Forum: Author Hangout

Basic Story Writing Techniques

Eddie Davidson 🚫
Updated:

When I was first starting out writing someone told me that my stories were terrible. It really discouraged me from writing.

I am glad that I did not listen to them and kept writing anyway. I am hopeful I have contributed to the body of writing on SOL and entertained people.

I do not want to ever make new authors feel the same way I did.

Recently, I have seen two new(ish) authors post what appear to be incomprehensible word salad. It was a jumble of ideas and dialogue with no connection to the preceding paragraph. There were very complex compound sentences;

We did (this thing) but we wanted to do (that thing) and (this other thing) but we never realized why we did (that thing) although it was nice when we did it.

I am not saying I have perfect grammar. I have several bad habits as an author that I am trying to improve. I did however find it so painful to read one of the stories that I felt compelled to stop.

In one example, the author created a very complex and unique world for their story. I know at one point he described a robot with a small penis.

I was once told that when writing fantasy the reader will suspend disbelief if you create a world that is consistent. As an example, if you have elves who do magic the reader won't balk at talking trees who protect the forests. If you were writing James Bond or the script of a Seinfeld episode they most likely would.

The author has an obligation to inform the reader of the sights, sounds, smells and reasons for things to be the way they are in such fantastic settings.

This story had none of this. Two people are simply discussing a rogue robot with a small penis. (At least, that is what I think was happening). The story was largely incomprehensible.

The author mentioned that they needed an "editor".

An editor can not fix what is wrong with this story without simply rewriting it for the author. There are fundamental story telling and grammatical issues with it. It would be easier to get an army of monkeys to type at typewriters for 1,000 years to get a comprehensible story.

I mention all of this because what I think this author needs is a basic story writing course and essential grammar. Even MS Word and Grammarly cannot fix a jumble. A beginner's "Boot Camp" of sorts.

I did a little Google searching and I could not find anything that really stood out. It isn't that there aren't any resources. Quite the contrary, there are so many it is hard to find a concise resource to get someone started writing on SOL.

I am looking for online (preferably free) alternatives to send to a new writer seeking help. Would you suggest a book, website, article, that may have helped you?

Replies: bk69 The Outsider graybyrd

bk69 🚫

@Eddie Davidson

It's definitely genre-specific as it's written (although more broadly applicable if you think a bit) but David Eddings (I think with the help of his wife) wrote a pretty good book on writing.
Stephen King also has written a lot about writing in various places. (I think my favorite piece of advice from him is on "how to write for a living" - step 1 is marry someone who can support you.)

The Outsider 🚫

@Eddie Davidson

As with bk69 above, I'll recommend a famous writer's advice. David Morrell (author of Rambo: First Blood and others) has a short 218-page book entitled "The Successful Novelist" which my editor Graybyrd had me read as I was writing my second story. Reading that led to the change in style which is apparent to me from my first story to the second.

As you pointed out though, the editor can't do the writing for you. Gray pointed that out to me early in our collaboration on my first, which encouraged me to improve also.

Eddie Davidson 🚫

I think there should be some sort of guide to help people that are going to write online fiction for a site like ours.

I don't think Stephen King is operating at the same level we are. The format of our stories is different. The content of our stories is often very different. I think especially writing erotic fiction there can be a lot of differences or unique exceptions to the rules.

It would be nice to help someone become a better author. My guess is that 80% of the grammatical mistakes are created by missing 20% of the rules. just understanding the more common ones would improve this person's writing exponentially.

The other part is just how to write a compelling short story set in a unique universe.

Thanks for your input

Replies: awnlee jawking Mushroom

awnlee jawking 🚫

@Eddie Davidson

I think there should be some sort of guide to help people that are going to write online fiction for a site like ours.

There are a number of writing guides on this site itself. Click the authors/editors link and head down the page. IMO some are very good, some are a bit iffy too :-(

AJ

Mushroom 🚫

@Eddie Davidson

I don't think Stephen King is operating at the same level we are. The format of our stories is different. The content of our stories is often very different.

Don't be so sure. King has some pretty disturbing and sexual passages in his writings (especially when he was almost living on nose candy).

Like one of his major characters being raped anally with a pistol as he was forced to give oral sex. Or a teen girl who got off on trying to masturbate a boy and make him ejaculate in his pants in a short period where he took a break to let her. Knowing that there was a chance he could be killed for allowing her to do it.

Of course, there is always the infamous "pubescent gangbang" scene. Where 6 boys all take turns with one girl so they can leave a nightmare realm.

You can often tell those who have seen the movies based on his work, as opposed to those who have read the original books. There are a lot of people who refuse to ever read "The Library Policeman" more than once.

Ernest Bywater 🚫

apart from the school and college 'How to write' class guides the best I can think of being available is free from Bookapy:

https://bookapy.com/s/8/fiction-writing-and-style-guide

Eddie Davidson 🚫

Thanks Ernest. I will check it out myself as well

Eddie Davidson 🚫
Updated:

There are a number of writing guides on this site itself. Click the authors/editors link and head down the page. IMO some are very good, some are a bit iffy too :-(

That's why I literally said there are way too MANY guides and I was looking for help finding the best one(s) that could gel down for someone quickly what they need.

Reading 6 hours of "How to write about the Hymen" won't help these authors. It also won't help to lasso the entire internet and say "Go look here".

They need more basic concepts of story writing and grammar. A single source might be useful. That's why I am going to look at Ernest's guide myself.

Replies: awnlee jawking

awnlee jawking 🚫

@Eddie Davidson

You should be able to judge from the titles how general or particular they are. I expected Ernest's guide to be amongst them but I was mistaken.

Reading 6 hours of "How to write about the Hymen" won't help these authors.

Judging by the stories I've read on SOL, over 50% of authors have never seen a hymen and have little idea where to find one. Perhaps that guide should be a mandatory read! If it took you 6 hours to read it, I can understand your trepidation at trying to read all the guides.

AJ

Replies: bk69 Ernest Bywater

bk69 🚫

@awnlee jawking

It could have taken six hours to get the image to show, depending on where he was trying to view it and how skilled (and assholish) the IT guys at said location were. Many workplaces wouldn't want that photo being displayed.

Replies: awnlee jawking

awnlee jawking 🚫

@bk69

SOL is on my local public library's blacklist, presumably because of its adult content.

AJ

Ernest Bywater 🚫

@awnlee jawking

I expected Ernest's guide to be amongst them but I was mistaken.

That was a decision made by Lazeez, although he does have the original version of how to use HTML on SoL part of it.

graybyrd 🚫

@Eddie Davidson

I am looking for online (preferably free) alternatives to send to a new writer seeking help. Would you suggest a book, website, article, that may have helped you?

Sorry. To my knowledge, there isn't any book, website, or article that can help a new writer that writes as poorly as the examples you cited.

It's about the same as asking for a source to help someone wanting to run for public office be a better public speaker. Both instances require a certain grounding in basic education and a real desire to improve.

RE: becoming a writer. First, can s/he sit down and speak aloud in their own words a simple story, from start to finish? Even something as simple as an old fairy tale? And make it understandable, coherent, and maybe even interesting? Many cannot. So it will take work and effort and improvement in one's ability to link words into sentences to describe events.

Sit down and write a short news story telling of an accident or event or meeting. Get the facts straight, keep it tight, concise, and descriptive.

Then write a "how to" piece: how to fish, how to shoot, how to make coffee, how to knot a necktie. Then ask someone to follow the instructions as written.

It's no accident that some of our best modern writers began as newspaper writers (Stephen King, for one).

Writing is a skill like any other. It requires a solid foundation of basics, and much practice. Personal style quickly emerges and effective story-telling skills follow.

I tend to believe that a good writer could sit in an armchair with an audience seated around and given a topic tossed out at random could spin a good story on the fly.

It's imagination fueled by a competent mastery of the language. If a person can't tell a good story, they probably can't write a good story. Talent is secondary. Effort and practice is primary.

Replies: awnlee jawking

awnlee jawking 🚫

@graybyrd

I tend to believe that a good writer could sit in an armchair with an audience seated around and given a topic tossed out at random could spin a good story on the fly.

I've heard so many people at writing groups claiming they want to be a writer but don't know what to write about!

And I've contributed some of the usual suggestions, all the while biting my tongue and wondering why on earth they want to be writers.

AJ

Replies: Dominions Son Crumbly Writer

Dominions Son 🚫

@awnlee jawking

And I've contributed some of the usual suggestions, all the while biting my tongue and wondering why on earth they want to be writers.

Money, Fame, Glory, pick any two. They see big name authors that have all three and think it's an easy way to get them.

It's the same thing that drives some kids to want to be pro-athletes, even though maybe 1 in 1000 actually has a shot at making it as a pro athlete.

Replies: bk69

bk69 🚫

@Dominions Son

maybe 1 in 1000

You're off by a few orders of magnitude, unless you include everyone who lands a spot in the low minors.
Pro football, maybe 150 guys per year join the league. MLB, maybe two hundred per year. NHL, less than a hundred. NLL shouldn't count, since maybe one or two players per team actually 'make it' playing for a living. NBA, maybe fifty guys per year. Useless individuals like soccer players... maybe a thousand per year, since so much eurotrash gets into that garbage, so... in a given year, figure less than two thousand pro athletes for the appropriate birth year (which we'll just treat as all being from the same year for comparison sake). So how many guys are born each years? Something well north of two million.

Replies: Dominions Son

Dominions Son 🚫

@bk69

You're off by a few orders of magnitude

Wouldn't surprise me.

So how many guys are born each years? Something well north of two million.

And probably well over 50% of those never participated in any kind of competitive team sport even at the amateur level.

Personally, for the purpose of this discussion, I'd limit the other side of the equation to people actually seeking a career in pro athletics.

Crumbly Writer 🚫
Updated:

@awnlee jawking

I've heard so many people at writing groups claiming they want to be a writer but don't know what to write about!

And I've contributed some of the usual suggestions, all the while biting my tongue and wondering why on earth they want to be writers.

That's why the adage, "Write what you know" is SO predominant. It isn't about writing about your own life, or writing on your given topic of expertise, it's all about writing about what motives you, writing about what you care about, by writing about what gets you the most excited, whether that's Martian Invasions, politics, Love and Hate, or simply Good and Evil.

All authors need to focus on what excites them, as your interest in the topic is paramount. If you don't give a damn about a story, then NO story you write will ever be worth reading, no matter how wonderfully it's written. But, if you truly care about the issues (and the characters too), then so will your readers.

So, instead of focusing on gimmicks or recognized story tropes, try picking topics that truly excite you, and pick a story topic based on that.

Just sayin'!

Replies: Switch Blayde Switch Blayde

Switch Blayde 🚫

@Crumbly Writer

"Write what you know"

An article on authors' different opinions on "write what you know":
https://lithub.com/should-you-write-what-you-know-31-authors-weigh-in/

I especially like this part from Toni Morrison:

When I taught creative writing at Princeton, [my students] had been told all of their lives to write what they knew. I always began the course by saying, "Don't pay any attention to that." First, because you don't know anything and second, because I don't want to hear about your true love and your mama and your papa and your friends. Think of somebody you don't know. What about a Mexican waitress in the Rio Grande who can barely speak English? Or what about a Grande Madame in Paris? Things way outside their camp. Imagine it, create it. Don't record and editorialize on some event that you've already lived through.

I liked this from Dan Brown too:

So for a young author who says "I don't know what to write about," I'd say, what have you always wanted to know about? Go learn about it

And Lee Child:

"I think [Write What You Know] is very bad advice. Very few people know enough to make an exciting story, and very few people can escape the clotted and overcrowded prose that usually results. But "Write what you feel" is good advice—if you've ever been scared or worried or angry or ecstatic, for instance, recall those feelings and blow them up to suit the exaggerated needs of your plot."

Philip Pullman:

"Some people would say "Always write about what you know". I don't think that's good advice at all. Nor is the advice to write what you think people will like. I think that's just silly. We shouldn't bother about other people at all when we write. It's none of their business what we write. How many people did we hear, in 1996 or thereabouts, saying "We wish someone would write the first Harry Potter book! No one's written about Harry Potter yet. We wish they'd hurry up"? One of the reasons for JK Rowling's success was that she didn't give a fig for what people thought they wanted. They didn't know they wanted Harry Potter till she wrote about him. That's the proper way round."

Gore Vidal:

I once had to judge the National Book Awards. There was no fiction in it—there was nothing. There was certainly no literature in it. It was just "write about what you know." And what they knew wasn't very much.

There's a lot more so read the article if you're interested. But I have to leave it with Ken Kesey:

"One of the dumbest things you were ever taught was to write what you know. Because what you know is usually dull.

Replies: Crumbly Writer

Crumbly Writer 🚫

@Switch Blayde

"Write what you know"

I especially like this part from Toni Morrison:

My reflections on the topic actually have less to do with 'write what you know) (it was a slight redefinition of the phrase) utilizing what many are saying about 'Voice' (as in 'an author's voice). The latest copy of The Writer (Fine Tune Your Voice) where the author challenges writers in a writing clinic to write about what they hate the most, whereas other authors simply say to write about what motivates/excites you the most.

Thus it's NOT about what you know, but is rather what you're most excited about. But again, this is a consistent theme for developing a unique 'voice' for their writing based on creating rich, fully fleshed out characters who each have a unique speaking style (different emphasis, rather than everyone having a different annoying accent).

Switch Blayde 🚫

@Crumbly Writer

it's all about writing about what motives you, writing about what you care about, by writing about what gets you the most excited,

Tom Perrotta agrees (from the article I previously posted):

I think you have to do a lot of reading and you have to do a lot of writing, and if you are lucky you'll eventually find a voice or find a subject matter that you're passionate about. That to me is really the crucial thing, somehow having your work connect with your obsessions and your passions.

Replies: Crumbly Writer

Crumbly Writer 🚫

@Switch Blayde

Tom Perrotta agrees

Once again, if you're writing doesn't even excite you, then you can't expect it to excite anyone else. But this advice moves beyond writing about themes and motifs that you're fond of, instead it's advice that you focus on subjects that most excite you, so that you can write more convincingly.

Then, once you start doing that, the next step is to let each character focus on what gets them excited, letting each character find their own voice (speeding up when they're excited, or slowing down if they most value control).

Replies: Pixy

Pixy 🚫

@Crumbly Writer

Once again, if you're writing

'your' ;)

Freyrs_stories 🚫

You also have to account for people for whom English is a second or in my case fifth language, though it is the only one I'm competent in, I have spent time learning a total of nine languages in my years and two of those are forms of English.

I did not speak English till kindergarten and found it very confusing when others did not speak one of the other languages I already spoke.

All the other languages I know enough words to recognise the language but not enough to converse in it. Use it or lose it I guess.

Replies: irvmull

irvmull 🚫

@Freyrs_stories

All the other languages I know enough words to recognise the language but not enough to converse in it. Use it or lose it I guess.

I guess you have to have a brain that's wired for languages. I know a guy who speaks 8 well enough to be a UN interpreter, and 12 well enough to manage day-to-day transactions.

Me, I know about one word in 5 or 6 languages.

Replies: richardshagrin Switch Blayde

richardshagrin 🚫

@irvmull

one word

beer? Ein Bier, bitte. (Thanks to a year in Wurtzburg with the 3rd Infantry Division, Rock of the Marne.)

Replies: bk69

bk69 🚫

@richardshagrin

beer? Ein Bier, bitte.

So you're perfectly fluent in functional German.

Switch Blayde 🚫

@irvmull

well enough to be a UN interpreter

I had a DBA who worked for me who at one time in his career was a Russian interpreter at the UN. He wasn't Russian. He just liked languages, and not the ones like Spanish and Italian that many know. In fact, he quit to take a consulting job In Saudi Arabia to live on an Army compound so that he could learn Arabic.

Dominions Son 🚫

The most important phrase to learn in any language is "where's the bathroom?"

Replies: richardshagrin awnlee jawking

richardshagrin 🚫

@Dominions Son

in any language is "where's the bathroom?"

"If you need to know one thing when traveling in a different country where you don't speak the language, it's probably how to ask "where's the bathroom?" When nature calls, you need to answer, after all. So here is a round-up of how to ask about the restrooms in 19 different languages — including Italian, French, Spanish and Portuguese — along with an all-important heads-up on how the actual facilities might be a little different than you're used to.

Europe
In Europe, there are many different languages in a small area. You may need to know how to say where is the bathroom in German and how to say where is the bathroom in French, or you may simply need to learn the Spanish word for bathroom. In some areas, toilets may include a bidet, which is meant to wash your bottom after you go. Here are some of the more common languages you may run into if you visit Europe.

French: pardon, où sont les toilettes?

Spanish: ¿Dónde está el baño?

Portuguese: Com licença, onde fica o banheiro?

Italian: Mi scusi, dov'è il bagno?

German: Wo ist die Toilette, bitte?

Dutch: Pardon, waar is de W.C.

Swedish: Ursäkta mig, var finns toaletten?

Estonian: Vabandage, kus on tualett?

Languages
Bidets can be found in many parts of Europe. photo source: Flickr

Asia
In many areas of Asia, public restrooms may have a squat toilet instead of the sit down models you may be used to. We're not sure whether squat toilets are used because they're easier to clean, offer a healthier position for elimination, or spread germs less easily, since you don't have actual contact with the toilet. In any case, be prepared for a new and different experience. Below, you can learn how to say where is the bathroom in Chinese. Of course, depending on where you travel, you may also need to know the Japanese word for bathroom.

Korean: Hwa-jang-shil uh-dee-in-ga-yo?

Japanese: Toire wa dokodesu?

Cantonese Chinese: Mm-goy, chee-soh hai been-doh-ah?

Languages
Squat toilets can be found in some Asian public restrooms. photo source: Flickr

Middle East
Middle Easterners have sit-down toilets, but they use a watering can type device to wash their bottoms after they use the toilet. Some say they don't have toilet paper, but others say they do use it after they wash. Regardless of the specifics, you will definitely want to know how to ask where the bathroom is, you can figure out the details when you get there.

Arabic (Saudi Arabia; UAE): Ayna Al Hammam?

Arabic (Egyptian): Fayn il tawaleet?

Hebrew: Slikha, ehfo hah sherooteem?

English
It seems that there are almost as many different bathroom practices as there are languages in which to ask where bathrooms might be. Of course, each country thinks its ways are "normal," but when it comes to toilet habits, it seems that normal is in the eye of the beholder. Here are some ways different English speaking countries ask the question.

American English: Where is the restroom / bathroom?

Canadian English: Where is the washroom?

British English: Where is the loo / lavatory?

Irish English: Where is the WC?

There will probably be times you just don't know how to ask that all important bathroom question. You can try some gestures to indicate your need, and in many languages the word toilet sounds similar enough that it might work. In sign language, the word for bathroom is made by tucking your thumb straight up between your pointer and middle fingers while making a fist and shaking your fist from side to side. I'm not sure how widely known sign language is, but hey, in desperate times you'll try anything, right?

We could probably spend quite a bit of time debating which country's bathroom practices are the most sanitary, but that's beyond the scope of this article. The best course of action, it seems, is to go along with the practices of the country you're in, as long as you're comfortable. When in Rome, do as the Romans do."

Based on stories by Verywellaged, in the Philippines, ask for the CR (for comfort room). The apartments where I live in Western Washington have a CR on the first floor, but it means community room.

awnlee jawking 🚫

@Dominions Son

The most important phrase to learn in any language is "where's the bathroom?"

After "Are you sure I'm the father?", obviously.

AJ

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Forum: Author Hangout

Basic Story Writing Techniques

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