Do you write stories?
- Thread starter Lee
- 351 comments
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- 1,737
- Massachusetts
- Ettick_
I have taken a few creative writing courses at college so far and found out that I love writing fiction through them. I write slowly and little, though. I also have a problem with conveying what is happening in the story to the reader because I have a tendency to withhold too much information and not know what to include.
- 44
- Wisconsin
'Voice' is a fascinating subject . . . oboy, we could burn the midnight candles over that one.
And one I find endlessly fascinating. There's so much conflicting information on it, and it gets confused with the character's voice so easily... some authors claim you'll just wake up one day and have developed it. I've yet to have this happen.
Terrible joke on my part.
Man, I really need to buckle down & write....
- 15,405
- TRAPPIST-1g
- ProjectWHaT
I've wanted to write stories, but I never find the time to sit down and write. Last year, I tried writing a book with a friend. We were going to take turns writing chapters and such but she got lazy and I got lazy and it sort of died.
- 7,436
- Canada
- photonrider
Terrible joke on my part.
Not at all.
👍If we were conversing IRL we may have been laughing uproariously at whatever we could imagine about the scenario, since our imaginations about such a reality may have been only a parody of the real thing.
But this is what writers are all about.
The 'what if?' that writers apply to every situation in their lives.
Writers absorb everything about them; everything becomes a pattern that is cataloged and affixed to their library of concepts, like building blocks set on shelves to be shuffled and used. The building blocks are real - the designs are imaginary. The more building blocks, the more complex the designs. And then the more complex the 'what if?s'.
Take a look at this thread:
https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/threads/your-zombie-apocalypse-kit.331210/
Here are all the characters in place, an environment created, and even all the props in place.
All one needs is to stitch the story together.
Who is the leader? Who is in love with whom? Who can't get along with most of the others? What calamity are they facing? Can they trust each other? Who dies, who lives?
And then . . . what if . . . what if . . . . what . . . if.. . .?
Writers are not people who just write.
Everybody has to write and they better learn to read too if they have to survive a communication-oriented world.
Writers imagine.
Just like scientists, and seekers of what lies beyond perception, they apply 'what if? to everything.
Writers imagine stuff that scientists eventually find a way to make and make the 'what if?' turn into reality. The design turned into new blocks.
Which is why Life imitates Art.
Writers never write for money or fame - they leave that to the jetstream of literati that flow endlessly through life writing this or that for such an end result.
Writers scrawl something on a wall, and a passerby's life is changed forever.
- 2,007
- Los Angeles
- GTP_DrivingPark
- Finetales
- 30,066
- Thailand
- 2,308
- United States
- monkeylima
I'm not much of a story writer but, here's a poem I threw together for English class last year. (Some of the references are vague.)
The Silver Arrow
It flies but, it never leaves the ground
It will never touch a cloud
It’s propelled by its heart’s cry
But it uses its feet to fly
It can’t speak but you can hear it sing-
When it soars around the ring
It has conquered the world thrice
It continues because nothing will suffice
Flips and flights nearly grounded it
But like a survivor it refused to quit
No one believed that it would replace the train
The Silver Arrow was a little insane
It was the first in the game
And the world would never be the same
Its flight bound no more
Evolution is in its very core
Direct is its breath
The Silver Arrow strives to stop death
It can fly around a track or explore the land
It is the antithesis of bland
And whether piloted by a Joe or a legend
The Silver Arrow gracefully flows around every bend
And though it has never made a single law
Make no mistake the Silver Arrow rules over all
The Silver Arrow
It flies but, it never leaves the ground
It will never touch a cloud
It’s propelled by its heart’s cry
But it uses its feet to fly
It can’t speak but you can hear it sing-
When it soars around the ring
It has conquered the world thrice
It continues because nothing will suffice
Flips and flights nearly grounded it
But like a survivor it refused to quit
No one believed that it would replace the train
The Silver Arrow was a little insane
It was the first in the game
And the world would never be the same
Its flight bound no more
Evolution is in its very core
Direct is its breath
The Silver Arrow strives to stop death
It can fly around a track or explore the land
It is the antithesis of bland
And whether piloted by a Joe or a legend
The Silver Arrow gracefully flows around every bend
And though it has never made a single law
Make no mistake the Silver Arrow rules over all
- 44
- Wisconsin
Not at all.
If we were conversing IRL we may have been laughing uproariously at whatever we could imagine about the scenario, since our imaginations about such a reality may have been only a parody of the real thing.
But this is what writers are all about.
The 'what if?' that writers apply to every situation in their lives.
----
Writers scrawl something on a wall, and a passerby's life is changed forever.
I don't know, my humor doesn't come across well in person either.
I think you've defined writing very well, especially the last bit. Changing another through writing is the sign of a truly good author. Some of the authors I love the most, while not the most technically good have moved my heart or made me think in a way that flavors my memories of their work so that I often return to them. I know they'll touch me, so I'm very quick to pick up their new work.
I love exploring 'what ifs' in my own writing, although I tend to be too kind to my characters.
I think the 'what if' is part of what fuels to urge to write, curiosity and a need to know!
- 7,436
- Canada
- photonrider
My apologies for getting lost in the wilderness of RL again - rude of me to plunge so deeply into a discussion and then fade away like a half-read book. I need to respond to all the comments above at length (does poetry have rules/is Frodo actually alive?/how do we impact the world as writers . . .) and promise to do so this weekend. It's a 'long' weekend over here!
Meanwhile, writers, here is something that you will read, reread, and with which you may suitably short-circuit all available neurons:
http://www.archipelago.org/vol3-1/holst.htm
Meanwhile, writers, here is something that you will read, reread, and with which you may suitably short-circuit all available neurons:
http://www.archipelago.org/vol3-1/holst.htm
- 2,726
- England
- ECGadget
- Eh???
Not exactly sure what I read... xD
But thanks for that!
Recently I have tried to get my hand back into writing (not fanfiction). I doubt I will get very far but I did buy a new pen for it...
I haven't processed it on word yet xD
- 5,905
- West Yorkshire
- Katiegan
- KatieB53
I've tried to write a fair few stories in my time, but I never finished them and always lost interest. English has always been my strong point, it was really the only subject I was good at during school. It's been a while since I started writing something, maybe 2 years now, but I'm currently drafting ideas for another story I'd like to write. I'm taking my time on this one though, I think rushing in with so many ideas and then not really knowing how to put them down was what caused me to stop writing my previous stories.
Maybe I'll have to keep posting updates in here so you all make sure I'm staying on track.
Maybe I'll have to keep posting updates in here so you all make sure I'm staying on track.
- 5,905
- West Yorkshire
- Katiegan
- KatieB53
...I'm the complete opposite.
Sounds like me and maths. I still have no idea how I managed to pass that.
The only stories I've ever finished were written for school work, and even then I often ended up not finishing those! I was bad at making deadlines for things like that since I always had a bunch of big and complex ideas and I'd get carried away, and then I'd get myself stuck where I couldn't just finish the story.
- 2,726
- England
- ECGadget
- Eh???
Well, whenever I have a lack of ideas I think about things I am good at (and bad at) and then start by basing characters around that. Then I come up with a climax situation and work out how I want that to end. Once I have the end I sort of work backwards until I have a rough idea ^^
- 5,905
- West Yorkshire
- Katiegan
- KatieB53
I almost always get inspired by other books (although I hardly read these days), films, or video games. The whole reason I came up with this story I'm starting to write now is because of Battlefield Hardline, which the plot is heavily based on.
- 6,963
- South Africa
...Getting inspirations from other sources always works for me. Everything from TV commercials to manga to some people shopping at the mall can be a source of that light bulb moment.
Usually, talking to people from all walks of life helps a lot too - nothing beats real thing, you see.
Usually, talking to people from all walks of life helps a lot too - nothing beats real thing, you see.
- 7,175
- Jakarta
Right now i have 3 stories in my head, a detective went violent after a violent turn of events, a post apocalyptic story based in Mad Max universe and an original NFS story that could crossover with FnF just for the lulz. For some reason i can't write my ideas off my head even though i have a clear story and how the events happened in my head, i just can't seem to write it.
- 7,436
- Canada
- photonrider
Tell the story.
Storytelling came long, long before the writing on the wall, or to be more specific, before the cuneiform hit the clay.
Telling the story is a lot easier than recording it.
Tell the story to yourself, find someone and tell them the story, act it out, say the words, show the emotions. All you need is one person as an audience to be a storyteller.
Then write it down, bits and pieces. The start. The end. A conversation. A violent scene, a tragic scene, a scene that would bring tears to your own eyes. If you don't cry, your audience ain't gonna cry.
After awhile the story comes alive in your mind and you can't help capturing it, every word, every sound, every smell and whiff of wind in the tale as you stitch it together and it comes out as a whole story, beginning, middle and end.
Then out comes the clay tablet. Or some current version of it.
Then you write.
Storytelling came long, long before the writing on the wall, or to be more specific, before the cuneiform hit the clay.
Telling the story is a lot easier than recording it.
Tell the story to yourself, find someone and tell them the story, act it out, say the words, show the emotions. All you need is one person as an audience to be a storyteller.
Then write it down, bits and pieces. The start. The end. A conversation. A violent scene, a tragic scene, a scene that would bring tears to your own eyes. If you don't cry, your audience ain't gonna cry.
After awhile the story comes alive in your mind and you can't help capturing it, every word, every sound, every smell and whiff of wind in the tale as you stitch it together and it comes out as a whole story, beginning, middle and end.
Then out comes the clay tablet. Or some current version of it.
Then you write.
- 44
- Wisconsin
It helps, if you struggle to finish stories, to know the ending early on so you have somewhere to aim for. Although, I'll often reach what I thought would be the end, and then the story goes on a bit further to a bigger ending. That's just me. But if I don't know where it will end, it's both hard to find the motivation to push through the difficult bits, and hard to tell if I'm building enough and in the right direction. With a short story, it isn't as important. But for a novel it's easy to get off the path you wanted.
- 6,963
- South Africa
The problem might be because i viewed my story as some form of TV series. That makes it hard to write the ending
...Easy ending for the violent detective story: he dies at the end.
...Easy ending for the Mad Max inspired story: MC dies at the end.
...Easy ending for the NFS meets FnF story: Everyone freakin' dies in a fiery car crash!!!!!!
- 7,175
- Jakarta
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