McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft

A Writer who can't Write

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Cresent Genisi:
Wow, my problem is a bear :o..............just kidding'
I never thought that it could be my self-confidence that could be an issue in my writing. And my characters do haunt me....especially on the road or in the shower. Writers write a lot of pages to get one paragraph that is very interesting.

Your idea about drawing?...I should have thought of that...I already got ahead of myself with designing the book covers and the official site layout...I feel...dumb now. :-[

You've given me a ton of new things to think about, not to mention you advice has inspired me to hurry and get back to my book. Thank you for the advice.

Murphy's Stunt Double:
Here's another thought, a bit different from the rest. TELL your story to a digital recorder and then hire a high school kid to transcribe it. These days high school kids have mad typing skills, they work for cheep, and always need money.

Noey:
I've had the same problems, because goodness knows it's daunting to look at a whole book and think holy crap. I have to write all that?! It'll sound odd, but what helped me get into it was gaming. I've always had a story in my head, but never could get it started until I started running an online roleplaying game, with just me and a friend. It's on a text based telnet system, so the words matter. The game turned into a story, and it taught me how to structure a scene, how to string those scenes together, make it matter, juggle characters, and a lot of stuff that went right over my head during college. As a bonus, the player is my captive audience and co-conspirator. After putting this together, I feel like I have the tools to be able to plot out an actual novel, and even better I kind of know how to use them.

Putting together the plot as a Story Teller or Dungeon Master or whatever your game system calls it is a lot like writing your own story. It's got training wheels, because you only need to put together a skeleton and let the players do the rest, but in cases like this it's putting together the skeleton of the story that matters. Once you have the basis, the rest is just filling it out to bring it to life. It worked for me, and might not for you, but it couldn't hurt to pick up some dice and see if you can shake out some of your creativity, you know?

Quantus:
My college Gaming buddies have been trying to get a game together.  I was going to try to swing them over to the Fate system...  This could work. And if it doesn't I still gt to Game  ;)

Murphy's Stunt Double:

--- Quote from: Noey on January 24, 2008, 01:46:47 PM --- Once you have the basis, the rest is just filling it out to bring it to life. It worked for me, and might not for you, but it couldn't hurt to pick up some dice and see if you can shake out some of your creativity, you know?

--- End quote ---

It's working for me, too. Last year I spent every day in writer's block, now I can't get wait to get online and writer with my co-conspiritors. There's something about playing with another live person that both inpires me to get at it, and inspires me to get creative.

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