Writer's Fallout Shelter

         Right, this may be a bit long, so I hope you don’t have a problem with reading long ‘posts’. I will, however, try and break it all up so you don’t get overloaded. If some of these points have been raised by others previously, I apologise, but hopefully you’ll still get something from a different perspective. Also, as I’m not really sure what you do and don’t know, I’ve covered all of the basics. Well, tried to. The stuff you feel you know, just ignore.

    First things first. Someone gave you the advice to read ‘well written books’. Can’t argue with that, but I can add to it. Read bad books. Even better, read terrible books. Why? How do you know what doesn’t work if you never read something that failed or failed miserably? As writers, we improve in our craft by writing and by reading the works of our peers. So first and foremost you want to read as often as you possibly can and as much as you can, to gain insight into good and bad stories.

    Next, find your Voice. Every person has their own ‘style’ in which they write best. We call this the author’s Voice because no matter what they write -- be it fantasy, sci-fi, an essay or some other form of prose -- their personality always comes through in their writing. Unfortunately this is not the sort of thing one can find hiding under a rock. It can be found only through what amounts to trial and error. So, write. A lot. It doesn’t have to be long pieces, it doesn’t have to be particularly interesting pieces. But write nonetheless. As you do, you’ll ‘learn’ or ‘discover’ your Voice; namely, what works for you, what flows most naturally and what is most comfortable.

    So you’ve found your Voice -- Huzzah! -- and you’ve read a literal ton of books -- the good, the bad and the oh-so-horrendously-ugly -- and you’re moving on to what you term the ‘nuts and bolts’ of a story. As another poster stated, volumes could be written on this and still the subjected wouldn’t be exhausted. But I’ll try pen some of my own observations -- though I may prove unsuccessful, so be forewarned.

    Each story is a… universe. A world of its own. It, therefore, has its own rules and regulations. Now, I pray you are not afflicted with the dreaded ‘Grammaritis’, for it is a terrible scourge that can, and has, destroyed many a creative tale. While our language, written and oral, has specific rules we call ‘grammar’, many of these rules are flexible. Don’t misunderstand; there are things that cannot be ignored or bent. For instance, all sentences start with a Capital and all sentences end with a period. Somewhere in-between, you’re likely to have one of these fellows : , ; … -- .

    All of them have their own uses, and it’s a good idea to learn them, but in the end, how you formulate a sentence is up to you. For instance; I have just used a semicolon -- hopefully -- in the proper context, followed by what ever those little dashes are, and then a couple of commas. The ‘hopefully’ could have been surrounded by commas instead of dashes and the second comma is not ‘necessary’. It is, as a teacher of mine once told me, a matter of style. Hence why even some of our most accomplished of brethren make what can only be termed ‘amateurish grammatical errors’, and yet are still high paid novelists. So don’t sweat the details of ‘language.’ Worry about the story first, and the ‘rules’ second.

    Having written all that, there is one rule that, above all, you must never break. Consistency. Many rules in grammar may be broken upon a whim. But upon doing so, you lock yourself into that pattern for the remainder of that story. A reader can forgive a great many things if it occurs frequently. If you consistently ‘misspell’ colour without a ‘u’, then continue to do so throughout. If you spell ‘civilization’ as the British do, with an ‘s’ instead of a ‘z’, then do not stop. Whether consciously or unconsciously, the reader will better enjoy your reading if you maintain a single style throughout.

    A story can best be summed up in two, preferably one, well written sentence. If you cannot do this, that story is not yet ready to be written. Why? You don’t know what it’s about, yet. Now, of course, you can choose to begin writing and hope inspiration strikes. Lord knows, I’ve done it myself as have many others. But I have found that the best stories I have written have always been ones where I know the plot line’s goal before I ever pen the first word.

    While not an aspect of ‘storytelling’ per se, Format is a part of writing. By this I mean the manner in which you ‘set up’ your story. Now, there are many such styles, and who am I to proclaim a single one more important or ‘right’ than another? But my own personal choice is one followed by most, if not all, of the writers I read. That being, when a new character in your story speaks, you hit enter -- or ‘carriage return’ for those ‘less modern’ types amongst us -- dropping the story to a new line and write or type what the individual has to say. I also like to give four to five ‘spaces’ before doing so. An example:

    “Hi, John,” Sally said.
    “Hey, Sally. How’s it going?” John replied.

    Moving along we come to what I term ‘Flow’. Perhaps this has a fancier name, but I couldn’t be bothered to dream one up, nor do I feel like pushing shift-F7 to locate my thesaurus. Quite simply, this is how the story ‘flows’ (Creative, isn’t it?). The primary purpose of any work of fiction is escapism. As an author, we spin tales of magic and sorcery, of science gone wrong, and explorations gone mad. We write of spies and assassins, of heroes both super and mundane. We inspire the imagination of others as well as our own. And we use words to do it. The prime sin an author can commit is to break that flow. To make the reader feel as though they are reading a book, rather than experiencing it.

    How do we avoid that? Well, consistency plays a roll here, but other things can have a greater effect. Spelling errors break the flow, as well as grammar. But, as I’ve already said, that second one isn’t as big a deal as your English teachers back in high school made it out to be. What breaks the Flow most often is language. And I’m not just referring to ‘swearing’ or ‘cursing’. I mean language in general. English has a bazillion different ways of saying things, but they don’t always mean the same thing. Let’s take the word ‘big’ and use one of its ‘synonyms’ as an example. Colossal.

    What’s the problem? Colossal doesn‘t just mean ‘big‘. It means impressively so. As in, it stuns you for a moment, takes your breath a way and leaves you flabbergasted. But we use it to mean the same thing. Choose your words carefully and beware their connotations. Never substitute a ‘larger’ word when a smaller one will do. Learn what a word actually means before you use it. Otherwise you can give the reader a moment of confusion when you misuse a word because you just picked the one with the most syllables out of the thesaurus, rather than the best one.

    Someone mentioned ‘details’. A fine point, but a dangerous one, to boot. Some people like details, some do not. Myself, I like a balance. I have good imagination and I like exercising it as often as I can. Details can give you a clear picture of what is happening in the story, but they can also ‘lock’ you into one picture. You always want to leave a little bit of room for the reader’s own imagination to ‘fill in the blanks’. Least, that’s what I’ve found works best for me.

    Now, POV and tense are elements of ‘flow’ and vital to the storytelling process. POV would be the perspective you right from. They are first person, second and third. You also have the plurals of each, such as ‘we’ and ‘they’. I don’t think I have ever found a story that works with the second person, be it singular or plural. This would be the ’you’ POV. As in, ’you move to the right, dodging the man’s attack and follow up with a devastating uppercut.’ Somehow the stories always feel awkward and possibly even amateurish, at times. I would recommend avoiding this POV as often as possible, but if you think you can make it work, go for it.

    First person singular would be ‘I’ and first person plural would be ‘we’. For novel writing, I also advise you avoid the first person plural. Like second person, it often feels awkward and doesn’t always work. First person is a tricky little critter that I like when it is done in the past tense, but I dislike in the extreme when it is done in the present. But more on that in a moment.

    My personal favourite would be the third person. This is where you’re an outside observer. Within that you have the limited and omniscient perspectives. Limited is where you follow a single character, but do it from a narrative standpoint. Omniscient would be where you ‘hear’ the thoughts of everyone involved and don’t necessarily follow any one single character.

    Tense is one of those areas that can 'mess' with the Flow most often. Technically we have three. Past, present and future. I have yet to encounter a story written in the future tense. I’m not even sure how you could go about writing in it. Myself, I tend to stick to past tense. Present tense can be done, but I don’t usually enjoy the stories very much, particularly first person present. Again, whatever it is you choose, stick with it. Don’t change tenses half way through a story and never part way through a sentence. They will lose your reader incredibly quickly.

    Finally, get yourself a friend you trust and who also likes/loves reading. Let’s face it; those of us on this site aren’t your friends and we don’t ‘care’ about your writing. Sure, we’ll critique it and we’ll tell you what we think, but we aren’t hovering about your profile, salivating at the thought of your next piece of work. So, get yourself a friend who you trust to be honest. Someone who isn’t afraid of saying, “Dude/Dudette, this sucks.” The key, of course, is to find someone who can also tell you what they don’t like and possibly even offer some suggestions. With a friend like that, you can get feedback far quicker than you otherwise would on here. Not that this community is bad, it’s just that, as I said, we aren’t your friends and your work is not our primary interest.

    That just covers the basics. There are a hundred other things, but I don’t really have the time to write them all down and I don’t think you’d appreciate a novel as a response to your post. As it is, this is kinda long. But I’ll have a look at some of your work, give you some critiques and offer advice as I do. Most of the advice already given by others is an excellent springboard to launch investigations of your own. The list of literary devices and such provided by Lori Basiewicz in message #1373377 is a good place to start.

Cheers,
- Talanis

"There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are."

- W. Somerset Maugham

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