Yuku free message boards

Well Ali (Do you mind if I call you Ali? Is it Alison or some such?), my two cents on this subject:

I write epic and adventure fantasy stories for the most part. I created a really great AD&D scenario (yes I am a 41yr old D&D geek, so sue me…) when I was in my early 20's and tried to us that as the basis for a book. I wrote about a 20,000 word attempt then ditched. It was flat and plot driven and really had no depth or character development. I found as I read over it that I really didn't care much about the characters, and I had no clue where the story was going or why. I didn't write for some time after giving up on that project. There were earlier works, a horrible novel I tried to write in my teens, some short stories (only one completed), and lots and lots of AD&D scenarios. However nothing ever really stuck with me and I never really did much with it.

Life went on, I got married and divorced. Somewhere in the chaos of divorce I started wondering why I was so unhappy (other than the woman I loved deciding I wasn't the one she wanted to spend the rest of her life with after all...). One of the reasons I came up with was that I really don't like the pressures of the industry in which I work. That of course made me think about what I would like to do instead and what I really wanted out of life. I came to the conclusion that I want to be able to spend maximum time with my children (I have three boys) and that I would like to do something creative and have control over my schedule and goals, (I.E. work out of my house). Of course being a fiction novelist would be perfect.

One tiny problem arose with this plan. As Ray Bradbury so succinctly stated, "Writers write. If you are a writer, you WILL write." I had not written for a long time, but I was determined to get back to it.

The first thing I tried to do was figure out what had kept me from completing stories in the past (other than pure laziness). I ended up determining it was a number of things;

a) Lack of a theme or underlying meaning for the work. Why am I writing this? Why would anyone want to read it? Is it just for entertainment and escape, or do I want to say something real?

b) Lack of groundwork. No outline or background for the story, no sense of what the story was about or where it was going. All my stories were just simple plot driven action.

c) Lack of character depth. All my characters were two dimensional. Cardboard cut out heroes with no reality. No real feelings or human interaction. No motivation beyond adventure for its own sake or trite stereotypical motives (i.e. save the damsel).


Answering these questions gave me a starting point to move forward. Once I had identified these things, I decided that I would do the following to rectify the problems I had identified in my work:

a) While I am not much on social commentary, I decided I do want to at least put forth some ideology in my work. While the main thrust is to entertain, I would like to leave my reader with a new idea or two to ponder. I do think that this is an important thing for every novelist to ponder. What message to I want to impart? Once you identify the message, you will be one step closer to discovering the right way to express it.

b) I decided for me the best thing to do was to outline the entire story in chapter summary form before doing the real writing. My chapter summaries tend to be between half a page and a page of short concise sentences that sum up the events for the chapter. Once I had the skeleton I build from there. I know where the story is going. Thus as I write I will not dead end or get so caught up in plot that I lose sight of the theme or the overall direction of the story. Note: Even if you outline extensively, expect your story to burst boundaries and pull you down paths you never initially imagined. Don't fight this, just go with it. Often the story knows best. Once this has occurred, I would suggest following the tangent until you know where it is going to lead. Then restructure your outline around it.

c) I like to write detailed back story. I am creating my own world for my stories. I want it to be robust and lend depth and a feeling of realism to the setting. I think this is important even if you are writing contemporary or literary fiction. Your people and places will most likely not burst onto your pages newborn and story-less. You will often find a key to building tension around them lies in forcing them to dredge up the events of their past.

d) Create detailed character descriptions, motivations, and values. Make the characters believable people that the reader cares about. Not just stereotypes they have seen a million times in movies.

These are the things that I did when starting on my current novel. I am now (a number of years later) a bit over 90,000 words into an epic fantasy adventure, and within about 7 chapters of completing the draft. I really believe that I will finish it in the next few months. I had actually put it down for the last year and a half and worked on some shorter projects. I wanted to polish my craft a bit get some publishing credits before I took the big plunge and tried to start selling my big project. But I have done that now. I sold a few stories and have a few more that I expect to sell soon. I am ready to finish the draft of my novel now and begin the revisions, and have already begun to do so.

So, my advice:

• Read some of your material, and see if you seen any basic flaws or lacks in content or writing style.
• Once you have identified these, try and work out solutions
• Create a plan to put your solutions into action
• Write, write, write
• Revise, revise, revise

That's about all I have, I hope this was useful and/or informative. Good luck in your writing endeavors!