McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft

Where to start?

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meg_evonne:
pick a Shakespeare plot.  He stole them all anyway.  :-) 

Der Sturmbrecher:

--- Quote ---Where to start?
--- End quote ---


It depends on what you're comfortable with, and whatever urge(s) or idea(s) you already have. Also, if you have good ideas which won't really work together, don't be afraid to do multiple pieces. At the same time, probably not a good idea, so work with whichever one just feels more urgent, more "spicy".

Take me for instance. I've had, for awhile now, I decent fantasy plot worked out in my head, enough for a few novels in material. I have often (but not often enough) sat down to write plans for this thing, only to finish a few preliminary details and shove the bulk under a rock for later. I still plan to write it, but I keep having something else come up instead: a short story series about Death.

For the former fantasy series, I knew that I liked fantasy, and creating whole worlds from scratch, so I started there. I've used different magic systems, main characters, and plots in my head, but the world itself has stayed mostly the same. I jsut built it from what I liked, but I have to keep working.

The short stories , on the other hand, were much more spur of the moment, make it up as you go. If I get any of them published online, I'll try to send a link here, hopefully you won't hate 'em. The lowdown with these is that I challanged my Mom and Dad to a writing "contest," for lack of a better word. We both wanted to write, but neither was really going to. So I said "I'll write if you will." Thus began an installment of stories. (a thought just flew through my head of makiing a story about writing these stories). I had no idea really where to start, but then the Death concept just came to me, so I sat down, and started writing what felt good.

That's another thing: feeling good with it. I scrapped a lot of good ideas with my fantasy series because at first I liked them, but afterwords I hated them. This seems to happen to everybody, it's inevitable. Some ideas stay fresh in your mind and just don't fade, but others will. There isn't really a good way to tell if an idea will do that to you at the time you think of it, so the best thing to do is just write it while it's still good. If it's down on paper (or .doc), you're less likely to hate it later than if you haven't written it yet.

Originality. All stories are original (unless you have really really really REALLY bad luck and happen to think of exactly the same plot, characters, setting, and devices that another person does), but anymore, they all have overlapping elements and themes. If you're going to write, this is inevitable. The solution: write it your way. Suppose you want to write a book about Orcs and Elves fighting each other. Deja vu...unless you write it in such a way that you like and think of. Take Jim Butcher for example, either series. In DF, you have the magical hero who fights the baddies, meets girls, allies, and ahs his own personal demons to deal with. Again, deja vu. Then along comes the right and honorable Jim Butcher, and suddenly, Harry Dresden is born! From what I understand, the Dresden Files weren't a major project for him either, until they proved so popular and good. Possibly, the story you hate or don't think much of is your best work. For that, you need peer review.

Abeille:
Rotrich really is a talented writer, in my opinion anyway. His Death short story is GREAT and I have seen at least most of the notes (if not all) for the fantasy story, and it is very promising. I was never into writing, but he helped me and now I have an idea for a book! Also, I was in that writing 'contest' :P It was when I wrote my first story I do not completely despise.

Nicodemus Archleone:
Thanks Rotrich:)
Iīve got a question again for you (all of you), as I have decided to go with a horror idear which I think I can make spur into something good, when I sit and think about evolving it I can do it aparently but it dosenīt come out of the blue.
Anyway my question is setting or rather location.
Do I need to use cities, areas i know good and well that be here in Denmark. Or is it acceptable to go, "I have writers freedom and wants to be in NY, in the US, even though iīve only been there once and if an american read this he can shoot bullet holes in this story with an atomic bomb if he wants".

Kali:

--- Quote from: Nicodemus Archleone on February 04, 2010, 01:16:28 PM ---Do I need to use cities, areas i know good and well that be here in Denmark. Or is it acceptable to go, "I have writers freedom and wants to be in NY, in the US, even though iīve only been there once and if an american read this he can shoot bullet holes in this story with an atomic bomb if he wants".

--- End quote ---

Earlier on this board, I wrote about how I approach things when I want to use a city I don't know much about.  Here's what I said, maybe it'll help give you some ideas:


--- Quote from: BobForPresident on October 05, 2009, 04:35:45 PM ---Not every street has to have a specific name as long as you create a believable flavor for the city. For example, the world Harry Dresden inhabits "feels" like Chicago. Butcher seems to have picked just a few key ingredients of Chicago life: bars, extremely cold winters, towering buildings downtown, and has expanded on those aspects of Dresden's Chicago (that's the key, btw. It's Dresden's Chicago, not Chicago, Illinois).
--- End quote ---

This is, I think, essential and needs repeating and emphasizing.

Pick a city you think is interesting, any city.  Do some research, yes, but what your initial research should be aimed toward is the creation of a list.  List a few specific landmarks, write bullet-point words about the feel of the city.  If it's a large city, add a few neighborhoods and specific one- or two-word descriptions of each.

Say you wanted to use Washington DC as an example.  Your list might look like this:

LANDMARKS
- Washington Monument & "The Mall"
- Capitol building
- Smithsonian Museums
- Metro railway
- cherry trees, springtime Cherry Blossom festival
MISCELLANY
- Politics
- Business suits + extreme poverty
- Tourists
- Cocentric circular design
- Big football town
NEIGHBORHOODS
- Northwest = affluence, gentility, Jewish bakeries
- Northeast = gentrifying, arty, Union Station
- Southeast = crime, poverty, vandals, new ballpark
- Capitol Hill = Bluetooth & briefcase crowd

And that would be enough to get you started.  As you wrote, you might want to look up a specific restaurant or have a map handy to pick up a street name here and there, but you wouldn't need to have a specific reference every single page or even every single chapter. 


To clarify how I use this sort of list, let's say I have a scene where the characters are driving to a place for a meeting with a critical informant.  I might glance at my list and decide to set the meeting in Northwest DC.  So the sentence referencing it might read:

"I didn't mind driving to the meeting; Northwest DC was relatively safe even in the pre-dawn early hours, safe as any big city ever was.  We parked in front of a Jewish bakery, and the smell of warm yeast and sugar made my stomach growl."

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