Does anyone know a good story writing tutorial?
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Does anyone know a good story writing tutorial?
Hello, Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask this. Does anyone know where to find some good story writing tutorial? I'm kinda poor at writing and wanna learn how to write a good story. Any recommendations will do
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Hime
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Hmm, I don't think there is any kind of a good "recipe" to good stories... But I think you should write with your heart, describe the enviroment and such to enchance the atmosphere of the scenes. Use many kinds of expressions and try to find your own style, the way you enjoy it and feel it's right.
And the plot and characters, IF you want advice about those too, it might sound stupid, but try not to invent them, but to find them. And make them deep. Many people have the problem that their characters are very stereotypic and shallow. Think about their good sides, bad sides, past, future, relations... Not only the personality and looks. And remember that perfect characters aren't as enjoyable as the humane ones.
That's my piece of advice! ^^
And the plot and characters, IF you want advice about those too, it might sound stupid, but try not to invent them, but to find them. And make them deep. Many people have the problem that their characters are very stereotypic and shallow. Think about their good sides, bad sides, past, future, relations... Not only the personality and looks. And remember that perfect characters aren't as enjoyable as the humane ones.
That's my piece of advice! ^^
Umm... write a good story or a good script?. Because for me they are pretty different things. There are some good software to help with the story development out there, like Dramatica or Story View(that is not so "movie script" related like Dramatica), but they are expensive.
And in the case of Dramatica it's more like an expensive toy, very funny to use but most of the times you end up with almost anything written (and you need a lot of your time to learn how to use its "special philosophy".) I'll always end up using Final Draft, which has a lot of good advice of professionals like Syd Field and that kind of people but it's not going to write the story for you. But I don't think there is a magic tutorial to write well anyway... ( although On Writing from Stephen King is close to perfection for me
)
And in the case of Dramatica it's more like an expensive toy, very funny to use but most of the times you end up with almost anything written (and you need a lot of your time to learn how to use its "special philosophy".) I'll always end up using Final Draft, which has a lot of good advice of professionals like Syd Field and that kind of people but it's not going to write the story for you. But I don't think there is a magic tutorial to write well anyway... ( although On Writing from Stephen King is close to perfection for me
)Really, I think that there are two main routes to writing good stories, and they tend to work well in concert. Simply: read and internalise a lot of existing good stories, and live for a while.
For the latter: It's been said many times that you can't write stories until you've known hardship of one form or another, and it probably helps; most stories revolve around contention of some kind, and to present a believable, interesting contention it helps to have been involved in a few yourself so you understand the mindset and the problems. Simple maturity and experience will do wonders for fleshing out plots so that they are self-consistent instead of arbitrary.
For the former: When you read, don't just follow the action and cheer at the end when the protagonist gets the girl (or blows up the spaceship or saves the president or whatever) but once you're done, think back over the story, pick out the main important events - which bits really mattered to advance the plot, set up character interactions, and which bits were just colour - and think about how the pace varied over the course of the book. Most stories, IIRC, have a broadly three-part structure, and there are a variety of different tricks which are commonly used to increase reader involvement/attachment/interest. Of course, this all applies equally to screenplays, theatre, visual novels; the stories are the same, the mode of presentation is different.
(Unfortunately, learning to do this well - which is part of any good Literature course - pretty much destroys your ability to enjoy mindless bad pulp fiction. I read a book recently which I would probably have quite enjoyed when I was fourteen, but several years of Eng. Lit. education later I find the structure lacking, the motivations bizarre and the plot totally without meaningful resolution.)
And yes, as to the actual writing part, I can only echo some of the things that have already been said - especially the part about characters. Too often secondary characters in mediocre fiction act entirely as plot devices, engines of authorial fiat - they do things not because they as characters want to do them, not because it makes sense for someone in their position to do such things, but because the author wanted such a thing to happen so he randomly grabbed a side character and had them do it without thinking it through. If you can work your plot such that characters obey their own motivations at all times, it's a lot more believable for the reader.
For the latter: It's been said many times that you can't write stories until you've known hardship of one form or another, and it probably helps; most stories revolve around contention of some kind, and to present a believable, interesting contention it helps to have been involved in a few yourself so you understand the mindset and the problems. Simple maturity and experience will do wonders for fleshing out plots so that they are self-consistent instead of arbitrary.
For the former: When you read, don't just follow the action and cheer at the end when the protagonist gets the girl (or blows up the spaceship or saves the president or whatever) but once you're done, think back over the story, pick out the main important events - which bits really mattered to advance the plot, set up character interactions, and which bits were just colour - and think about how the pace varied over the course of the book. Most stories, IIRC, have a broadly three-part structure, and there are a variety of different tricks which are commonly used to increase reader involvement/attachment/interest. Of course, this all applies equally to screenplays, theatre, visual novels; the stories are the same, the mode of presentation is different.
(Unfortunately, learning to do this well - which is part of any good Literature course - pretty much destroys your ability to enjoy mindless bad pulp fiction. I read a book recently which I would probably have quite enjoyed when I was fourteen, but several years of Eng. Lit. education later I find the structure lacking, the motivations bizarre and the plot totally without meaningful resolution.)
And yes, as to the actual writing part, I can only echo some of the things that have already been said - especially the part about characters. Too often secondary characters in mediocre fiction act entirely as plot devices, engines of authorial fiat - they do things not because they as characters want to do them, not because it makes sense for someone in their position to do such things, but because the author wanted such a thing to happen so he randomly grabbed a side character and had them do it without thinking it through. If you can work your plot such that characters obey their own motivations at all times, it's a lot more believable for the reader.
Server error: user 'Jake' not found
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mrsulu
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We've had some discussion about this before:
http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1194
I suggested some books there, and I stand by them:
Orson Scott Card, "How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy"
Syd Field. "Screenplay"
Algis Budrys, "Writing to the Point: A Complete Guide to Selling Fiction"
There's lots more in the thread.
Learning to write is like learning any skill or trade: You just do it every day, turn out reams of material, and after a while the ratio of good to bad gets pretty high.
It's really good to join a writing circle so you can get good face-to-face reactions to your work (and read lots of other people's work), and there are classes on creative writing everywhere. Having someone who is a good reader (someone who reads a lot and likes to read and whom you know well and will be frank with you) react to your story can help you understand what's working and what isn't.
Good luck!
http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1194
I suggested some books there, and I stand by them:
Orson Scott Card, "How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy"
Syd Field. "Screenplay"
Algis Budrys, "Writing to the Point: A Complete Guide to Selling Fiction"
There's lots more in the thread.
Learning to write is like learning any skill or trade: You just do it every day, turn out reams of material, and after a while the ratio of good to bad gets pretty high.
It's really good to join a writing circle so you can get good face-to-face reactions to your work (and read lots of other people's work), and there are classes on creative writing everywhere. Having someone who is a good reader (someone who reads a lot and likes to read and whom you know well and will be frank with you) react to your story can help you understand what's working and what isn't.
Good luck!
Last edited by mrsulu on Tue Feb 27, 2007 6:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I agree, definitely a good resource. If you're looking for absolutely basic, the best option is to, as Jake said above, read intensively. Read some of the masters of your genre, whatever it is. Do some research on the really bad stuff, too. Make sure you can spot the difference (you'd be amazed how many people honestly can't see the differences in craft between your average rosedog offering and a book grabbed at random off the book store shelf).mrsulu wrote:Orson Scott Card, "How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy"
Barring all that reading, you could try Jerry Cleaver's Immediate Fiction -- it encapsulates a lot of the basics in a comfortable way.
Writing good interactive fiction isn't exactly like writing a purely text story, though. I think of writing interactive fiction more as, I don't know, writing down the bones of the movie playing in my head? So every word really has to count. Not to sound too dorky, but there's something very satisfying about squeezing every possible iota of connotation out of a word, phrase, and sentence.
And I have to know where the movie is going to end up, to some extent, so I do a lot of plotting beforehand -- rough blocks of scene that add up to an ending I like. And then I just... write... and boy is that probably not useful at all.
My 2007 NaNo entry: Eidolon
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La petite chatte de glace
Somebody actually asked me this question earlier today, and you know what I realized? I do not know. I never actually produce anything, I just spend 26 hours a day figuring out what happened to my character recently. I hope these stories end up being somewhat close to what people wish to read, but in any case I would rather have fun than fans...
So, anyway, my method is basically this:
1. Gather ingredients.
a. People who behave unexpectedly (real or in other fiction)
b. Cliches, the especially popular or annoyingly unrealistic ones
c. Information about how the world works on every conceivable level (This one keeps me up until 4:00 in the morning sometimes.)
2. Shake well.
3. Figure out what caused the people in question to behave as they did, and draw conclusions about other aspects of their psyches.
4. Take a few cliches that show up often in my intended genre and combine them with the information I have gathered to figure out natural causes and effects, as well as how far from reality they would be. If they are very far from natural or commonplace phenomena, my characters would (and should, if applicable) notice.
5. Build a world, stretching the cliches as far as possible in both the cause and effect directions.
6. Modify the people--the characters--according to how their environment would be likely to affect their habits, beliefs and personalities.
7. Shake well--in fact, use a blender on its maximum setting this time.
8. Take note of any interesting conflicts and interactions that result, and document them if time allows.
9. Re-examine the established events and try to figure out what the background characters think they are doing. Repeat step 3 for each of them.
10. In light of new knowledge about background characters, throw away documentation and try again.
11. Repeat until someone demands to know why I never accomplish anything, and complain about time. Whine and insult myself as necessary.
12. For a slight shortcut, take the worst story I have ever read/seen/encountered, plagiarize it, and apply steps 3, 5, and 9 until the characters and I actually believe that this outlandish situation is occurring. Make sure everyone is accounted for, and freely deviate from the original storyline as discrepancies occur.
Yeah, a three-part story formula thingy would help a lot, but I would rather just do an utterly banal, epic/episodic slice-of-semifuturistic-anime-horrorish-life drama about my wittle kitty-boy and the most boring/irritating self-insert you ever came across. That spares me from having to incorporate the reader choice factor into my work, and also from having to figure out where to end the thing (as both the major characters witness the end of the world--*BOOM!**twinkle**glowing feather shower**clouds*).
No idea what the moral of all this is for you. I guess my philosophy has always been that if a story is worth telling, it will beg you and pester you for as long as it takes for you to attend to it...which is probably the worst possible thing to tell someone who does not know what/how to write. Sincerest apologies.
So, anyway, my method is basically this:
1. Gather ingredients.
a. People who behave unexpectedly (real or in other fiction)
b. Cliches, the especially popular or annoyingly unrealistic ones
c. Information about how the world works on every conceivable level (This one keeps me up until 4:00 in the morning sometimes.)
2. Shake well.
3. Figure out what caused the people in question to behave as they did, and draw conclusions about other aspects of their psyches.
4. Take a few cliches that show up often in my intended genre and combine them with the information I have gathered to figure out natural causes and effects, as well as how far from reality they would be. If they are very far from natural or commonplace phenomena, my characters would (and should, if applicable) notice.
5. Build a world, stretching the cliches as far as possible in both the cause and effect directions.
6. Modify the people--the characters--according to how their environment would be likely to affect their habits, beliefs and personalities.
7. Shake well--in fact, use a blender on its maximum setting this time.
8. Take note of any interesting conflicts and interactions that result, and document them if time allows.
9. Re-examine the established events and try to figure out what the background characters think they are doing. Repeat step 3 for each of them.
10. In light of new knowledge about background characters, throw away documentation and try again.
11. Repeat until someone demands to know why I never accomplish anything, and complain about time. Whine and insult myself as necessary.
12. For a slight shortcut, take the worst story I have ever read/seen/encountered, plagiarize it, and apply steps 3, 5, and 9 until the characters and I actually believe that this outlandish situation is occurring. Make sure everyone is accounted for, and freely deviate from the original storyline as discrepancies occur.
Yeah, a three-part story formula thingy would help a lot, but I would rather just do an utterly banal, epic/episodic slice-of-semifuturistic-anime-horrorish-life drama about my wittle kitty-boy and the most boring/irritating self-insert you ever came across. That spares me from having to incorporate the reader choice factor into my work, and also from having to figure out where to end the thing (as both the major characters witness the end of the world--*BOOM!**twinkle**glowing feather shower**clouds*).
No idea what the moral of all this is for you. I guess my philosophy has always been that if a story is worth telling, it will beg you and pester you for as long as it takes for you to attend to it...which is probably the worst possible thing to tell someone who does not know what/how to write. Sincerest apologies.
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