Hey guys! My name is John and I'm a normal joe who works a pretty normal job. However, I have this idea for a story percolating in my head for sometime (about 5 years). So I have decided to do a brain dump and write it out. I would like to write it well though, which is why I create this account! I'm looking forward to meeting a lot of you and I also look forward to critiquing some of your work as well. I'm not suggesting I'm a self proclaimed literary genius, but I figure a average joe review doesn't hurt right? So to be more efficient, I wanted to include in my introduction some questions. I have a general plot in mind, but I'm in the process of developing the environment for the book. It's a science fiction book set in the future. I have conjured up 8 unique races and am beginning to develop their unique characteristics. In the general populations experience, is it good to develop the environment in minute detail? When you do so, does it make writing certain scenes/chapters easier? Thanks guys!
Hey, John. Welcome to the forums! I've always been fascinated by the creation of life-forms. I am afraid I haven't tried it myself, but I would love to. That said, I like developing lots and lots and lots of background and details -- mostly for my own benefit, and I find it makes writing a bit easier when you know so much more. My name's Renée, by the way. Nice to meet you!
Hey! There's a fine line between completely vague (which doesn't work for creating new species) and overexplaining things WAY too much. I always thought it was a good idea to have the general makeup, culture, likes/dislikes, language, etc. of the new characters laid out in an outline for myself. Notice how I said GENERAL. It's not that necessary to have so many specifics that clog up your mind when you're actually ready to write. You can put in some of those background features for the new characters through the narrative of the story, but I would SERIOUSLY recommend not going into detail of a race if they're not that important to the overall plot. There's a trick to describing new things just enough so that the reader understands the feel of something, understands that it's completely made up, but is willing to suspend belief because the narrative voice, and the main characters, take all these new things as natural to daily life. Think of the races as simply characters. If there is a homeless man that appears in an alley while the main character walks through the city, you wouldn't take paragraphs to explain the man's background, how he lost his posessions when his wife divorced him, that he has developed lung cancer in the cold, how much he wishes he could be a rockstar. You might just have a sentence or two about the tarnished wedding ring that he mechanically flips over in his fingers, the blood specs around his mouth and on his hands from coughing. If you give a visual of the races, images that stand out while combining with the main characters, we don't need to know everything about them. Especially if there are 8 new races you've created, it would be incredibly difficult to describe them all while still keeping a reader focused (and not completely confused). One of my writing professors would always say "show me, don't tell me." Enough said.
Welcome to Writing Forums, John! 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 and Cogito) 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
Hey guys! It's nice to meet the few of you that have said hello! Renee (sorry I don't know how to do the accent), I think I agree with you, but this is my first time writing a book. I'm not saying I have no experience in writing (college provides much practice for that). I just haven't written a book for entertainment yet. I feel like if I immerse myself in this theoretical universe, then when I write, it will be more like I'm narrating a film/real life experience than writing a book. Implosion, I'm a fan of the show and don't tell. I had a tough critic of an English teacher in my junior college who forced me to write in active voice only and avoid adding 'ly' to the end of words. More over, he was a big fan of John Steinback's writing style. I found that I agreed with my alcoholic English teacher. That being said, I have 4 races that I will be focusing on for development and 4 sub-races that will play a role, but are non-essentials. I will not likely spend as much time developing those races. I think I will develop the perception of the races viewed by the human race (which I have deemed the main race the story surrounds). And last, but not least, thank you for a snap shot of the forums Banzai. I appreciate it as your welcome. Thanks again to all of you for your replies .
