McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft

Just a little question

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Ursiel:
Well, I enjoy writing greatly, which is odd for my age group (I'm 13) although, when I begin to write, I end up losing my inspiration and I have about 50 unfinished writing pieces that I just give up on or forget about XD. I need help finding some kind of inspiration. Anyone have any ideas? I feel like I should write something, but whenever I start, I don't really go back to it. And I get headaches because I just want to get the ideas out of my damn head and onto paper, wordpad, etc. So if you have any ideas on how I could find ideas or any ideas of your own, please post them.

Delarith:
Think of the unfinished pieces as practice getting your ideas on paper which can be extremely intimidating itself.  I would say that eventually you will get an idea that just won't let go of you and then you will have experience putting that idea on paper.

blgarver:
I had the same problem when I was your age.  My problem was having zero encouragement from the people around me.

Find a few people who are into writing, or storytelling in general, and hang out with them.  Once I came to college and found people of like mind, my productivity and focus shot through the roof.  When you're surrounded by that energy, with people talking about stories and writing constantly, you can't ever get away from it.  There will be no chance for you to put it to the back of your mind, therefore the urge will always be burning in you.

Also, I come to this board and read about writing every day, since all my writer friends moved to NYC.  It's invaluable to read and talk about writing.

And read as often as you can.  That's like reinforcment for writing.  You'll absorb things from the books and stories you read, and you'll notice improvement.  I always write much more, and more frequently, when I'm reading regularly.

Those are my two cents.  Good luck!

Murphy's Stunt Double:
I had the same problem at your age, AV. Now I'm almost 40 and I still struggle with it.

For me, I always wanted everything to be ok, so when I got to the part of the story where conflict was needed, I couldn't get past it. I must have about 250 unfinished stories laying around in my basement. All with great ideas, but no conflict and resolution.

I also would try furiously to get the whole idea on paper in every little detail, and then get tired and fall asleep and never go back to it. I couldn't get the same tone and passion after sleeping for some reason.

So here are a couple ideas to try.

First: notice where the rest of your stories stop. Is there a particular place you can't get past? (like for me it was conflict to be resolved.) If there is, try writing a few throw away scenes that are just THAT. You're not going to use these scenes for anything but practice, so it doesn't matter how crappy they turn out and they don't have to make sense with any of the current stories you have. Just get some experience and show yourself that it's possible for you write that kind of scene. It will get you over the hump for a story that's important to you later.

 

Outlining: On one piece of paper answer the following questions with ten words or less.
How does your story start?
How does it end?
What interactions/ scenes will it take to get from one to the other? ie, boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy beats up girls new boyfriend, girl gives boy second chance, girl dumps boy cause he's a jerk anyway, the end. Be very general in this, don't get caught up in the details here.
What are your "buts" that give the story tension?...ie, my lead character want's to go to Harvard, but doesn't have the money and is not smart enough to get a scholarship.... maybe he'll rob a bank, maybe he'll sell drugs... you get the point.
Who are your characters? Give your characters each a paragraph of back story. The more clearly you define who your characters are, the easier it will be for their own feelings and actions to come out and drive the story.
Now add any little details that will give the story any twists and turns that you can think of.

Keep this one page to refer back to.

NOW, you've got all the ideas you need down and out of your head, and you can write the whole story out, one section/chapter at a time over however long it takes. Each time you sit down to write, pick a scene and decide to just write that one scene, completely. If you're still inspired at the end of that scene, you can pick another one and start writing. The point is, when you're done writing for the day, you should always be at the end of a scene. The scenes build on themselves like legos.

Good Luck!

Dom:
Ditto to the others saying the same problem...I had that issue at your age.

Just keep writing, and analyzing what you wrote.  Also, take books or stories you like...and books you DISlike...and analyze them.  What do you like about them?  What do you dislike?  Analyze and learn from them.  You'll start to pick up the nuts and bolts of storytelling...as well as writing...as you go along.  I did this at your age with Anne McCaffrey and Terry Goodkind, because I liked both of their works so much.

It may be a few years before you're in a position to finish a piece...or maybe not, who knows.

In my case, I started writing when I was 10 or 11.  When I was 19, I could do the technical stuff...sentences, dialogue, spelling, etc...but I was really really frustrated that I didn't have the experience to write scenes as I wanted them to be.  They weren't good enough, because I knew there were some things I just wasn't understanding yet.  Not the nuts-and-bolts things, but about storytelling itself, and how to enrich things with my own experience.  So even after 9 years of writing, CONTINUALLY, I didn't finish anything, because my skill wasn't up to doing the job as I wanted it to be done.  Now I'm 24, and finally on the road to completing a novel, because for the first time I feel as if I have the knowledge and experience to pull it off.  So it's possible it could take a while.  But...keep writing, even if you don't finish anything.  Re-write.  Edit.  Keep playing with stuff; sooner or later, if you're well and truly persistent, the pieces will fall together as they have for me.

I'd look for other folks in your school who write, although there's unlikely to be very many people in your school that write stories; I took a creative writing class in high school, in my senior year, and out of my entire class, only three of us wrote stories.  Everyone else?  Poetry, and not too serious about it either.  I think I was the only novelist. So I'd look for other folks who do it, but you probably won't find a huge crowd.  Might just want to keep your ear in on writing forums like this one, or other writing communities online, to compensate if you don't find many people in real life.

Also...I'm somewhat old-school, I didn't come online until I was 17 and I'd already been writing my own original fic before then for years...but some people find writing fanfic and sticking it on fanfiction.net or some other place really helps them out, because it takes some of the work out of it.  The world, and often characters, are already there.  You need to provide the plot, the narration and description, and the characterization.  You don't need to do the heavy lifting of creating a character from scratch, or worldbuilding or creating your rules of magic or whatever.  This doesn't work for all people, but it works for some, and the chance of having people review your work (fanfiction, even bad fanfic, gets far more comments and attention than original work online does unless it's spectacular original fic) can be a goad to write more for some people.  I know one Harry Potter fanfic writer in particular who is now edging into pro, since she's sold her first original novel recently.  I also know of a pro writer who used to write Xena fanfic.  So you might want to explore this avenue, to see if it suits you or not.

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