Anyone here write?

[Zerlina]

I write professionally (screenwriting). I have a festival until the 14th, but send me a message if you want to do a Skype meeting and hopefully I can help you

[DragonBlaze]

Unfortunately just as I got really into my story, things got really crazy at work. I've essentially ripped apart all of the QuickBooks apps, and if I don't put them back together by the 18th when I move to a new team, there's going to be a lot of unhappy campers :p Hopefully in a few weeks I can start up again.

So Prpl, I just started reading your stuff. I really like the way the narrator goes about telling the story. I'll have to get back to you later with some more insightful thoughts when I have time to read through more of it.

I'm a amateur writter. I do some stuff on my DA, mostly stuff about my non-Charasian OCs, but I had been thinking of doing some Charasian based writing  about Dave's adventures to go with all the games I have planned. Since even though they are big...They aren't that big. ^^; There's leagues of stories about Dave I could tell not to mention all the stuff based on RPs I've had with people here and on MSN and even Skype! I've also made it one of my summer projects to try and write out one novel length book to refine over the winter and to submit next summer. Cause I don't want to always do small but well loved, things like the Dentverse. Oh and I did try to be a writer for a web comic recently...but I had to let my artist go. T-T Shame I had a good plan for how to host it on DA till I could find some ad space or more permanent site.

Oh my tip for good writing? Forget everyone else's advise and stick to what you know! Oh and add in some humor. You honestly can't go wrong with humor. Satiric and semi-dark without beign a totall psycho tend to work AWESOME in fantasy works. Heck two of my favorite series to come back to? Xanth and Discworld.

What exactly do you mean by Charasian based writing? Like you take bits of Charas interactions and turn them into a fantasy story or something?

As for sticking with what I know, I don't know much, so I'm just sticking with what comes naturally :p Adding in humor is a good suggestion, I still need to work on refining that. I don't want the read to just be dull and serious.

I write professionally (screenwriting). I have a festival until the 14th, but send me a message if you want to do a Skype meeting and hopefully I can help you

That would be awesome! It'll be a few weeks before I can start writing again, and then it'll be another long while before I have enough content and refine it enough to share. Hopefully I can get to that point in the not-so-distant future.

[Phayre]

Try not to think of "write what you know" as writing about your life or things actually close to you. I mean, you can do that, of course, but you don't have to be limited to just that. I think of it as using your experience and feelings to understand how your characters would react and feel. You've probably never lost your family to a space manatee attack, but if you were writing your protagonist as they witnessed it, you could draw on experiences of shock and grief and remember how they felt -- that lurch in your stomach, shaking, heart racing, disbelief. Probably not the same scale, of course, but you still have that root of emotion and understanding, which is what you need to write a convincing reaction, rather than a stilted, forced one that plays out like an overdone B movie.

My big problem lately has been finding time to write in between, ironically, studying writing.

[Prpl_Mage]

You've probably never lost your family to a space manatee attack,

Rad.

Also good to see you alive and stuff.

And Fish is onto something, fantasy is like the best place to do satiric, dark, cynical humour. Terry Pratchet (discworld) is probably one of the best examples of this. But don't try to force it, I've done that. It's just not working. Only do what feels natural. I like irony, especially in narrators.

[aboutasoandthis]

Does writing books for musicals count? I'm trying to get into that.

I used to be really into writing short stories in high school as part of a Creative Writing class. I would love to get back into it.

The things that helped me the most were these structure guides that helped me work out the main conflicts and the characters. I remember way back when Gaming World had a main website, someone did these amazing articles about conflict, character development, and theme. I recently picked up Writing Fiction for Dummies and it's similar to what these articles were talking about. I've also been recommended the Snowflake Method. You don't have to structure your works this way but they do help.

[Prpl_Mage]

Just curious how your little writing project worked out.

[Moosetroop11]

Me and my friends have been writing a chain novel (One chapter each cycling between four or five people, about two pages a chapter) and it's proving to be really fun. I would be quite interested in starting one here; might be a bit more reliable than the usual RP type things since it'd be more organised like the chain game.

[Meiscool]

I miss the whole writing comics thing SOME OF US used to do.

[DragonBlaze]

Just curious how your little writing project worked out.

Being overly critical and writers block, along with my inexperience with writing, makes progress pretty slow.

Me and my friends have been writing a chain novel (One chapter each cycling between four or five people, about two pages a chapter) and it's proving to be really fun. I would be quite interested in starting one here; might be a bit more reliable than the usual RP type things since it'd be more organised like the chain game.

This should happen.

[Prpl_Mage]

Me and my friends have been writing a chain novel (One chapter each cycling between four or five people, about two pages a chapter) and it's proving to be really fun. I would be quite interested in starting one here; might be a bit more reliable than the usual RP type things since it'd be more organised like the chain game.

Well I guess that's what I usually do in an RP, might be why I end up killing them somehow.

[Moosetroop11]

I miss the whole writing comics thing SOME OF US used to do.

What killed epic adventures, and why I'm not sure I could do it again, is that I was reading tons of comics back then and those sort of 'straight man reaction to silly things' jokes seemed classy to me at the time. Nowadays I couldn't do it like that... I'd want to make something more plot driven or something.

[Prpl_Mage]

But you had storyarchs, with timetravel and everything.

[desiderata]

I don't mean to brag, but I am a published writer.  Also, this is what I've been for the last god knows how long.  (And sorry, sorry, sorry to Lonewolf for never finishing those sprites.)

The truth is, writing is the one thing I'm really good at, so I've decided to go for that academically, and kind of where I've been the last.... that long.  Anyway, if any of y'all are looking to write, the first rule is not "Write what you know," because, let's face it, most of us don't know much.  The first thing is, "Write what you like."  There's a book titled Steal Like An Artist, and that's exactly what you do as a writer.  Basically, by this point in human history there is no thought you could have that someone hasn't already had, so original thought is a misconception.  The trick is to present your ideas (which were probably someone else's first,) in an original way.  So I'm not so much a writer as a master thief, and so are you.

As far as content goes, I've found writing essays like the one at the beginning helped my fiction a lot.  Once you find out what's in the world, you figure out ways to look at and present it.  And telling stories you already know does help telling ones you have to make up.

To all serious writers, here's a list for posting stuff:
http://www.pw.org/literary_magazines

[Dr. Ace]

Bit of a topic kick, but I guess I should post it here instead of making a new thread. Actually got a short story finished for the Descent of Arkhona writing contest for the Eternal Crusade MMO. If anyone feels like reading it just click the link below.

Mark of the Wulfen

[Moosetroop11]

Sweet. Just posting to say I'll read in the next few days; life's all consuming at the moment.