Steps to Writing a Work of Fiction That Doesn't Utterly Suck Needed

[The Rose Dragon]

Exactly what it says on the tin, honestly.

It might be a good idea to separate them by medium (comic books vs. live-action vs. prose, long-running series vs. self-contained works vs. mini-series, etc.), but basically, I have no idea how to write a work of fiction that is not highly focused on the characters or does not suck.

For example, I often think up the characters first and then try to fit them into a plot, which causes problems. Would it be a better idea to do it the other way around?

((Also, moderator peoples, feel free to move this to Arts & Crafts if that would be a better fit.))

[arguskos]

Well, step one would be "write better". :smalltongue: Disclaimer: this is a joke, smile, it's good for you.

Ok, ok, sarcasm and bad jokes aside, I honestly can't help much, as I'm still a godawful writer myself. I've got the technical ability, but just can't weave a narrative like I want to. Too much time gaming has made it so I think of a metaplot and just make up the details as I go.

[golentan]

First: Rough Outline. Thinking up characters is a good place to start. Think how they'd interact, and come up with a plot hook if needed. Then, roughly storyboard it out into several parts: Introducing the characters. Plot hook. Tension building. Climax. Epilogue. The order isn't essential: For example, a classic scenario has introduction of the PoV character and maybe one or two others, the plot hook, tension building, a brief release brought by bringing in other characters, more tension building, climax.

Second: Do not pigeonhole your characters. Do not script their actions ahead of time. Let them grow organically, and take actions that make sense for them. Don't be afraid to have them go off on tangents, and grow on their own, especially if it's necessary for them to change before they can move on to the next plot point, but don't force them to suddenly change if it isn't something they'd do. Let them write themselves, hero and villain alike, based on their motives, personality, and the like.

Making a good novel is a lot like scripting out a long campaign for an RPG. You know what the arc goal is, you know the players, and you know where they start. And you sit back as they throw the plot curveball after curveball.

[Lev]

Most important rule: Set your sights.
What's your target audience? What do they like? What repels them?
You can't please everybody, but you can figure out how to not repel as many people as possible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climax_(narrative)

The rest is imagination.

[IonDragon]

One: Brainstorm.
Two: Disregard the rest of the steps, they limit your creativity.
Three: I don't write long stories well, step #2 may be my problem.

[Leecros]

the best way i write is spontaneously. I don't sit down and try to write, i wait until i get the urge to write and then write. Of course this is why i'm only on chapter 2 of the first book of the series i'm writing, but...i think its quality.

[Helanna]

Well, the first step is to write. A lot.


the best way i write is spontaneously. I don't sit down and try to write, i wait until i get the urge to write and then write. Of course this is why i'm only on chapter 2 of the first book of the series i'm writing, but...i think its quality.

See, if you just write like this, you'll never get anything done. (Well, maybe you could, because I don't actually know you, but it generally doesn't work, and you don't improve your writing very quickly). A lot of professional writers suggest that aspiring writers, well, write. Which is why I'd recommend checking out National Novel Writing Month. (http://www.nanowrimo.org) The goal here is to write 50,000 words in one month regardless of quality, so it can really help set up a plot. You can always go back and edit it into something readable later. Officially, it takes place in November, but you can do it any month . . . or just start planning for this year's NaNo now.

And, of course, you can always check out our Writer's Workshop, linked in my sig. Very good for critiques and advice.

(Note: I'm not actually a very good writer myself, so feel free to disregard any of this advice).

[Leecros]

See, if you just write like this, you'll never get anything done. (Well, maybe you could, because I don't actually know you, but it generally doesn't work, and you don't improve your writing very quickly). A lot of professional writers suggest that aspiring writers, well, write. Which is why I'd recommend checking out National Novel Writing Month. (http://www.nanowrimo.org) The goal here is to write 50,000 words in one month regardless of quality, so it can really help set up a plot. You can always go back and edit it into something readable later. Officially, it takes place in November, but you can do it any month . . . or just start planning for this year's NaNo now..
well, i write all the time anyways so i might be a special case, but when i sit down and try to write something(when i don't feel like writing) it feels Forced and looks forced and tastes forced and smells forced and sounds like it's forced.

If i force my writing it turns into crap, as i said i could just be a special case, but if i write when i feel like writing then i get something good.

[onthetown]

Take advice from anybody and everybody you can and use what works best for you. You may write best by going in a straight line from start to finish, or you may prefer jumping from chapter to chapter and then piecing it together at the end. Nothing is right or wrong, and everybody has an opinion that might be useful. :smallsmile:

Just remember that nothing has to be perfect until you're ready to present it as completely done. Until then, everything is a draft that you can change and edit to your heart's content.

[VeisuItaTyhjyys]

All the credible literary fiction these days is at least partially admitting that it is fictional and noting it within the text. While I normally wouldn't encourage jumping on some literary bandwagon just because you can (I'm looking at you, magical realism), it really is almost the only way to write viable literary fiction, now. We can't really believe fiction like we used to, so the narrator must be honest about his unreliability.

Otherwise, set up characters and in initial situation and let it play itself out. Fiction demonstrates the most verisimiltude when the characters do not change to conform with the plot, and the plot doesn't disintegrate into deus ex machina to save them. After you have characters, you shouldn't "fit" them into a plot, just put them in a situation and have them do what they would do if they were just people in that situation. The plot should mold around characters, not characters fit into the plot.

[Leecros]

(I'm looking at you, magical realism)
Hush, if Sauron wants to invade Modern-Day earth with his lightsaber of D00M made in the fires of The Doctor's TARDIS using the power of Cthulhu to fuel his demonic rage.

And the only person to stop him is that random guy over there---------->



why not write about it?


Belaying copyright law


Addendum: Assumed that you can describe Modern-Day Earth realistically


for my source of the definition Magic Realism
Matthew Strecher has defined magic realism as "what happens when a highly detailed, realistic setting is invaded by something 'too strange to believe'." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_realism

[Catch]

Write something that utterly sucks.
Realize it's okay to suck.
Revise.
Learn.
Write again.

Essentially ever successful writer has done this (though some skip the "Learn" section.) I do tutor Fiction at the college level, so toss me a PM if you need specific help.

[Tirian]

Write something that utterly sucks.
Realize it's okay to suck.
Revise.
Learn.
Write again.

Essentially ever successful writer has done this (though some skip the "Learn" section.) I do tutor Fiction at the college level, so toss me a PM if you need specific help.

Indeed. As Beckett says "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."

[Renegade Paladin]

Well, a lot of it's just practice. But here's some things that help that you don't have to learn through trial and error:

1.) Continuity errors suck and jar the reader right straight out of the story. Make a plot skeleton, that is a rough outline of the entire story that you then go back and flesh out. For instance, the entry for, say, a dramatic rescue scene in the plot skeleton might say:
Kaer's captors bring him to an abandoned warehouse and start torturing him. Begin interrogation scene; fade to black. Captors re-awaken him an indeterminate time later with a bucket of water to the face and start again, but Gaheris, Bearach, Quinlan, and Ciaran break in to save him.
While the finished scene reads like: Kaer felt the man carrying him swing him off his shoulder, and a moment later he was roughly dropped into a hard chair. The sack was torn from the street agent's head and he squinted against the single bright light suddenly in his eyes.

"Where am I," he asked with a bravado he didn't feel.

He heard a chuckle from the shadows behind the harsh light. "All in good time," he heard a woman's voice answer him. "But for now, I'm asking the questions," she continued, stepping into the light.

She was tall and raven-haired, dressed in functional black boiled leather armor and carrying a scourge. On the chest plate of her armor was emblazoned the nine-headed, bone-handled scourge that symbolized the faith of Loviatar.

Kaer gasped. Razhal chuckled and leaned over the chair from behind, so that his brutish face leered over the young man. "You had your chance to answer to the Black Hand," the Banite said menacingly, a grin exposing the half-orc's small tusks. "You turned it down, so now we'll see if the Maiden of Pain's tender mercies will convince you. Don't act so surprised," he continued, clearly enjoying himself. "Torment is, after all, a righteous tool of true lordship." He turned to the Lovite priestess. "Lady Ashara, he knows where we can find Gaheris. Make him talk." With that, the brutish priest of Bane turned and left, his men following. The door boomed shut behind them, and at least to Kaer's mind the sound seemed to echo for quite awhile.

When they'd gone, Ashara sighed and walked over to lean on the back of the chair. "I do hate how the Black Lord's dogs work, you know? So unsubtle," she said lazily, smiling at Kaer as he tried futilely to move the bonds on his hands. "But they are good at tying a rope," she observed as she noted his poorly concealed attempts to wriggle free. "At least that speaks to skill."

Kaer spat at her, but she deftly ducked behind the chair and came up leaning on the other side. "You think they didn't already try to beat it out of me? They've spent the last day trying everything from beatings to magical torture. I can't tell you 'cause I don't know. An' even if I did, I still wouldn't," he added defiantly. "Whip me as much as you will; they never told me where the safehouse is."

"Oh, come now," she said in a crooning voice. "What makes you think I'm going to whip you?"

"That's what your order does, bitch. What, you think I just fell off the cabbage cart?"

"Oh, sometimes," she said with an enigmatic smile. "But I think your case calls for something a little... different." Her hand brushed over his cheek before falling on the side of his neck and fishing out the pendant he wore under his shirt. She smiled at the two-headed silver coin. "Lady Luck didn't come through for you this time, did she?"

"We'll see," he snarled, feeling like a fool for not hiding it better. After the Banites had stripped him of his weapons, they hadn't bothered looking further.

"I suppose we will," she said lightly, shaking out her hair as she stepped away from the chair, towards the light. She wheeled back aorund to face him. "But for now, the only Lady Goddess here is mine. I'll leave you to decide whether you'd rather her or Beshaba," she smirked as she put a hand on each arm of the chair and leaned over so her face was only a few inches from his.

Kaer didn't bother answering, but slammed his forehead into her face with all the force he could muster. Kaer fell forward out of the chair, unable to stop his momentum as she stumbled back, letting out a curse as blood streamed from her nose. It only lasted a moment before she chanted a short prayer and the blood stopped in a flash of watery blue light. "Brave of you," she said, instantly calm again. "Seems you've already grasped one of Loviatar's precepts: We're all doomed to pain, deal back what you can." She stood over him as he lay struggling on the floor, now trying to loose his feet with his tied hands. "We'll see what else I can teach you," she continued coldly as she planted a boot in his back.

Kaer didn't know what she'd hit, but for some reason the agony was all-consuming. He screamed as she kicked him again, and everything went black.


* * *

The torment had seemed to go on for days, though a small part of Kaer's mind knew it couldn't have. The sleep he'd just been allowed, on the other hand, seemed like it only lasted a few minutes before the bucket of water hit him in the face.

His eyes shot open and instantly looked in the direction it had come from, just in time to see Ashara dropping the pail before the light, once again behind her, made him blink blearily again. "Rise and shine," she said cheerily. Something in the back of Kaer's mind noted that his arms and legs weren't together anymore. He tried to move them, only to discover that rather than being loose, he was tied spread-eagled to some sort of frame. His head was free, so he looked up.

To his horror, he was on a rack.

"Oh, don't worry, we're not actually going to start cranking that. Yet," she added with a cruel grin. She stalked around the torture device, observing the now bare-chested street rat and the welts she'd left on him earlier in the night... though between the mind-fogging drugs she'd slipped him and the sheer effects of prolonged pain itself, she was sure he'd think it had been much longer. She lazily walked up to him, idly playing with the small, spiked wheel he'd grown to hate so much in her left hand. "You know, Aleena's not going to come save you, nor any of the others at Fortuneboon Hall," she said in an offhand manner. He started at the mention of his favorite priest. "As far as she's concerned, you just got unlucky. It's how your goddess thinks, and her church with her. Gaheris and the other busybodies you work for won't either; you're not important enough with the city in chaos," she continued. "You're utterly alone."

Kaer gathered himself for a defiant denial, but found doubt eating at his mind. He remained silent.

"I see you know it's true. But Loviatar is not without mercy," his torturer said silkily. "Simply tell me what Ironfist needs and I may even reward you."

"How many times do I need to say... I. Don't. Know." Kaer was getting desperate, knowing that he wasn't on a rack just because it made a convenient place to tie him up.

"Yes, that's what you say. But I'm not yet sure," she said conversationally. As she spoke, she put the spiked wheel on his arm and lightly ran it down. The pricks shook him out of his stupor in a way the water hadn't.

"No, I'm telling you I don't..."

She pressed down and sped the course of the wheel. The needles dug into his skin, making precisely spaced punctures in his skin and muscle, from which blood oozed in the wake of the device. The line of wounds rapidly ran all the way down his arm to just above the wrist. "Then something else. You meet with your master, which means you must be able to contact him. How?"

Stony silence still greeted her. Suddenly she grinned, leaned over, and kissed him full on the lips. "Do you know how rare it is to find someone who resists this long?" Ashara giggled as she straightened. "It's been a full day and night, and still you let me go on," she lied. "Most men would have told me something, anything, even a lie, to make it stop. Makes me wonder if you enjoy it," she smirked.

"No," he snarled. "If I were loose a moment, I'd put cold steel in your back and call it a day's work."

"A shame," she said, pretending to pout. "There are those who do, you know. Ah well," she said, putting a hand on the long handle of the rack's ratchet. "Perhaps this might convince you. Tell me how you contact Lord Gaheris Trollbane."

"No," he said stonily, doing his best not to betray any emotion.

She shrugged. "As you wish. I dislike the rack; I really do. But I can't deny it works." She started to lean on the lever. As she started to put her weight on it, however, they both heard a loud crash of breaking glass.

Kaer couldn't turn to look, but Ashara had no such problems. Shouting in alarm, she seized her barbed scourge from where it leaned against the rack. "To arms, my sisters," she shouted, and Kaer realized to his shock that there were more Lovites in the building, who'd kept out of his sight. Two charged into his view, coming out from behind the bright light source that hadn't gone out since his arrival, wielding two-handed flails. They were about to pass on either side of him when they each fell in turn, a flaming arrow in their chests. Hope rose in Kaer at that.

A black-cloaked figure leaped through the broken window as a second nocked another arrow outside and took aim. He loosed, but the arrow seemed to rebound off the air a few inches from Ashara's face. She snarled and pointed her finger at the archer, and from it spouted a bright red ray. He shouted and fell twitching to the ground as the first man quickly ran forward. His hood fell back to expose his green eyes and flaming red hair as Ashara recognized him in shock. She whipped her scourge out at his now-glowing sword as he advanced, wrenching it aside and nearly out of his grasp. "You must be Gaheris," she said as she kicked out at him while their weapons were tangled, a blow he deftly dodged. "Good of you to..."

She didn't finish the sentence before a third cloaked man and another in gray robes dropped on her from the rafters. All three fell in a heap, but the two men soon came out on top, the gray robed one holding her down while the other held a dagger at her throat. Ciaran Roche swept his hood back with his other hand and let her see the symbol of Ilmater's bound hands etched into the clasp of his cloak as Quinlan Lyall stood, seeing his companion had her secure. She gasped before his left hand clamped down on her mouth. "We'll be havin' none o' your filth," the Knight of Shadows snarled.

The second man slowly stood back up from where he'd collapsed outside and gingerly stepped through the smashed window. "Kind of hurt," Bearach Weir said in his reserved way.

Gaheris moved to stand over Ashara where Ciaran held her pinned to the floor. "Bearach, cut Kaer loose. Ciaran, get her up," he ordered, cold fury undergirding his words. Ciaran deftly slid the dagger back up his sleeve, got his feet under him, and Quinlan helped him haul her to her feet, all the while never letting go of the cleric's mouth. "Let her speak. If she's damned fool enough to try to cast her way out of this, she'll get what she rightly deserves," he said coldly. The Ilmatians reluctantly released her, though as soon as Ciaran let go of her mouth, he drew his rapier from its scabbard.

"You are Lady Ashara Darkmantle, priestess of Loviatar's church," he said to her, not varying his tone.

"Yes, I am," she said proudly, holding her head up as she looked at the paladin.

"I am Lord Gaheris, called Trollbane, of the Church of Tyr," he began.

"I know that," she snapped, interrupting him. He glared at her.

"And I here charge you with kidnapping, torture... poisoning," he added, eyeing the vials that she'd administered drugs to Kaer from earlier that night, "conspiracy to murder, and numerous lesser charges, I would imagine."

"And now you haul me off to the Croamarkh's justice, like the errand boy you are?"

"No," he said coldly, causing her eyes to shoot wide in shock. "You think you know my church. Well know this; Westgate's government is too far gone to administer justice to your sort, as you well know, though I think you didn't know I did. As a lord of the Just God's church, I stand in judgment in a lawless land." He closed his eyes and chanted a short prayer. A white circle flashed into existence around them before fading. "You were tormenting Kaer Andorsal with intent to break him for information, were you not?"

She gritted her teeth before answering. "Yes," she said, not seeing a point in denying it.

"And when you got what you wanted, what did you intend to do with him?"

She opened her mouth to say he would have been no more use, so she'd have let him go, but those weren't the words she formed. "Razhal Ironfist would have killed him and left his body in the gutter." She gasped as she realized what he'd done.

"Oh, yes," he said smoothly. "To what purpose was the questioning?"

She didn't answer, keeping her mouth shut. "That won't help you, you know," he said sternly.

Kaer rubbed his wrists as Bearach finished cutting the bonds holding him to the rack and turned to face his recent captor. He started to step forward when the ranger seized him by the shoulder. "No," he told the rescuee quietly. "Let Gaheris take his course."

Gaheris did precisely that. "To what purpose," he reiterated, louder.

"To find your organization. Ironfist didn't tell me why."

"But it doesn't take an arch-diviner to guess," Gaheris said dryly. "You knew he was going to try and kill us. And you also knew why, didn't you?"

"Yes," she answered bitterly.

"And why is that?"

"To spread the Black Fear of Bane, the same reason they do anything else," she responded. "So now what, paladin?"

"Now? Now I pass judgment, as the highest authority able to do so," he said. "Justice cares not about means, but ends. In this case, yours," he continued, his fury the only thing keeping him from enjoying the irony. "You were torturing Kaer to his slow death. It is just that you suffer the fate you intended for him, but I will not bring such glory to your vile goddess. Unlike you, I'll make it painless." Her eyes opened wide, but she didn't get a chance to speak. "Quinlan?"

"Gladly," the Ilmatian monk responded as he chopped at the base of her neck with his open hand. She collapsed, insensate, to her knees. Gaheris' sword was almost as fast, and no sooner had she slumped over than his blade came down, glowing white with righteous wrath. Gaheris' long-practiced eye put the blade exactly where he wanted it, severing her neck between the third and fourth vertebrae. Her head rolled to the floor, the wound mostly cauterized by the burning of the sword's holy power, though the carotid and vertebral arteries spurted feebly. The stench of burned flesh and hair filled the room.

"Are you all right, Kaer?" Gaheris' tone instantly softened as he turned to his captured agent. The younger man could only nod dumbly as he stared at the body of his torturer. "We've got to move," the paladin continued as he placed his hand on Kaer's shoulder. Healing light glowed for a moment as the knight's prayers purged the drugs from his body. "Can't count on this not being noticed."

"It will be all right, Kaer," Quinlan said soothingly. "No matter what she did, Ilmater relieves all suffering. But Gaheris is right. Come."

With that, the five vanished into the alleys of Westgate, putting as much distance between them and the warehouse as possible.
Now, I just wrote that in the post form right here, so the dialogue is a little rough; were I actually putting this in a novel I'd polish it more. This scene isn't in any of my stories (and can't be because of continuity issues), but I used characters who I've long since developed and knew how they'd react to the situation, which brings me to my second point.

2.) Develop your characters. Know their motivations, their goals, their desires, their fears, their insecurities, their abilities, their disabilities, their relationships. If you know all these things, and internalize them well, the story practically writes itself because you know what the characters will do in the situations you drop them in. Make them believable and consistent (within the context of your story; in a story set ostensibly in the real world, of course, none of what I just wrote would make any sense because there are no Faerunian deities and no magic) so as not to break the audience's suspension of disbelief.

In the example I wrote above, all the protagonists are members of a shadow paladin order in the crime-ridden city of Westgate. Kaer Andorsal is an idealistic young man who trusts too much to luck who works as a spy for the organization. Razhal Ironfist is a cleric of Bane, the god of tyranny, who is working to bring Westgate under the boot of his deity; his men captured Kaer and wanted to make him tell them the location of one of his order's safehouses; he can't tell them because those who rescued him, four senior members of the order, compartmentalized Kaer out of this information in case of his capture. Ashara is a priestess of Loviatar, goddess of torture and torment and subordinate to Bane, who serves Ironfist mainly out of fear, but also because his use for her is what she wants anyway; she's a cold-blooded sadist, but a smart one. In a short sample like that, I don't have the space to really play her up properly; sequences involving her when I'm using her as an antagonist take a long time to write because she's hard for me to nail down, being as against my own nature as she is.

3.) Develop your setting. Is there magic? If so, what are its abilities and limitations? Are the laws of physics consistent with the real world? If not, how do they differ? What technology is available in the setting? What are the culture or cultures like? And perhaps most importantly, what are the logical consequences of the answers to the above? (If, for instance, cheap bulk transportation is easy due to any of the above factors, you won't have an agrarian, locally self-sufficient, barter-based society because good transportation allows for specialization of production.)

That's pretty much the extent of my advice. Mainly, it boils down to keep your story consistent; all my advice above is basically ways to ensure you do that. Obviously there's more to it than that (mastery, or at least competency, in the written form of the language you're writing in, presumably English, is essential, for instance), but they're not things I can easily condense and just tell you. Mainly, the rest comes from education and experience. Good luck! :smallsmile:

[FoE]

Plot is essential. I know that plotless stories are all the rage these days, but if you examine all of the great stories and great books, they told stories. They had beginnings and endings. They had characters and things happened to those characters.

[DSCrankshaw]

I'm a published writer. I've sold short stories (including one which is technically novel length) to paying markets, including two well-known and respected magazines. I'm not saying this to say that I'm a better writer than anyone here--lots of great writers aren't published yet. But I do know a little bit about the market and how writing works.

And I have just one piece of advice: figure out what works for you.

I look at a lot of the advice on this thread, and think that it would be great advice if what works for the person giving the advice would work for everyone. It won't. It may work for you, and if so, great. But you won't know whether it does or not until you try it.

So try a bunch of different methods. Figure out what you're comfortable with, and what gives you good results. These may not be the same thing.

If you're at a loss for what to try, and don't want to just try every bit of advice recommended, consider that there are two main types of writers: outliners and discovery writers. Try both methods.

Outliners plan ahead. They know their plot, their characters, and they make an outline of every scene. Then they try following it, with varying degrees of success.

Discovery writers start with an idea, a concept such as "old soldier returns home to discover that the enemy was in his hometown all along." Then they start writing, and discover their plot and their characters as they write.

As for myself, I'm somewhere in the middle. I work best by brainstorming ideas, and writing out the central one, including the overall plot and the characters involved, in paragraph form. So it's like an outline, but a lot less detailed. I don't go scene by scene, I don't always know how things will work out or how the story will end. I think finding that out is a lot of the fun of writing. If I outline the whole thing in detail, I lose a lot of my motivation for actually writing it.

[mikeejimbo]

And I have just one piece of advice: figure out what works for you.

Is it OK to try out the different techniques a whole bunch to see which works best for you?

[DSCrankshaw]

Is it OK to try out the different techniques a whole bunch to see which works best for you?

That's the idea. Practice is the best teacher for learning how to write, and trying different techniques is how you learn the best technique.

[thubby]

I only write casually, but i suggest starting small. the farther you get from realism, the harder it gets to keep your cosmic forces in check.

[raitalin]

Vonnegut's Steps (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyQ1wEBx1V0)

[valadil]

Write.

It's the single best thing you can do to become a better writer. Get some practice. No tip that you read here is going to be more useful than actual hands on practice.

Once you've written something, get other people to critique it. This can be done in person or online. I'm sure other playgrounders would be happy to read your work, but you'll probably get more useful responses in a writing specific forum.

--

In spite of my suggestion, here's a tip. When characters speak, use said. Or use nothing at all and let each line of text be a new speaker. This only works if you have two characters speaking. The rest of the time use said.

What you're trying to avoid is characters who emote adverbly. Any time you write that someone screeched wildly, lied boldly, or swore angrily you're decreasing the quality of your writing. It's a trap that's really easy to fall into, but whenever I read writing that includes that sort of construction I assume the writer is a newb.

[Renegade Paladin]

What you're trying to avoid is characters who emote adverbly. Any time you write that someone screeched wildly, lied boldly, or swore angrily you're decreasing the quality of your writing. It's a trap that's really easy to fall into, but whenever I read writing that includes that sort of construction I assume the writer is a newb.
Gee, who does that remind me of? (http://www.rasalvatore.com/) :smallamused:

[The Rose Dragon]

Well, what about writing stories with a visual element, such as theatre, comic books or such? What are the main differences between those and writing prose?

[Flame of Anor]

Renegade Paladin, not that I don't like your scene, but could we maybe have a spoiler? It's pretty long.

[Renegade Paladin]

Renegade Paladin, not that I don't like your scene, but could we maybe have a spoiler? It's pretty long.
Funny, 'cause I don't. Comes of it being a first draft without an actual plan behind it. :smalltongue: Fixed.

[Flame of Anor]

Funny, 'cause I don't. Comes of it being a first draft without an actual plan behind it. :smalltongue: Fixed.

Yes, well, I didn't say it was great. :smallwink: I'd say it shows some potential; for you at least, if maybe not for it.

[Renegade Paladin]

Yes, well, I didn't say it was great. :smallwink: I'd say it shows some potential; for you at least, if maybe not for it.
*Chuckle* If you're going to judge my work, let's be fair and show you things I've actually (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=6085549#post6085549) edited. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=29422) :smallwink: Those are both the ongoing results of a full plot skeleton and a detailed dramatis personae to fill it, as I advocated; I leave it to my readers to decide if it works.

[DSCrankshaw]

Well, what about writing stories with a visual element, such as theatre, comic books or such? What are the main differences between those and writing prose?

Not that I have much experience in those, but I'd say that the main difference is that the story is primarily told through dialogue in those mediums. There's stage directions in both, and comics both have more stage direction and more narration. But the main way to get the story across is through the dialogue. It's a very different art form.