Tip 4: Getting Inspiration869Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGalgwjG3V3
Attempting to write a story of any decent length requires a purpose. Did you want the reader to feel compassion? To reflect on the story and attempt to take a moral to heart? Or was the idea just to provide a enthralling set of events and let them ogle the book's setting or plots? They all have the potential to be fan favourites (if not commercially successful) because they help the reader delve deeper into book and immerse themselves into the story that you are weaving in front of them.
This is where the division between the countless amount of 'pet projects' that are loosely scattered across forums and saved on nameless USBs and that of the story people WANT to show off to the world. It all starts with that initial spark of inspiration that has started each and every single writer before you and ever single writer after you; the quintessential ember of an idea that can sputter into smoke if un-nurtured or become a wild fire of ideas ready to be unleashed with pen and paper!
Some of these motivators for writing / themes of your book can be pulled from either real life experiences, inspired by other works or be an original work of fiction. The latter most can be the hardest to start off with, or more importantly, eventually fill with meaningful plot devices, thematic settings, characters, sub-plots and dialogue.
A good way to start formulating ideas is to find a method that is most suitable to you. Depending on what you prefer writing about or your personal style / genre you may employ any of the following schemes to start gathering ideas. Here are just a few that help me visualise a world before I work it into a story:
"Just one thing different"
Have you ever looked at something mundane in everyday life or seen something in a TV series and wondered if "What if (whatever it is) was slightly different?". This is a very basic approach to writing where by changing (or omitting) something in real life would have a significant impact on the entire outcome of human history (or maybe nothing at all!).
What would the world be like if there were hundreds of habitable planets within range of our space ships? Would we have met aliens and become a federation? Or maybe there is some astronomical anomaly causing all the planets to slowly crash into each other and eventually wipe out the entire human race? Would there be resource wars over mining rights on these other planets, or would companies occupy whole planets and act like independent governments?
What would happen if the main character in "The Simpsons" was Ned Flanders and not Homer ("The Flanders")? Would the show still be a comedy since Ned lacks the sort of slapstick humour that homer is involved in? How does he go about regular life? Maybe he is secretly an undercover police officer who is stationed to monitor the Simpson family? Could he be a professional hacker stealing money from foreign governments and giving it away to charity (I doubt it but who knows...)?
Wouldn't it be cool if: There are no cars or boats, only HOT AIR BALLOONS! Everyone uses big balloon-powered ships to transport passengers and cargo across the lands and ocean. Battles are fought with War Zeppelins that fight like old ships (with sails and cannons, not ww2). There are large lightning storms everywhere because the experimental gasses used in the balloons accumulates and messes with the nearby clouds. And so on...
"Pick n' Mix"
Apart from modifying pre-existing series or elements of everyday life you can also gather some vital information about your story just by going through an overview of what genre / themes you want to incorporate. Not all Sci-fi books are about exploring space in a grand voyage into the stars and not all romance novels follow the same "love at first sight" cliché. Usually the most unique pieces of writing exploit an underused combination of themes like a romance novel about a super hero and a super villain or a book about being a young woman in the medieval times. Below I will compile a section of genres that you can attempt to mix and match to discover some unique creations:
Genre: Romance, Fantasy (Realistic / High Fantasy / Magic), Sci-Fi (Spacefaring / utopia / dystopia), Horror (Cheesy / Thriller / Gore / "Lovecraftian"), Historical, Action (War, Spy, Revenge), Drama (Teen, Life crisis, Finding Identity), Comedy (Slapstick / obscure / dark humour), Psychological (POV / Reality-breaking) .
Timeline: Past (Pre-history, Early civilization, Middle Ages, Shot & Pike) Present, Future (Near-future, Distant Future), Alternate (War outcomes, World changing events, A character rises to power)
Location: Your homeland, A Foreign Country, An Alien planet, At the core of earth, An ethereal plain consisting of nothing but sentient pineapples.
You can combine two or more of these themes to come up with something really strange or exciting. Be wary not to try a bit of everything as it will either turn into a convoluted mess or will require such a HUGE investment to write that the short story you planned prior sprawls into a ten-thousand epic (something that may scare off some more casual readers!).
On a personal note:
Most of the ideas that I have come up with (and think are rather good) just sprang up out of a random instances while walking around and listening to music. Some intense music could conjure up a battle scene in your head where it would play out like the movies, with the main character slow motion dodging incoming attacks or sprinting along a crumbling wall as a volley of arrows are launched at her.
Another idea came when I was observing the walkway I was strolling across during a visit to a local mangrove. Noticing the way that the large wooden slats were kept in place with huge rivets just made me think about what it would be like on a planet where wood was the only main building resource. Ideas of huge wooden bridges with hundreds of pedestrians crossing over a river, walking above countless wharves lining the banks of the shoreline. Houses built into simple yet sturdy designs hemmed in by picket fences and signposts on every corner.
Needless to say that given enough time and drive, you could make a story from anything: A life of a super intelligent bug, A knight time traveling and becoming a 'MotoGP' champion, A person who knits a house out of yarn, WHO KNOWS!?
Tip 5: Avoiding "Writer's Block"
Every writer gets "Writer's Block": The inability to continue a train of thought or convert your concept into adequate wording for the readers. I would almost go to say that it is IMPOSSIBLE for someone writing to not experience this in any degree.
The real question is: what should someone do to clear this mental blockage and continue writing? In my small time writing a full length novel I've slowly adapted my approach to getting around this predicament that seems to work well enough for me. Lets start with the smaller end of the scale and talk about singular words.
In the case of not knowing a particular synonym or just the right word to put into a line of writing then you can choose to omit it until you clear your mind. Place a marker in the sentence where you want to come back to in future to change. Using something unique can help you find it quickly by employing the "Find" function on most typing programs (Ctrl + F). An example of employing this technique is shown below.
Without technique: "Sally walked up to the king pineapple and furrowed her brows. Beside him lay a bronze..... (???)"
In this segment we see the writer is stumped on what should be beside the pineapple. Should It be a royal sceptre that is carried by the pineapple or should it be something far different such as a bag of copper trinkets that are going melted back into coins for the king's coffers? This is the EXACT moment where someone would halt their pace and think about the object, its viability and repercussions to the story. This is why we use the following technique!
With technique: "Sally walked up to the king pineapple and furrowed her brows. Beside him lay (XXX Bronze object, valuable). The king pineapple did nothing because it was not alive and could not comprehend Sally's actions."
Now by using a UNIQUE marker that can be easily searched using the Ctrl + F function the author may choose to temporarily skip over the word(s) in order to maintain their pace and through processes. By placing it in parenthesis or brackets you can also specify to your future self what you intended at the time (emotions, physical description or synonym for a word). Now with the area marked for future identification and it's overall description you don't need to go back to it unless you make the character interact with said object.
NOTE: Its not a good idea to use this technique on a significant object. Leaving your character's weapon untitled until half way though the book may have it unintentionally become some strange "Frankenstein's monster" of an item: It goes from blocking attacks to being able to fire arrows and help's the main character pogo over castle walls. OMIT THE OMMISABLE!!!
Now that we can skip over words, how do we stop ourselves from running into a wall of unknown halfway through an event or sequence break? Well if you've already come face-to-face with this problem you're pretty much stuffed... It can be slowly worked through at a snail's pace but it also runs into the problem of becoming convoluted or just plain wrong. As in the above note, not planning a reasonable distance ahead of time can mean that you may accidentally rewrite scenes, objects or character personalities over time.
Example: In one of the "Lord of the rings" adaptations some people noticed the SMALLEST things such as a character's horse being the wrong colour between either the source material or another scene in the movie (I can't remember to be honest but it's something along those lines.)
...And this is where my biggest addiction to writing is.... the storyboarding.
I will preface this by saying that it can save you a lot of time BUT... AND I MEAN BUT... DO NOT GO NUTS IN YOUR STORYBOARD! It's fine to plan out the overarching themes or directions that the character take's along their journey but it's all too easy to go off on a wild tangent and make up a huge amount of information that won't be seen in the final story (unless your writing "À la recherche du temps perdu"... There's a reference for you!). Keep it succinct on your first draft, or as 'big business', "Design your 'Minimum Viable Product' on your first draft"
Now what does that all mean? Generally it means that you should ask yourself a set of questions prior to starting a book.
What is my book about?: This is where anyone starts. A book about a man that's half salmon who constructs a ladder to mars? A book discussing why every book (excluding this one) is garbage and their writers are all smelly? Maybe something more intellectual, an entire history of dirt and its applications during the expansion and prevalence of the 'East India Trading Company' in the 18th century.
Whatever it is it needs your initial spark of creativity that ONLY YOU can provide!
A unique story is one that is usually born of pure imagination, and as such is clear to the reader that that's the case. As a case study we can observe the movie industry's stagnation of new, important Intellectual property. In the recent decades the rates of remakes (Ghost in the shell), serialised movie franchises (All the super hero movies) and use of 'popular culture' to make a half-hearted cash grabs (emoji movie... my god, they actually made that...) have only increased due to a lack of good properties.
If you go around this website and other similar groups you may observe some truly expressive pieces that will never make it to the public at large, be it due the writers non-standard style / esoteric methods or themes that aren't 'sought after' by the greater community. HOWEVER this is exactly what is needed to revitalize a new wave of writing and new genres! This is why you should never hide your work from the world! A supportive community like what we have here is the birthplace of all great expressions.
The famous writer Franz Kafka (1884-1924), a Czech insurance claims officer, was hemmed in by the world being unaccepting of his views during his time period. To him the world was an inescapable machine of bureaucracy, rife with unintuitive systems of stalling ones ambitions until they gave up from exhaustion. His short stories of this overbearing society are known world wide due to their deep and individualistic approach to the subject, so far as to have them being called "Kafka-esque". As a writer, this may be the apex of you legacy, to be a new trend setter for time to come.869Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡo4i3RmIBTh
But... this cannot happen if you just follow trends. The path to success is found in the new. I doubt that in this modern day that any stories that rehash the same themes will get the recognition it deserves as a work of literature, usually having it referred to as "It's like star wars but with no aliens." or "It's harry potter if they replaced Voldemort with a anthropomorphic mallet."
In my writings I attempt to avoid any references to other media both directly and indirectly. I personally feel that if a character comments about something involving lets say, star wars again in conversation it feels like a crutch that the writer is leaning on instead of a more individual and nuanced statement. "To kill a mocking bird" or "Moby Dick" are famous not because they could name-drop people from history or by referencing a recent trend but by being completely new; something that's a hallmark of a "Timeless classic".
Tip 6: The public and Opinions
What is there to say about people and opinions... I think it's easiest to know that, yes people will always have opinions and, yes they will try to be as vocal about them when they feel that it's necessary to add their 10 cents to the topic.
The double-edged sword that is accepting criticism is that "When it is bad it will frustrate you but when it is good it might pain you.". That essentially means that when 'Joe Shlub' jumps on your page and mashes his knuckles against his keyboard to fling insults at you, it comes pretty quickly to the writer that the individual's intent is that they can draw some catharsis from knowing you're going to be a bit peeved. This is expected in the game of life, some people find success and give back to the world and some like to sit at their computer and call people "do-do heads" so they can think they're in control of their lives.
The second part of the quote refers to when the comment is provided by someone who is earnestly attempting to resolve an issue or suggest modifications to the work. In the MASS MAJORITY of cases this is what you are looking for when scrolling through the comment section of the page. It sure might be good to have 100 comments saying it was humorous or that they loved 'this or that' about it but functionally this will not help smooth over some areas that lack clarity that people are too afraid to contest.
When you come across them, and you will, there is a balancing act to addressing the problem. On one side of the scale is "Staunch defensiveness", the side of you that thinks that the person is incorrect about their assumption and that you should not heed any of their comment seriously; this is a DANGEROUS way to approach things and I think we have all seen an instance of someone being defiant in this manner. The other side of the scale has "Resigned acceptance". The person who gives way to all criticism is a person who will, before their eyes, lose all the creativity that they had once put on the page but through submission, removed or modified to suit another.
It's up to you, the writer, to balance this. You must be staunch enough to defend the themes / motifs of your work but also yield to the reader when they find sections impossible to read due to use of excessive pronouns or unknown concepts.869Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDjLOj4rIZg
I will use some generic story to represent this in action, the good, the bad and the ugly sides:
"Little Sally broke past the Great Gate of Gorgons, her Hazermam charm bouncing off her chestplate armour. Ahead sixty-seven Forblaxian Gorthos barred the way, each of them carrying a ceremonial Spron, each emblazoned with the icon of the Clothorian Gods "Hermax and Jimmy:". She gasped in despair at the events. She then died."
Now the comment below could be something like:
"I enjoyed this chapter of the work but I couldn't understand a few things about the last chapter. Firstly you said that the 'Gorthos' were 6 foot tall and 8 foot wide but the events take place in a wine cellar. Also you seemed to use the word "each" after a comer twice in succession, was that intentional?"
The writer can do one of many ways on the subject:
A) Deny all wrong doings and claim that the person is being a troll.
"You must not have been paying attention! The Gorthos changed size between the chapters, you had to figure that out without me having to tell you directly!"
B) Agree to change everything that was addressed in the comment.
"Well I can go back to the first reference and change their size to fit the scene if you want. I mean that will force me to change the part where sally rode one into battle but that's ok I guess..."
C) Take on board what the commenter was saying and decide to reduce the misunderstanding my tweaking the segment.
"Oh I didn't notice the thing with the "else's", good eyes on that one. The other thing you addressed should make sense if you go over the part where she gets the shrinking clock; she used it on the Gorthos to ride it earlier and just before increased the size of the cellar. I'm not going to change the scene but I'll re-read it to try and add some clarity if need be."
It's best to view all comments with a grain of salt. Not everyone will like you book, that's a simple fact but when you push aside the extreme fans and the belligerents you can find some gems that will gleam through. It might be something about a word you messed up even after you revised it or a minor continuity error but these are the comments you want at the end of the day!
The simple rule of thumb is "Stick to your guns on themes but understand that what you read in your head might just be a little too unique, to the point where it becomes a foreign language to your readers."
P.S: If you want me to address anything else then leave a comment.
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