I recently started reading Larry Brooks' Story Engineering. So far I'm finding it useful. Have you read it? If so what did you think?
I'm also interested in reading more books about writing. Or other resources. One that focuses on short stories would be nice since that's what I'm working on now.
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Ok. I don't want to be a dick. But one of the faults of our world is that people can say whatever they want without god killing them, mostly (maybe not a fault, leaves it up to us to correct lies).
Someone saying something in front of a crowd of thousands doesn't make whatever they said true. Neither does saying it in the form of a pretty poem. Neither does writing it in a really well-designed, cool book that you can get for cheap on Amazon.
Do you catch my drift? The idea of "six core competencies for writing" may be reassuring to you, but it's fucking bullshit. Writing isn't math. It's not physics. It's not the case that if you forget to carry the one, the challenger disaster will happen. Mostly likely nothing will fucking happen.
I understand that you want guidance, but you shouldn't go to fucking self help books. Go to the greatest of the greats and read and understand what they wrote (if you dare) and try to understand how they did it (sometimes, the more recent ones describe their process). Otherwise your own good nature is just fucking you in the ass.
Ok. Thanks
And I say good nature because you're acting as if we live in a pure world where the laws of literature are as inflexible and as teachable as the laws of physics. You BLASTED POLYANNA!!!
New Oxford Guide to Writing is all you need.
I get what you're saying. I'm not reading his book as immutable law, but as an amateur writer I find it helpful in it's analysis of what makes stories (at least some of them) work.
I have read many of the greats, but sometimes it's difficult to pick out exactly what makes them great. If a novice tried imitating the greats, he'd be writing shit. Shit that tries to imitate greatness, but still shit.
I'm not looking for a rigid structure to writing. I merely want advice to help me think about character, plot, them, etc. in more advanced ways. Maybe Story Engineering was a poor choice, but it was free and seemed okay. Even so, I have learned about developing characters and conflict from it.
If you have any suggestions about what to read, be it writing advice books or novels, I would love to here your thoughts.
>New Oxford Guide to Writing
At first I thought it was just a style guide and I don't really need another one of those, but after reading up on it, this book looks like it could be helpful. Thanks!
Eh. It's very 1972 so the topical bits were dated before it even hit the printing press, but all the basics are there and pretty well organized at that. Long out of print but not hard to find a good reading copy. Couldn't hurt, even if you're not necessarily headed for the genre fiction ghetto.
I'll have to check it out. Thanks.
Thanks user. Just picked up a copy from eBay for $20.
Can anyone help me with characterisation?
I suck at writing characters. So far I've been trying a formula of taking a cliché character (deep southern pious Christian) and inverting a key characteristic, e.g. making them gay. But all it does is create meme characters. And I really struggle to create their "voices".
Anyone else have this problem?
I agree, very comprehensive
>formula of taking a cliché
Garbage in, garbage out. There is no formula. You have to put some work into it. Spend some time figuring out who the person is before even putting pen to paper. What does he like and dislike? What was his childhood like? Who does he hang with and what do they talk about when they have nothing to do? What weird things happened to him that are seared in his memory? Get to know this person like a friend or colleague or something. Then maybe you will be ready to work him into a story.
Tl,Dr: Think before you write
It's their voice I struggle with. I'm screenwriting and I just can't envision these people as anything other than rehashes of characters I've seen before, with slight changes.
Holy shit, creative writing losers will never recover from this
Start with voices and create the character from there.
Have someone say something thats interesting to you then think about what sort of person and what life he's had would lead him to say it
>I just can't envision these people
Yes, you can, if you just invest enough time and energy to do that part of the job properly.
Sure, you're in a hurry (aren't we all), and maybe you think you don't have time for that, but you're wrong. Empty, cardboard characters will spout empty, useless dialogue every time. You'll waste a lot of time struggling with that until you fix the root problem. Spend that time instead building in your mind a whole persona, warts and all; someone whom you know as well as the real people around you. Take notes if you need to. You don't need to actually write out their resume and their diary, but if you don't know them well enough to do that for them, then you won't be able to make them speak in a way that feels natural and can move your story along at the same time. Do this for all your characters before you write and I think you'll find it a LOT easier to get them talking to each other. Don't be lazy, man.
I know it was shit on earlier in this thread, but Story Engineering does have a pretty good section about character development. If you can find a copy I'd recommend checking it out. But like was mentioned earlier, you might want to ignore some of his more rigid guidelines.
Any advice when it comes to making an actual plot for a story, or in this situation, a short story?
I can write descriptions of things quite well, but when it comes to writing story and plot, I just become blank and any creativity that exists in me seems to disappear.
What is prose?
What is the difference between prose and sentences? And what does it mean to have a certain style of prose?
Copywork short stories mate. That's what I'm doing right now. That's how Donald Ray Pollock learned the craft working at a Mill most of his life typing out short stories of the greats.
Here's a good tip for you: If you're reading something telling you how you should write, by someone who has not written anything good, it's probably shit (all books like pic related are this).
Just write, read, and figure out what works. If you have any talent as a writer, it'll come to you. All of the classic writers did not sit around reading Stephen Kings guide to writing, or going to creative writing classes--they read, and wrote.
Try writing some nonfiction instead. Hone your skills that way and maybe you'll be ready to write fiction once life has thrown enough shit your way to give you some stories to tell. Tried and true method.
>none of the classic writers read Aristotle's poetics
