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Re: Hey guys! I needed some advice on novel making...

PostPosted: April 2nd, 2012, 1:50 am
by Oz Zee
Our friend, Sylvia may help:

I lay on the couch on the breezeway and shut my eyes. I could hear my mother clearing the typewriter and the papers from the card table and laying out the silver for supper, but I didn't move.

Inertize oozed like molasses through Elaine's limbs. That's what it must feel like to have malaria, she thought.

At any rate, I'd be lucky if I wrote a page a day.
Then I knew what the trouble was.
I needed experience
How could I write about life when I'd never had a love affair or a baby or even seen anybody die? A girl I knew had just won a prize for a short story about her adventures among the pygmies in Africa. How could I compete with that sort of thing?

--

I take you're still 17 years old (unless you just had your birthday a month ago, then Happy Birthday). If you want to write something astounding, and not something mediocre like the overrate Jhumpa Lahiri, then you must continue experiencing a lot more in life in order to fill the pages of a story. If you want to introduce a significant character that is of the opposite sex, then you must wear the skin, pick the brain, and feel the soul of the opposite sex. Know why he thinks this way, why he made such decision, etc. If you need a scene of a car crash, you must know the mechanics of a car, how a car crash happens, what happens next-- know the process of saving a life inside a hospital, how the doctors and nurses act. If there's a scene about a vacation, you must experience that vacation and learn reflection before writing in print. Other wise whatever you write will be boring and will be all "telling" and not "showing" if you know what I mean. But it really depends on how you want your writings to turn out. Take a look at Cormac McCarthy, his writings are empty but they get recognition.

Suggestion: Write a short novel with a plot you're very much familiar with. Write an autobiography changing a few scenes/events/characters etc. Add your creativity in it. People will read.

Re: Hey guys! I needed some advice on novel making...

PostPosted: April 2nd, 2012, 11:03 am
by Wanda
Hmmm sounds like very sound advice!

Re: Hey guys! I needed some advice on novel making...

PostPosted: October 29th, 2012, 2:57 pm
by moonshards
deathwalker wrote:My advice:
1. Please, no more vampires...
2. Avoid making a macho + super-cool + alpha character by garnishing his dialogues. Like "Gatorade is for pussies!" (I am Number Four). Make his actions speak for his character, not his annoying punchlines and one liners.
3. A negative feedback is always the best "stepping stone." Revise, edit, reinvent. :mrgreen:


Hi, PHILantropist! I agree with the advices given by deathwalker above. We're of the same age, actually. I've been writing for over 2 years already, and if there's a golden rule in writing, it's writing, proofreading, re-writing, deleting and then back to phase one again. In my second novel, I deleted 3 chapters (which was really frustrating, mind you) and I started from scratch again. I will delete a scene if it's making me cringe...that's my gauge for deleting and re-writing. You also need honest feedbacks and constructive criticisms, otherwise, you wouldn't know if your novel's good or not.

Another thing is, you need to practice a lot. You need to write everyday, like breathing. Lol. Believe me, my first book was really horrible. It was the story that's closest to my heart, but whenever I re-read it again, I find myself grunting because that's just how horrible I was when I first started writing.

Above all, there will always be naysayers. Don't expect people to praise your work all the time. I've met many writers (who aren't as talented as the underrated ones), and they can't accept criticism because they got used to being flattered all the freaking time. Remember, writing isn't a profession, it's a way of being. You gotta push through even though there's a lot of negativity surrounding you.

Re: Hey guys! I needed some advice on novel making...

PostPosted: August 13th, 2013, 3:01 pm
by psalmista
So? How's your novel going after more than a year?

Re: Hey guys! I needed some advice on novel making...

PostPosted: October 13th, 2014, 1:54 pm
by JadeFox
- Read Stephen King's On Writing.
- Read some Elmore Leonard. He's widely acclaimed for writing good dialogues. He also has a 10 Rules about Writing that you can check.
- Don't force it. When it reads like writing, abandon it.
- Don't overuse adverbs and do not have purple prose of the extensive kind.
- Plus, don't rape the thesaurus. Make sure you are using the right words -not just use the synonymous word that sounds more fancier than the original word you thought of- to describe or show what it is you're intending. If you can, use simple words. Writers around Ernest Hemingway's time strived to write novels using simpler words. Read some of them if you want to just get an idea.

Current works that display some of the above, there's two famous examples I can give to illustrate the points I've given. One is really good and the other is drivel. The books are J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and Stephanie Meyer's Twilight. Compare and see. You can get free extracts online.

Most published acclaimed writers always urge you to be an avid reader first. That's the most important tool. If you don't appreciate or hold a love for words and how they can shape an entire Universe, ask yourself why you're writing (a novel) first.

Oh yeah! I've watched a couple of youtube vids featuring authors, and they all advice that you sign up with a Writers' Newsletter to keep up to date with the current reading market, get some advice, form some connections or info about publishing houses.

And, keep writing. Don't stop.