Any writers in the house?

[Drex]

So, I'm taking a course on writing at the moment, but the instructor isn't especially great and it's not looking like I'm going to learn much from it. I'm still going ahead with it since an easy A is an easy A, but I'm wondering if anyone who is into writing has advice on any books, videos, websites, or anything else that I could look into for insight and inspiration.

I'm specifically interested in resources for creative writing, or writing short stories and novels. If I had to pick out a weakness, I'd say I'm weakest at handling dialogue, and I'd love to hear other authors' insights into character development as well. Any advice/discussion is welcome, really.

[Trichocyst]

I have a shirt that I got from my internship at the Greater Philadelphia Film Office that says "The secret to writing is writing." Trial and error will help you a lot more than you might think. Especially if you have somebody who will help you objectively. You can really gain a lot from an honest critique. Like Hemingway said, "The first draft of anything is shit." If you like a story then keep at it. If you think that your ideas are stale, or if you're stuck, don't be afraid to find somebody to give you more insight.

Really, I could talk about story telling and writing all day long. Ha.

Writing good dialogue is all about finding a voice that's organic to your style and audience. You want to have a natural tone, but not too natural. The way people actually talk usually makes for piss poor dialogue. Developing characters has a lot to do with decisions that you make outside of the story. If you develop your character's backstory then you can flesh out their motives. If you have clear cut motives then you can plot out a story easier. The better you know your character the easier it is to write them.

[Alleya]

Practice. Read. Practice.

If you want to write you have to read. And practice. It's not like learning an instrument.

If you don't care about writing and just want to squeak through your class you don't have to do very much, just execute a plot and you'll probably get decent marks if your grammar isn't shit.

[Antithesis]

The best bullshiters make the best stories.

[Counterfeit]

Miranda July

[Mytiwar]

Californication

[Pendas]

I'm told my strongest trait is dialogue, so I can give some insight on it. One of the things you need to keep in mind when writing dialogue is that every character has to have a distinct voice that stands out to the reader, and by that I mean don't make them boring or say things that don't escalate the story in someway. When writing a short story every line of dialogue must serve a purpose, so don't go on and on, keep it as short and sweet as possible. (This actually applies to everything in a SS)

A good book I can recommend to you would be "Take you characters out to dinner" I read it and it helped out a bit, but I realized I did most of the exercises in the book myself. A good way to easily practice is to simply have a conversation with someone, take yourself outside of it, and see how your relationship with that person shapes the conversation, it's direction and how you respond to each other. Then, try to incorporate that into your story based on the relationship your characters have.

The easiest way to do this once your characters traits are planned out is to put him in a situation and run through how he would react in your head. Eventually some good lines should come out of it, some of the best stuff hits us when we're not even trying to write, just messing around.

[GRT]

The only thing you can learn from classes about writing are basic grammar and some trade/field specific styles/rules. What's more, both grammar and styles/rules can be broken.

What kind of inspiration are you looking for? Are you writing a trade journal? Novel? News? Poems/essays? It really depends on what you are hoping to write. Everyone's different of course, but for me, there's not one book/story that can really inspire my writing. I just have to read a lot and read often.

[Drex]

If you don't care about writing and just want to squeak through your class you don't have to do very much, just execute a plot and you'll probably get decent marks if your grammar isn't shit.

Oh, it's the opposite. I have the mechanics down, and the class seems to want to focus on that. I like writing, I just don't think it's going to help me in the ways I wanted it to.

The only thing you can learn from classes about writing is basic grammar and some trade/field specific styles/rules. What's more, both grammar and styles/rules can be broken.

What kind of inspiration are you looking for? Are you writing a trade journal? Novel? News? Poems/essays? It really depends on what you are hoping to write. Everyone's different of course, but for me, there's not one book/story that can really inspire my writing. I just have to read a lot and read often.

Finding that out

As for what I'm writing, I'd like to start out with some short stories. I figure they would be a good starting point, and I could jump into more complex stuff from there. So if anyone has any short stories they've read that they really liked, those would be great.

A good way to easily practice is to simply have a conversation with someone, take yourself outside of it, and see how your relationship with that person shapes the conversation, it's direction and how you respond to each other. Then, try to incorporate that into your story based on the relationship your characters have.

Awesome idea.

You want to have a natural tone, but not too natural. The way people actually talk usually makes for piss poor dialogue.

Yeah, I've read a few books that tried using the way people normally speak and it just comes off as really awkward, hence my problems. If it's too much like reality it doesn't read very well, but if it's formal it's hard to believe the characters would actually talk that way unless they've been established as that kind of person. It's a weird line to walk for me since I speak very informally.

[Acturus]

http://www.amazon.com/Write-Sell-You...0731285&sr=8-1

I recommend that book. I don't know if you want to be published, but this book strips away the fluff of writing and explains it in such a way that your goal is not just to write, but to write and sell your writings.

The book itself was last published in 1997, and with the exception of a new Foreward printed several years ago, it's slightly outdated when it talks about formatting type and stuff like that.

But unlike a lot of books on writing, it's very focused on a specific goal, and I found a lot of useful stuff in this book.

But the other posters here have said it already. If you know the basics, then all you can do is write, write more, read, read more, and get informed people to critique your work over and over and over.

[deshende]

Stephen Kings "On Writing" was a decent read.

[Conrad]

You said you were interested in writing short stories. I found this example which might help you find your direction:

John Stalvern waited. The lights above him blinked and sparked out of the air. There
were demons in the base. He didn't see them, but had expected them now for years. His
warnings to Cernel Joson were not listenend to and now it was too late. Far too late
for now, anyway.
John was a space marine for fourteen years. When he was young he watched the
spaceships and he said to dad "I want to be on the ships daddy."
Dad said "No! You will BE KILL BY DEMONS"
There was a time when he believed him. Then as he got oldered he stopped. But now in
the space station base of the UAC he knew there were demons.
"This is Joson" the radio crackered. "You must fight the demons!"
So John gotted his palsma rifle and blew up the wall.
"HE GOING TO KILL US" said the demons
"I will shoot at him" said the cyberdemon and he fired the rocket missiles. John
plasmaed at him and tried to blew him up. But then the ceiling fell and they were
trapped and not able to kill.
"No! I must kill the demons" he shouted
The radio said "No, John. You are the demons"
And then John was a zombie.