bborps

What I mean is, will writing really badly written and/or thought out essays build bad habits that will be a roadblock in the future?
Right now I'm torn between sitting down and writing a novella, or waiting until I learn more about the novel writing process. I'm fairly new to story writing/building and am about 100% sure that everything I churn out will be shit.

Should I push truckload after truckload of garbage from my head in the hopes that I will get better, or should I wait until I understand the basics like how to build good storylines and things like how to structure character to character conversation in written word?
How did you guys/gals 's learn to write well? What steps did you take and what would you say helped you out the most?

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Katastrof

Write. Read. Learn.

You can't learn without making mistakes and you can't learn without knowing how to fix them.

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Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you are a mile away from them, and you have their shoes."
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bborps

I know your right, but I just can't stand writing thousands of words while full well knowing that its all going into the garbage can when I'm done.
Maybe I'm just really lazy... did you ever feel this way when you were a newbie?

I really want to be a writer - I have so many stories to tell and worlds to let loose - but this feeling of everything I write being useless is a real motivation killer.

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Foxee

You're asking for the equivalent of becoming an Olympic athlete by reading some DIY books about your sport.

Read the theory and apply it which will mean churning out some garbage or else do nothing but read the theory THEN write some garbage...there really isn't a good way to work around this. You have to write to learn what works.

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Katastrof

Haha, I still am a newbie. I've been writing seriously for only a couple months now. Before that it was all sitting down, writing something, then thinking it was garbage and never getting back to it. (Well it wasn't great but it didn't deserve to be thrown away)

I know what you're feeling, you think you'll never be successful. And your right if you think that way. The key thing to do is to just write without trying to make it a masterpiece. That doesn't mean your story has to be crap; that's what edits and rewrites are for. But it means that sometimes, you won't spit out the next great novel; you might not even spit out something that is worth being called a novel.

But it's practice and practice makes perfect (well not perfect but it'll make you better...alot better.).

Oh and if you think a novel might be a waste of words, try a short story. Ya its not the same thing but its close.

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Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you are a mile away from them, and you have their shoes."
~ Frieda Norris

rumpole40k

Stop worrying about how it will turn out. Step 1 - write for the sake of writing. You have all those stories to tell, get them out of your head and on to some paper. As Katastrof said "Write. Read. Learn." Those people that consistently write, evolve with each piece that they finish. Sit down, get your thoughts out, post them, let your stomach churn as you wait for the inevitable critique, and improve. Over time you will get better.

Rumpole40k

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bborps

dammit your right. This is actually quite the motivational post, I've been wallowing in my own self pity for the past month or so beginning novellas and then quitting at 5000 words. Looking back I guess this was a fairly asinine question...


Thanks a lot for this post, it was exactly what I needed to hear.
I'm going to start writing now, thanks for all the help

It would still be great to get other people's responses to the questions in my topic post -- Its always frugal to have many opinions present.
Thanks again.


EDIT:
A big thing that always holds me back from doing that is the knowledge that once I flesh out these stories from my head, I won't want anything more to do with them.
In other words, if I write them now they'll be really shoddily pieced together and I won't want to rewrite them once I actually become adept at writing.

Like most of the things I've said in this thread, this idea sounds pretty idiotic when written down

Thanks for the comment

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Foxee

Short stories are great discipline. You get fewer words to work with so you have to hone your writing and cut the fat, recast things to say exactly what you mean, skip to the chase. Flash fiction is good exercise, too.

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winner

mmm

winner

Mike C

Ray Bradbury said you have to write a million words of shit before you get to the good stuff. Just write.

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Rob Almaraz

I think it is a natural progression for writers to tackle the essay and short story first before attempting the novel. There is no written law about how to be a successful writer, but your learning curve may kick in faster with shorter works.

Try to identify the parts of a story that appeal to you as well as what has to be there. Short stories force you to say only what is necessary. If you can build a tone and tell a story in a few words, the chances are much better that you can captivate a reader over an extended form. Think of yourself as a construction worker and a contracter. The contracter in you has to know the elements of the structure you are going to put together. The builder is the one who actually hammers the nails. The fun about writing is that you get to create the labyrinth as well as build it.

There were many times during the course of my first novel where I had to read hundreds of pages of text to write a few pages, and I wrote three to five different versions of passages that ended up not being used. Writing crap, or writing something that almost works just takes you to the next phase of completed work. Sometimes it stinks to work so hard, but then you read that passage that makes you feel proud and it is all worth it.

Writing is a lot more work than it is fun, but if it isn't fun at all for you then there is always Investment Banking.

Sam Winchester

If you think it's garbage, it will invariably turn out to be garbage. But you've got to suffer through the garbage and write. That's what rough drafts are for. You can always chop and change it later on. Quit procrastinating and get on with it. The more you sit at your keyboard feeling sorry for yourself, the more time you are wasting not writing.

The way I learned to write? Do you want the obvious answer? I wrote. I picked up a pen and a piece of paper, and I wrote. The long drawn out version? I was watching a movie, and I wanted to MAKE a movie, and I checked a few websites, threw together a few rough scripts, and learned that making a movie was an expensive hobby. Then I thought, 'what about a novel?' And I started writing it. It took me two years to complete, but it was the proudest moment of my life. Until I realised that it was a very poorly constructed novel. So I went and bought a bucketload of books on my favourite genre, and I read them like a man possessed. I studied the way sentences were constructed, looked up the words I didn't know to broaden my vocabulary, and noted the style of writing of some of the greats like Tom Clancy and Frederick Forsyth. I copied this style in my next novel, which only took me a year and two months to write. And then I finished my third one eight months after that. And now, ten months on, I'm about to finish my fourth. I don't know if this helps, but the point I'm making is that your writing will invariably be bad. But that's what forums like this are far. Post some of it, and we'll all point out your mistakes and where you could have wrote something better or in less words.

Just get writing.

Hope this helps. Sam.

jacobworld

I recon you should write and learn and let people read it
Peole will give u advice

Vee

I find this to be a false analogy. The only time you ever hear of most Olympic athletes is when the Olympics actually rolls around. The space between Olympics you never hear of them.

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