75-Creationism-Corner[/url][/QUOTE]
I assumed that to be for work that is finished or at least WIP, mine hasn't even started. I started writing the thread there and thought bugger it, the general discussion is where it will go. If it does belong there, a mod will move it, so I wasn't worried about it's location too much.
Will Synarath be making a return to the story?
[QUOTE=Cam00;31919504]Did you even read it? I even added a nice section so you know where to read if you're lazy. And if you don't care about the thread then don't bother replying.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, I did read it, you wanted help choosing between generic fantasy plot A, generic fantasy plot B or a generic post-apocalyptic sci-fi story, none of which sounded particularly interesting or revolutionary, though that doesn't really matter. But really, if you want to learn to write novels, go and write a novel. Do something like the National Novel Writing Month, where you just write a shitload and don't really care about the quality, because your first draft of your first novel will be shit whatever. That's not hating on you, that would be true for anyone. I tried to write a novel once and it fucking sucked. Just go write something, anything, and have fun with it.
[QUOTE=Negrul1;31920062]Yeah, I did read it, you wanted help choosing between generic fantasy plot A, generic fantasy plot B or a generic post-apocalyptic sci-fi story, none of which sounded particularly interesting or revolutionary, though that doesn't really matter. But really, if you want to learn to write novels, go and write a novel. Do something like the National Novel Writing Month, where you just write a shitload and don't really care about the quality, because your first draft of your first novel will be shit whatever. That's not hating on you, that would be true for anyone. I tried to write a novel once and it fucking sucked. Just go write something, anything, and have fun with it.[/QUOTE]
Hmmm, might be a good idea to go for the Warhammer novel then. I think I'd enjoy writing that one the most.
Hello, i dont read nearly as much as you, nor am i as good a writer as you but one thing i could recomend is that when you first start writing look for inspiration with writers and stories that you already enjoy. If you want to write a fantasy obviously Tolkien comes to mind but im sure there are alot more out there, even the star wars novels could help you in developing an interesting setting or lore. if, for example you want to do horror maybe read some steven king and see how he makes tension and so on.
one thing though is that whatever your book is about it has to have a good, well fleshed out character. some one who the reader can relate to, someone who has an interesting backstory and has human emotions (though doesn't necessarily have to be human). The truth is that even if you have an amazing landscape and setting no one is going to give a shit if the characters are average emotionless derptards who dont react to that landscape.
hope this helped and good luck its a great idea :)
Well, good luck. Just realize that writing a book is a huge commitment. It's not something you can pound out over a couple of weeks, it'll take a year or more of planning, plotting, drafting, writing, editing, rewriting, proofing, lending, receiving feedback, becoming discouraged, scrapping, replotting, rewriting, reediting, re-rewriting, and then, once you've finally gone through four, five, or a dozen drafts of the story and gotten is as near-perfect as you can, comes the hard part: publishing.
Publishing could take years. Or it might never happen. The quality of your book might not even be the deciding factor. You'll get ninety percent of the packets you submit to publishers and agents back unopened, if they ever even bother sending it back at all, and that's a liberal estimate. Even on the occasions when you ARE asked to send the first chapter or so of your novel, the most you'll ever hear back is a brief footnote reading something like "not what we're looking for right now" that looks as if it was scrawled while they were running out the door (or worse, a form letter).
I'm not trying to discourage you, I'm only telling you what you need to be prepared to deal with. I've had a bit of experience with this sort of stuff, earned through my dad, who's written two full-length novels (very good ones, too, and I'm speaking as objectively as possible here!), and is [i]still[/i] trying just to get somebody just to [b]look[/b] at his work. It's been almost two years since he finished the second one.
Getting a book published ain't easy. Even Stephen King threw his first book in the trash bin after being shot down by dozens of publishers, and it's even harder to get published today than it was when he first entered the scene. Novels are becoming less popular in today's world because reading a book takes a lot of time, and who wants to spend twelve hours reading a book when they could just watch a movie or play a video game? Right? It's not impossible, just prepare yourself for a very long journey, full of disappointments. If you hold out for long enough, you might strike lucky.
[editline]24th August 2011[/editline]
If you want some good insights into the actual [i]writing[/i] of a book, pick up a copy of Stephen Kings's "On Writing." It has a a lot of great advice on how to bring your work to life.
The best advice you can be given is to write and read. The best variation of that advice is to write and read often, while getting yourself the best tools for the job. Stephen King's [U]On Writing[/U], as mentioned above, is a good book to read if you're interested in writing a book, as well as things such as [U]The Elements of Style[/U] or [U]How to Not Write a Novel[/U] to help you avoid some mistakes you're prone to make. You're going to find that your greatest difficulty is sticking to it though. Writing is a lonely and difficult thing. I don't want to discourage you; it makes me incredibly happy to see anyone striving for writing a book. The only problem is the amount of time it demands, and attention. If I want to write anything, I have to unplug myself from the internet, set my ipod on a song I feel has some relevance, and type until I think I'm getting somewhere.
When you start out, start out small. One thousand words a day, and that's coming right out of [U]On Writing[/U]. You have to build up the ability to be able to write, to lay down your thoughts. Before you write, it's probably best to start out by performing a freewrite. I'll sit down and continuously type until I've managed a thousand words. What you write in a freewrite doesn't have to make sense, it's just dumping things from your brain onto the paper. You don't have to form sentences, you don't have to go back and fix your grammar, you just write, and write, and see what happens. Sometimes it becomes a rant, a journal, a variety of things, but it still helps you bridge the gap between your brain and the paper, and makes you stop worrying about what you're writing, and focus on the fact that you're writing.
But for the most part, just write.
Also, BDA, what novels has your father written? If you don't mind me asking.
[QUOTE=Xeloras;31927892]Also, BDA, what novels has your father written? If you don't mind me asking.[/QUOTE]
Nothing you've heard of, he can't find a publisher! :zoid:
[QUOTE=Xeloras;31927892]The best advice you can be given is to write and read. The best variation of that advice is to write and read often, while getting yourself the best tools for the job. Stephen King's [U]On Writing[/U], as mentioned above, is a good book to read if you're interested in writing a book, as well as things such as [U]The Elements of Style[/U] or [U]How to Not Write a Novel[/U] to help you avoid some mistakes you're prone to make. You're going to find that your greatest difficulty is sticking to it though. Writing is a lonely and difficult thing. I don't want to discourage you; it makes me incredibly happy to see anyone striving for writing a book. The only problem is the amount of time it demands, and attention. If I want to write anything, I have to unplug myself from the internet, set my ipod on a song I feel has some relevance, and type until I think I'm getting somewhere.
When you start out, start out small. One thousand words a day, and that's coming right out of [U]On Writing[/U]. You have to build up the ability to be able to write, to lay down your thoughts. Before you write, it's probably best to start out by performing a freewrite. I'll sit down and continuously type until I've managed a thousand words. What you write in a freewrite doesn't have to make sense, it's just dumping things from your brain onto the paper. You don't have to form sentences, you don't have to go back and fix your grammar, you just write, and write, and see what happens. Sometimes it becomes a rant, a journal, a variety of things, but it still helps you bridge the gap between your brain and the paper, and makes you stop worrying about what you're writing, and focus on the fact that you're writing.
But for the most part, just write.
Also, BDA, what novels has your father written? If you don't mind me asking.[/QUOTE]
How Not To Write A Novel is a pretty fun read whether you actually want to write a novel or not.
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