How To Improve As A Writer (v2)

In this thread, I hope to gather the many voices of Fakku, and with their help create a list of advice to help us all improve our craft as writers.

The original was destroyed in the Great February Fakk up so here is the original version + improvements

This thread is for general tips on how to improve yourself as a writer. I am no expert myself, but I hope that with the combined knowledge of the whole forum, this thread can become a very helpful guide to anyone who wants to improve.

So, here is my advice to start things off:
1. READ! Read as much as you can, this seems obvious, but it is crucial to understanding the feel of good words, and the shape of a great story. Don't just read one genre though, you can learn from everything; Fiction and non-fiction. Comedy and romance. Poetry and prose. Every writer has something to teach you, even if it is just to learn from their mistakes.

Fiction can teach you world building, and Scifi/fantasy can stretch you imagination to give bloom to bouts of creative thought, while non-fiction can give you information about the real world, and human nature and our interactions with each other.

Comedy can teach you to keep a sense of humor, and it's always good to get a laugh, as that can draw a reader into your story. Even in sad or serious stories, a dark joke can set the mood, and help us understand a character and how their mind works. Romance on the other hand, can teach you how love can twist a person, or straighten them out, and how to use the mind of the opposite gender if you are not experienced in it yourself. Romance can also train you in manipulating the emotions of your readers. Use the horrid "Twilight" series for example: The writing is below average, and the plot is non-existent, but simply by keeping the suspense of forbidden romance, and the choice of two loves, Stephanie Meyer sold millions.

Poetry can expand how you think of writing, and improve your grasp of how words can fit together as if they were a puzzle for you to solve. Poetry can teach rhyme, form, and pacing as well as how to use a little space to say a large number of things. (Think about how hard it was for some people in the Writing contest because didn't know how to work big things in a small space.) Prose can show you how to make writing feel natural and real, and to reach out to a larger audience with an easier to understand writing style.

2. WRITE! Another obvious one, but the one that is the most important. Practice makes perfect, so practice! Writing in established worlds is fine, but it is better to write in your own worlds if you can, as that will teach you how to make a world flow together consistently, as opposed to taking a world another writer worked and just working with characters. (I'm talking about Fanfiction) Write Poetry, write short stories, write long stories, write essays, WRITE EVERYTHING. Think of everything I said about how reading certain genres can improve skills and multiply it six-fold for how much it helps you if you write it yourself. And don't be afraid to be critical of your own writing. You should be your harshest critic, but also your fairest critic. Don't expect to write like your favorite author in your first attempts, because you will only be disappointed, and lose faith in your abilities if you compare your rough drafts to published novels. Keep in mind, professional writers have years of experience, and other editors to help them.

3. Be wise about when you write. This can apply in two ways: Firstly, don't write so much that you burn yourself out. Don't stay up until 6AM every night, because the mental fatigue will overwhelm you in no time. Secondly, don't write emotional scenes if you are feeling the opposite way. A happy, romantic scene could feel fake and contrived to your readers if you wrote it when you were lonely and depressed, because that will probably come through in little unexpected word choices from you that you don't notice.

4. TAKE YOUR TIME. You may be able to belt out a story in a day or two if you rush, but who'll want to read it? Sure you can always edit later, but getting the first try to be good really helps your confidence when you re-read it, and that will in turn help keep you motivated to keep working on it. If your first attempt is rushed and sloppy though, you might read over it and decide that it should be started over from scratch because of some glaring issues. This also applies to when you are doing your revisions. Don't rush to meet a deadline, if you think a bit more time could lead to an exponentially improved final product. Think of the authors Patrick Rothfuss and George R.R. Martin, who each have books that have had years of delays and roadblocks, but the final product will prove worth the effort and time when they finally come out. (hopefully)

5. This is a personal thing really, but I find that it helps me write if I listen to music while I do it, because it keeps my mind active and entertained if my writing is dragging on. I understand that this is not for everyone, since many people are distracted by lyrics in their music and that makes it harder to focus on the words they are writing. If this is the case, then maybe listen to non-lyrical music such as instrumental, or techno depending on you tastes. If listening to lyric-less music still distracts you, then disregard this tip entirely.

6. Writer’s block can be a bitch, but sometimes it is easy to fix. One tip is to change up something in your daily routine to jar yourself into a different mental perspective. It doesn’t have to be huge either; just a small change might do it. For example, if you always drive your car to work through the same route, maybe take a different turn somewhere, or stop for breakfast at some random outlet you’ve never heard of. The new sights or flavors may trigger a break through “Oh! This is exactly the type of feeling this character would feel if they had a change in their food, and maybe it’s poisoned!” (not the best plot twist, but whatever) And wham bam right in the clam, you’re back to your writing.

6.a. If writer’s block persists despite any efforts to break it, perhaps you just need a break from the project. Go work on another story for a week, or just leave it to simmer for a few days. Reading something over once you’ve been away from it may give you a new perspective on the piece, and you can suddenly see where you want the plot to go, or you feel the right phrasing for a particular piece of imagery, and suddenly the floodgates are thrown open, and the writing comes back naturally.

Those are some to get started, but anything I've said can be debated if you have a better tip, or disagree with something. I hope that this thread can be a great store of writing knowledge from all of the varied and intelligent voices of Fakku. If any great tips appear in the thread, after the first page, I will add them to this list with credit to the poster.

NEW ADDITION FROM DISGUSTING ON CHARACTER CREATION:

Also:

More about character creation:

Mod Note: Thread has been sticked as the reason provided concerning the previous edition being lost due to problems with Fakku's servers is valid.

Haha, Great February Fakk up indeed. Well done on the recreation, Cleaveland. Lesser minds would have given up.

Well, it's a good thing PMs were saved because I still have my advice on explicit literature from my message, specifically romantic passion. Here it is for anyone that may find it useful:

What you want to do to give yourself the best result for a romantic joining is decide a few basic properties, such as location. Obviously the bed is an obvious romantic choice, but it's also typical. If you want that, that's fine, but you can also make it passionate and intimate wherever you want it to be. Just avoid public places as they can be arousing but take the attention away from the partner and more on the thrill. So the bed is most likely, although any room in a house or place can work, on anything, changing to things, etc. Let's say you're going for a bedroom scene.

The way the scene will plan out will change drastically to the personality of your characters, but that's a really great thing. You want to make the characters emphasize who they are by how they act. The way they act during sex will reflect that. If they are strong-headed, they'll be more assertive and make more assertive moves during sex while if they're timid or shy, they're going to shake and shiver. You should use that to your advantage because it provides more flavor for the situation.

Describe the feeling for everything is key in transferring emotion from your words to the reader's mind. If you want a scene to be more arousing, you will need to use more straightforward and blunt wordplay, while if you want them to appreciate the piece, you can use more artistic description. You don't have to use vulgar terms, but you should avoid using artsy ones too. Sadly, this is the hardest part because you'll find explicit scene reaction becomes a trade-off. It's either too smutty to be taken seriously and will be used as fap material, or it will be too beautiful to fap to and will be seen as too pure. Try to make a balance of this through use of dirty terms but conveying an intimate message through wordplay.

Let me use an example; let's say the girl acts assertive and wraps her fingers around the guy's penis. A smutty way to say this would be, "He felt up her tits but she couldn't wait and groped his cock, squeezing it forcefully in her grasp." A romantic way to say this would be, "She cried out at his delicate touch to her bosom and wanted to share the pleasant feelings and emotion with him, so she reached her hand down and wrapped her dainty fingers around him gingerly." A good mix of arousing and emotional would be something like this, "She moaned at feeling his loving touches on her breasts and wanted him to feel how much she loved and desired him as well, leading her hand down slowly and gently wrapped her fingers around his shaft."

You can see the difference in writing style and it becomes evident what effect each one will have. Each has their strengths and weaknesses, but it's really up to you as a writer to go for what emotions you have and convey them to words for the reader to understand. Additionally, the scene is ultimately dependent on the characters you have created. If your characters decide to be frisky and want to be sexually deviant, then you have to have the writing be more graphic to reflect that.

This is a lot of info, but try to keep it all in mind when you write more and don't be afraid to post up what you come up with. The whole point of posting your stories online is to show everyone your progress and practice with it. You can't expect yourself to improve and post pieces of literary art if you never post until you actually think you get them. If you have a good piece, post it up and people might enjoy it. Good luck!

@Xenon Thanks.

BTW, am I the only one who gets annoyed when a writer uses too many Euphemisms? Just call it a goddamn dick and pussy. Or change it up a bit, but there is no need for a different name every time it is mentioned.

PROTIP, you should never use all of these in one story (and a few of them should never be used at all...)

Dick, shaft, cock, penis, manhood, hardness, sex, length, meatstick/ or for girls: pussy, sex, heat, womanhood, hole, private place, treasure, vagina

I've seen a lot of really bad euphemisms. Truthfully, I don't mind as long as it's in the top 5 most common, which is what I would alternate in between as using the same two or even three can be monotonous. I've never been a fan of the 'hoods either. Like I'm supposed to find it sexually arousing that it's referred to as the person's rightful sexual genitalia for surpassing adolescence. I feel like I'm in a health class again. That's just my opinion on those words, though.

And I have never known the rationale for why the cooch/slit/cunt was ever called a box. I hate the word cooch, too, it's like something I'm supposed to sit on for its similarity to couch.

Oh, and I find myself distracted by your new avatar, Cleaveland.

Yeah, I switch between the top 5 as well for variety.

Avatar is temporary though, just a creepy one for IB's little mini-event.

Using improper wording to match a character's personality also often ends up with a character sounding rather poetic whenever the author is trying way too hard to make a given conversation carry a deeper meaning.

When writing dialog in a contemporary setting thinking can get you shot in the foot. Trying to think of what a person would say makes a conversation less realistic immediately, because often people say what they think, or at the very least react quickly enough to formulate a rhetorical tactic without breaking the flow of a discussion.

I personally try to place myself in the setting as a sort-of eavesdropper in a conversation. No matter how developed the characters involved are, a simple understanding of their mannerisms and bearing in the narrative should create a person whole enough to converse. Since I have been told such, I'd like to use my work "March of the Suicide King" as an example. The main character and a major secondary character are introduced at the fore of the work and immediately begin talking. It's through some planning (though I hate to admit I do) and in-narrative character construction that the produced conversation comes off as it does.

The characters weren't complex or original (jaded artist, headstrong soldier) but in the end they are people. How would a jaded artist and a headstrong soldier talk to one another? What if they were long-time friends? If they've known each other, what kind of history would they have? Who would be the straight-man and who would be the joker? I find it best to ask myself these questions and then do as I said above. Once you can start to answer these questions, imagine the conversation.

EDIT: Eugh, I feel like a douche citing my own work as example. Will get to looking for more fitting reference.

I've just stared posting here, but I write a lot, and a few things come to mind in no particular order:

There's the old adage that to learn to write you have to read every day and write every day until you get to 1 million words, at which point you'll be able to tell what's rubbish and what's not. I tend to agree with this, not only because you build up experience points, but because it creates discipline, and discipline is absolutely essential to writing. When I'm doing a novel it's important that I build momentum; if I go one or two days without writing the story starts to slip out of my everyday thoughts. When I get close to the end of the book, I tend to sprint to the finish, working late into the night and pumping out thousands of words a day. In its fashion, it can be quite exhilarating and one of the most satisfying parts of writing.

Also, I'm generally a fan of pumping out a story, then going back and revising once it's done, rather than stopping midway through and reevaluating yourself.

Some writers outline, some wing it. It depends on your preference, but personally, I always draw out a loose outline. I like to know how my yarn ends before I begin writing, and like to draw up a loose outline of events. That being said, I sometimes find myself with a Point A and a Point C and no idea how Point B should go.

It's often said that the opening line, the opening paragraph, the opening few pages are what really sell your book, and I tend to agree. They're definitely something to really work over and perfect. I am also a big believer in good closing lines. Before I read a book I flip to the last page and read the last few sentences; a good closer can hook me [and rarely spoils things... too much]. Likewise, I always think up the closing lines for a novel before I start writing the first ones.

As for reading, variety is important and everything can help, though what specifically you read is inevitably going to influence you. As for me, I read SF and F. I read mysteries. I read Very Serious Literature. They all teach different valuable things. Meanwhile, I do not read much in the way of poetry or short stories. As a result, I've ended up a novel lad in both reading and writing. [Interestingly, while I enjoy SF/F, I simply cannot write it, but that's not to-day's issue.]

I have to respectfully disagree with Glitterangel about period dialogue. The farther back you go the more different language gets from the way it is now, and if you go too far this can distract the reader [For example, I thought Neal Stephensons's 'Baroque Cycle' did a good job mixing contemporary and period dialogue]. Personally, though, I have found that the period I'm writing in does effect the dialogue; if it's in the present time I'm more likely to throw in slang, swearing, et cetera, whereas the dialogue gets more formal the further back in time I go. That being said, the dialogue serves the story [just like everything else] so it really depends on the kind of mood you want your yarn to spin.

There's also the issue of 'theme,' which you can get all kinds of opinions on. To me, a story [especially a long one] needs some sort of central idea to hang itself on, some basic idea that can be stated simply. Every time I go into a novel I try to come up with a one-word theme I can make the centerpoint [eg, 'survival,' 'power,' 'death,' etc.] This isn't the same thing as making a book didactic [which is something else a lot of people don't lie, though didactic books can be good if done properly], and to me a nice single-word concept can give you plenty of directions to spin out to.

I am a fan of pretty prose. This does not necessarily mean purple prose [though I sometimes do that] but there's a special quality to proper cadence, precisely placed words, et cetera that can really give a story a strong atmosphere. I tend to prefer mine elegant, somewhat baroque, though it all depends on the story style. Favourite prose stylists that come to mind: Bill Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe, Will Styron, Cormac McCarthy, PG Wodehouse, William Maxwell, Raymond Chandler, Jim Crumley, Arthur Machen, M. John Harrison, Gene Wolfe. [Aside from the last few, SF/F has always tended to go for Asimov's 'panes of glass' style, and while there's nothing wrong with that, it shows the limits of what only reading in one genre can teach you.]

Question for the fiction writers!!!
I was going to make a new thread, but this sorrrrrrt of falls under the sticky.

I am a good writer, not going to lie: I am not the best, but I am pretty confident in my style, quality, voice, and structure when it comes to academic-style writing. However, I have sort of let fiction fall by the wayside in my work, and I'd like to improve/explore the genre as an outlet. Specifically, errr... works of a hentai nature (not manga... lol I don't have the drawing skill required).

While I used to be more interested and educated in writing quality fiction, I have not had much need or opportunity recently as most of my work is academic, critical, or research based.

Short of copying or mimicking popular story styles, courses or formats, how can one write effective fiction? Any resources would be great.
I've got down the mechanics of formal writing quite well, but need some pointers as to writing for a different genre/voice/etc. in an effective (and non amateur-ish) way.

How much fiction do you read? I recommend Rothfuss, Gaiman, Pratchett, Sanderson, Hobb, Card, Martin, Brett, Beagle, etc...

They are all fantasy, with the exception of Orson Scott Card, but you don't get more fictiony than fantasy. You seem to be under an impression that great writing abilities in structured essays transfers to story writing ability.

That is incorrect.

Your voice must be malleable and varied. You must know how to craft a compelling story. You must keep a world, that doesn't exist, consistent with itself for the entire span of your writing. (Not such a problem with short stories though, if that is what you are aiming for) You have to make up characters, entire personalities, appearances, and voices that will be separate from your own voice and personality, and keep them consistent and interesting. You need to be able to paint with your language. To make the reader smell your world. Hear it. Taste it. Feel its texture in the palm of their hand.

There are few similarities between academic analytical writing, and fiction writing. To use the words of one of Patrick Rothfuss' character speaking of chemistry and alchemy: "They're not even related. They just happen to live in the same house."

In short. Use the tips in the OP. Read fiction. Practice writing fiction. There is no shortcut or pointers that will overcome that step in your development.

Lol... didn't mean that. Guess what I said came out wrong.
I want to learn to use my writing knowledge towards a new type of writing; I don't think I'm at all above learning a lot, as that surely will be necessary!



Thanks. I am certainly going to work on reading some, but I don't want to merely borrow author styles.
I need to find my own voice, so I guess that will take a lot of trial and error. :)

Reading a bunch of fantasy styles doesn't mean that you will copy them, it just will reveal to you what story types and styles of writing you are partial toward, while showing you what may work in some situations, and what may not.

Story of my life, gizgal.

Do you want to write general fiction, erotic fiction, or straight out lemons? You can find good advice for any of those areas and all of us here in the writing section have our own strengths and preferences. If you want to write general fiction, I suggest following Cleaveland's and Jericho's advice. However, if you intend to write erotic fiction...Well, writing it like a manga won't do (for obvious reasons like terribly convenient and predictable plot). While it may work for manga as fap material, erotic fiction is its own genre and can prove to be like balancing a double-edged sword. For more details on that, you can check out my post further up on romantic erotica. When it comes to straight up smut, I trust Joe to that area because he's so damn good at it.

Nah, not really. I've never won a contest that I've entered. Thank you, though.

Winning contests, and being a skilled writer are not necessarily mutually inclusive. Listen to Xenon, you're good at what you do.

Another point to be made, far later in the thread than I would like.

A friend of mine recently pointed out something excellent. To delve into character creation:
Use common sense, I would say. Think of how you would react to a formative situation, then compile many of them into a believable background. It doesn't have to be perfect, but it does have to make sense. There's nothing worse than disagreeing with an author on how a character should act.

His formula was this: Character in a Vacuum.
CV revolves around the idea that a truly good, fleshed-out, three-dimensional character can be described by more than their actions show. "Actions speak louder than words," so if the actions are eliminated more subtle work can be unveiled. The theory is simple: if a character is good, they can be described merely by their motivations, LEAVING OUT COMPLETELY what they have done, will do, or has been done to them. Take, for example, Han Solo (devilish rogue, always looking out for himself, but able to provide solid assistance when absolutely necessary. The lovable thief, etc). He is an example of a character that CAN exist in a vacuum, considering his personality is reflected by more than just action. Besides that, he CHANGES (in the beginning, he seems completely narcissistic and nonredeemable, but due to his love for his friends he comes through at great personal risk). As a counter, take Mr. Collins in Pride and Prejudice. For those of you who don't know him, consider the stereotypical comic relief. He BARELY EXISTS in a vacuum (a somewhat bland man, that... well, he likes Catherine De Bourgh, and that's about it). He also STAYS STATIC throughout the book.

Note that, for minor and unimportant supporting characters, this sort of two-dimensional approach is perfectly appropriate. But for a major character whose head it's important to get into, lack of characterization is unforgivable. For those who place yourselves/the "stereotypical (wo)man" into your stories, apply this information strenuously against those aforementioned characters. One of the most common flaws in a character is to be a placeholder, left for the reader to fill. Don't worry about drawing your audience in like that; a good writer makes the reader identify with ALL their characters.

I support the above advice as a good quality item to remember upon character creation. Made me wonder about how Jerry creates the characters in his stories.

Not quite sure how that was meant, but I can't really explain my methodology, so I guess if it was negative I had it coming.

As far as the CV input goes, I greatly support it as well. Usually I'm against character study outside of the narrative, but not having a functional character is a risk not worth taking.