Hello, my name is Jack. I have a few goals in mind for developing my writing skills and signing up here was the first step. My overall goal is to someday publish a series of books but for now I'm starting with just one. I've been trying to find resources online in the hopes that I could help develop my characters better, develop my plots better and to get past the opening sequence in a long story, which has been a huge hurdle for me to climb over since college. I hope to find some great things here!
What type of book are you writing? I am new also, just joined a few minutes ago, It sounds like you are struggling with some of the same things I find challenging.
My story is fantasy based, think elves, magic, dragons and such. It's based on a game I helped design in college but we never got to finish and I've always wanted to finish the story about it. What kind of trouble are you having with your writing? My main issue is getting past the beginning of the story to progress to the end even though I know what I want to happen I'm just not sure how the characters should be interacting with each other and how they end up meeting in some places if that makes sense?
I guess I am not having so much trouble with a flow of events (mine is fantasy as well, magic, imps, and such ) but I am struggling naming my characters and building my "world". I can't even come up with a name for the "world' I just keep referring to it as "the homeland" until I come up with a name. lol, Maybe we could review each others work?
Names are pretty difficult to come up with at least ones that sound reasonable. I'm actually having trouble with one of my characters who is the protagonists friend/love interest. Naming him has been a struggle for some reason. When I name things I sometimes try to combine words or names to come up with new things, sometimes I'll switch letters around in a normal name and if it sounds right I'll keep it, and sometimes I'll just use normal names that may have been used in a setting such as mine. I would try doing name searches for names that may fit in your setting. The world name and towns are a little tougher...best I can suggest is if the town has a sort of theme to it, like the area it's in, it's inhabitants or who founded it, try to make it match that. For example I just created a town called Fizzle as it's the type of sound you hear the most coming from the shops there due to all the experiments and tinkering they do. As for reviewing I could always use someone to look at my work. It's mainly outlines and background stuff at the moment though lol.
I should probably try the outline thing, but thats never been my technique, I have always just written, currently I am on Chapter 3 and I really like how my story is developing, although I have no idea where it is going until I get there.. I personally named my protagonist after a loved one (my son) but I have been trying to pick names that sound like his name is not out of place. If that makes since. lol, I don't want it to be too matchy but I dont want someone named John and then someone named Yabua or anything like that. lol. His love interest I named via google and then swapping some letters. I really need to develop the realm a little better, give it history and inhabitants lol
This link http://www.writesf.com/ has been a really helpful resource for me and actually helped me develop my world. Definitely worth a look at. It's pretty lengthy though and I ended up reading it in chunks. I did struggle like you did to create the world but I realized I needed to make it to help create the conflict that was happening to my characters. Then it all just fell into place and my plot worked itself out, I just need to write it now as easy as it sounds I suppose.
Welcome to Writing Forums, Jack! I hope you find what you're looking for here, whatever your interests in writing. This forum aims to provide the best workshopping resources on the internet, and to that end we have a few rules which you should familiarise yourself with before you get stuck in. The main section of the site is the Writing Workshop, where members can post their writing in order to receive critique of their work. However, before we allow members to post their work, they must have met some basic requirments. Firstly, you must have been a member for fourteen days, and have made twenty posts on the forum overall (please note, posts in Word Games do not count towards this). This is so that members, when they post their work, have familiarised themselves with the forums and contributed to them (as well as hopefully learned something for themselves). Secondly, members must provide two constructive reviews of other people's work for each piece of their own that they wish to post. This is because we believe that the focus of workshopping should be equally upon giving reviews as receiving them, as they allow a writer to practice and improve their editing skills, which they can then apply to their own writing. Beyond the Writing Workshop, you will find that we have extensive forums for discussion of aspects of writing, as well as a community area for general discussion. We also run periodic short story and poetry contests, which are good for challenging yourself and expanding your skills. If you have any questions or problems, then the moderators (myself, Cogito, Lemex and Dante Dases) should be your first port of call. Any technical problems with the site itself should be directed to Daniel, the site administrator and owner. I would recommend you have a look over the rules so that you know what to expect, and what is expected. But aside from that, I hope you enjoy your time here. Banzai
Hi Nightchaser and Thanks Banzai, I'm definitely going to be looking around the site and seeing what I can find.
Hey thanks for that link! I added it to me favorites and am gonna check it out as soon as I get the chance
