4 ms·

Ooh! This could be a glimmer of a passion for me. Can you recommend any beginner guides or tips to get started? I've dabbled but get tied in knots overthinking

by atchoo 4y ago

Ooh! This could be a glimmer of a passion for me. Can you recommend any beginner guides or tips to get started? I've dabbled but get tied in knots overthinking the phrasing of a single sentence. I'd love to just get into a flow state. I've tried some tools like Final Draft (yuck) and Scrivener (meh). However Fountain.io plugin for vscode felt fantastic. The restricted format of a screenplay was really helpful to me actually getting some plot and dialogue down. It's easy for me to think like a movie instead of a novel. The markdown syntax was delightful. However I don't want to write a screenplay because that can't really go anywhere - can't self publish a movie lol. Does writing the first draft as a screenplay sound nuts?

drakonka 4y ago
Not OP, but as someone who also sometimes get stuck in my writing as well I thought I'd reply. Personally I use Scrivener for drafting and Vellum for formatting, but the tools usually don't matter that much for what you are describing. They won't really help with overthinking and getting tied up in phrasing. What helps me a lot when I sense myself getting into that getting-stuck phase where I just overthink everything is doing sprints. They're common in writing communities on Discord, but you can do them on your own as well. Just set a 15 minute timer (or whatever time works best) and write random flow-of-consciousness crap. I was surprised to find that usually the output isn't even as bad as I expect and is very usable (with some heavy editing). Also, remember that the first words you put down aren't really meant to be the final version of the thing you publish: they're just a rough sketch to be shaped later.
- atchoo 4y ago
  Thanks! I'll try a sprint. I actualy did Morning Pages (flow of conscious execise for writers) for many years just for the psychological benefits. I got blocked on those because I think I just got sick of talking to myself and a novel is a way to get some self expression and joy of writing back without it being so self-reflective. Can you recommend a writing discord?
  - drakonka 4y ago
    I'm afraid the couple of writing servers I'm mostly active in are pretty niche and not public, but there are bigger ones that should be good as well. For example, I have heard good things about one called "Bookdun"[0], which is actually focused on writers helping each other to finish their books. They have sprint channels where a sprint bot helps run the sprints, but also other challenges encouraging people to get words written. I have never tried any "writing challenges" aside from sprints though; the other stuff sometimes feels a bit too distracting and gamified for my tastes, so can't speak to those. [0] https://www.bookdun.com/ https://www.bookdun.com/
marcusverus 4y ago
Check out the podcast Writing Excuses. Start from the beginning. There is some really helpful and blissfully actionable storytelling advice in there, much of it given by one of the most successful writers of Fantasy (Brandon Sanderson). As for tips to get started, i’m partial to the following advice (paraphrasing Asimov): Everyone is capable of writing good books, but there’s a catch. The catch is that is that the first million words that anyone writes will be crap. Before one can write great prose, one must first get those million crappy words out of their system. I personally find this to be extremely liberating. It allows me to just write and enjoy crafting sentences, characters and stories without torturing myself with premature expectations of greatness. Nobody sits down at a piano for the first time and expects to play something beautiful. Treat writing the same way. Play chopsticks, enjoy yourself, and rest assured that you’ll get better!
eslaught 4y ago
I personally like Typora (https://typora.io/ https://typora.io/). It gets about as close to that state of flow as you can get, and it supports Markdown syntax. I use a Git workflow to track my writing, which definitely isn't for everyone, but I really appreciate the assurance it gives me. But that's probably because I already use Git for work. Actually, I do write in a screenplay-like format sometimes. I call it "sketching" but there's probably a more formal name for it. Dialogue and action beats, and nothing else. It works well when I'm able to hear the characters in my head and I need to get their words down before I forget. Though there is a bit of a risk when you expand this into full scene, that your scenes tend to be very dialogue heavy. That's something I'm still working on. More specific advice is a bit hard to give without knowing where you are. Are you stuck on getting any words out on the page at all? Or are you writing the opening to your story over and over because it never feels right? Or something else? My experience was the first time I sat down to really write something, it felt horrible. I think I got about 50 words on the page after about an hour. It really was pretty discouraging, and of course the writing was bad too. I'm honestly not sure how I got through this phase. I think I just slogged through it because I cared enough about the story to keep going even though it sucked. One thing that may have helped is that I keep a journal. The rule for my journal is "never write anything boring". I am very inconsistent about it, but it gave me a space, before I really had the fiction writing thing down, to at least practice getting words on the page. I've been putting down about 100 pages a year for the last 10-ish years, and I realized belatedly that in a way this was my writing practice. I may not have written 10 fiction books, but I wrote their equivalent (at least by word count) in my journal. Reading helps too. I had stopped for a long time, and picking it back up has helped me really figure out what I want to be writing (usually because I have knee-jerk reactions to what I read, and that tells me something about how it's affecting me). There's quote I encountered recently that really aligns with my philosophy of writing: "the first draft is telling yourself the story, latter drafts are telling the story you want readers to read" (Farah Heron, but she might have gotten it from somewhere else). What this means is that it's ok for the first draft to not be something anyone else is going to want to read. The most important thing is that you like what you're writing. For me, writing has become a better-than-reading experience. I read a fair amount of books these days, but because my tastes are particular, it's rare for me to find anyone who is writing exactly what I want.... but I can write it myself. Hope something in here helps you out, and if there's anything else you want to ask, feel free to shoot me an email (find my contact info from my profile).

by atchoo 4y ago

drakonka 4y ago

Not OP, but as someone who also sometimes get stuck in my writing as well I thought I'd reply. Personally I use Scrivener for drafting and Vellum for formatting, but the tools usually don't matter that much for what you are describing. They won't really help with overthinking and getting tied up in phrasing. What helps me a lot when I sense myself getting into that getting-stuck phase where I just overthink everything is doing sprints. They're common in writing communities on Discord, but you can do them on your own as well. Just set a 15 minute timer (or whatever time works best) and write random flow-of-consciousness crap. I was surprised to find that usually the output isn't even as bad as I expect and is very usable (with some heavy editing). Also, remember that the first words you put down aren't really meant to be the final version of the thing you publish: they're just a rough sketch to be shaped later.

atchoo 4y ago
Thanks! I'll try a sprint. I actualy did Morning Pages (flow of conscious execise for writers) for many years just for the psychological benefits. I got blocked on those because I think I just got sick of talking to myself and a novel is a way to get some self expression and joy of writing back without it being so self-reflective. Can you recommend a writing discord?
- drakonka 4y ago
  I'm afraid the couple of writing servers I'm mostly active in are pretty niche and not public, but there are bigger ones that should be good as well. For example, I have heard good things about one called "Bookdun"[0], which is actually focused on writers helping each other to finish their books. They have sprint channels where a sprint bot helps run the sprints, but also other challenges encouraging people to get words written. I have never tried any "writing challenges" aside from sprints though; the other stuff sometimes feels a bit too distracting and gamified for my tastes, so can't speak to those. [0] https://www.bookdun.com/ https://www.bookdun.com/

marcusverus 4y ago

Check out the podcast Writing Excuses. Start from the beginning. There is some really helpful and blissfully actionable storytelling advice in there, much of it given by one of the most successful writers of Fantasy (Brandon Sanderson). As for tips to get started, i’m partial to the following advice (paraphrasing Asimov): Everyone is capable of writing good books, but there’s a catch. The catch is that is that the first million words that anyone writes will be crap. Before one can write great prose, one must first get those million crappy words out of their system. I personally find this to be extremely liberating. It allows me to just write and enjoy crafting sentences, characters and stories without torturing myself with premature expectations of greatness. Nobody sits down at a piano for the first time and expects to play something beautiful. Treat writing the same way. Play chopsticks, enjoy yourself, and rest assured that you’ll get better!

eslaught 4y ago

I personally like Typora (https://typora.io/ https://typora.io/). It gets about as close to that state of flow as you can get, and it supports Markdown syntax. I use a Git workflow to track my writing, which definitely isn't for everyone, but I really appreciate the assurance it gives me. But that's probably because I already use Git for work. Actually, I do write in a screenplay-like format sometimes. I call it "sketching" but there's probably a more formal name for it. Dialogue and action beats, and nothing else. It works well when I'm able to hear the characters in my head and I need to get their words down before I forget. Though there is a bit of a risk when you expand this into full scene, that your scenes tend to be very dialogue heavy. That's something I'm still working on. More specific advice is a bit hard to give without knowing where you are. Are you stuck on getting any words out on the page at all? Or are you writing the opening to your story over and over because it never feels right? Or something else? My experience was the first time I sat down to really write something, it felt horrible. I think I got about 50 words on the page after about an hour. It really was pretty discouraging, and of course the writing was bad too. I'm honestly not sure how I got through this phase. I think I just slogged through it because I cared enough about the story to keep going even though it sucked. One thing that may have helped is that I keep a journal. The rule for my journal is "never write anything boring". I am very inconsistent about it, but it gave me a space, before I really had the fiction writing thing down, to at least practice getting words on the page. I've been putting down about 100 pages a year for the last 10-ish years, and I realized belatedly that in a way this was my writing practice. I may not have written 10 fiction books, but I wrote their equivalent (at least by word count) in my journal. Reading helps too. I had stopped for a long time, and picking it back up has helped me really figure out what I want to be writing (usually because I have knee-jerk reactions to what I read, and that tells me something about how it's affecting me). There's quote I encountered recently that really aligns with my philosophy of writing: "the first draft is telling yourself the story, latter drafts are telling the story you want readers to read" (Farah Heron, but she might have gotten it from somewhere else). What this means is that it's ok for the first draft to not be something anyone else is going to want to read. The most important thing is that you like what you're writing. For me, writing has become a better-than-reading experience. I read a fair amount of books these days, but because my tastes are particular, it's rare for me to find anyone who is writing exactly what I want.... but I can write it myself. Hope something in here helps you out, and if there's anything else you want to ask, feel free to shoot me an email (find my contact info from my profile).