Hey Newgrounds. I know Story threads are forbidden and such, but this ain't no story thread. This is a thread for you people who consider themselves "writers", or who like writing stories / scripts / scenarios in order to share them on the internet or in real life.
Some kid made some thread earlier asking about help and ideas for his story. It made me realize SO many people (on Newgrounds, but also everywhere else) ask for help when they want to write something. They need help with ideas. They ask others to give them ideas.
Writing is about creativity. It's about being creative. Writing's all about using your brain to create a masterpiece people will enjoy reading, then ask "MORE, MORE, MOAR!". Writing a successful novel isn't easy. Requires time.
Lucky me, a good friend of mine is a successful writer. French stuff, you wouldn't know him. I write in French too, but just for you, Newgrounds, I'm willing to spend a few thousand bucks and get my shit translated in a perfect English. My story happens in South Carolina anyways, so the translation wouldn't be too bad.
ANYWAYS, if you want to write, there's the stuff you need to know.
First: Dedication and discipline.
If you ain't disciplined, your book, flash project, boat in a bottle, name it, wont progress. The tip my friend told me when I started writing is this one: "When you professionally write, you gotta be disciplined. You gotta be able to write 6 hours in a row before stopping. It has to be your job, your routine. You have to be able to do it every day. Write a certain amount of pages. Write a certain amount of paragraphs, chapters, however you want to function, it can work, as long as you do it."
Well he didn't exactly said those words, but that's what I understood from him.
Second: Know your shit.
If you decided on writing a short, a story, a novel, a dictionary or the god damn Bible, you gotta know what you are writing. Stephen King said he invents his novel as he writes it. Meaning what: he doesn't even know the end of his novel until he wrote it. Oh well, clap clap, you're a fucking genius Stephen (hey it's my name too)! Us lowlifes have to work differently.
Before starting my novel (did I mention that I'm writing a novel right now? no not this post, TL;DR guy...) I already had all my story all planned in my head. From the Prologue to the Epilogue. Of course, I didn't know and I still don't know exactly what I am going to type in every sentences of every paragraphs of every chapters... that's where creativity takes place. But I know the skeleton of my book, and I can work around it.
If you ask random people on the internet for ideas for your story, you should consider quitting. It's okay to ask people you know, people you can trust, people who share the same state of spirit you have, people that understand you. But if you're down asking people on the internet, you probably are just not trying hard enough or don't have the required imagination to write something amazing by yourself.
GRAMMER (some smartass is going to quote that and say "ITS NOT SPELTED GRAMMER LULZ") (Some smartass is going to copy these exact same words, I know, I've been on NG for 10 years)
Then, comes all the syntax, the grammar, the punctuation, the RULES (they love inventing thousands of random grammatical rules in French, it's fun (not)). It's okay, you're a teen. It's okay, you're not the best in English class. No need to use that as an excuse to not do any efforts while writing your text though. No one wants to read a piece of crap full of "what the fuck is that"s. Of course, all your linguistic skills will come with time, again patience, and practise (is that even the good word for this?). See? Even myself I got a terrible English and I've been speaking / writing in English for more than 14 years. It gets better and better though. You just have to try.
Read.
Read. It's one of the best ways to get better at writing. Not saying "copy paste". Read, see the styles different writers use, don't try to copy it, but you can pick your inspiration from them. Read a book, n*gga.
Read what you just wrote.
Finish a paragraph. Read what you just wrote. Re-read it until it's how you want it to be. It's rarely perfect the first time. Sometimes I can spend a good 30 minutes working on one sentence. Yep... Fun times indeed.
Avoid overused shits.
Avoid overused themes. Try finding a revolutionary idea for a story. Good luck ;)
That's what I did, and I believe it's going to work out pretty well.
Here I will answer your questions, help you, guide you, teach you engrish (jk don't ask me that).
My novel should be out in a few months. I still need to finish writing it... but yeah. Discipline, discipline. Sadly I work over 35 hours a week, and so many stuff distracts me from writing. I still find the time to write a minimum of two hours a day. You gotta fix minimum... and limits :)
I KIND OF ASKED ZEROK IF I COULD DO THIS THREAD AND HE SAID YES.
<3 jordy dun ban
I strongly welcome other good writers of Newgrounds (I know you guys, don't worry), to come post in here and give your 10 cents.
Notice:
THIS POST IS IN NO WAY A REQUEST FOR A LITERATURE PORTAL OR A REQUEST FOR A LITERATURE FORUM, IT'S NOT TO PROTEST AGAINST THE NO STORY THREADS IN THE GENERAL SECTION RULE, AND IT'S NOT TO DISCUSS ANY OF THESE SUBJECTS. IT'S NOT EITHER TO POST YOUR STORIES. YOU CAN DO THAT IN YOUR USERPAGE OR IN THE WRITERS' GUILD OR W/E ITS CALLED. It's rather here to discuss writing skills, and such things I mentioned earlier. Hopefully people will find this post useful and I will not have wasted 40 minutes in vain. :(
More stuff will add up, feel free to ask questions, I'll answer them on a daily basis.
Thanks.
