My Book

[Baby Tea]

If you've never really written before, I'd say start small. Like a short story, or series of them all connected. A book is a serious and grand undertaking. If you haven't the experience, there is a very good chance you'll get lost in the enormity of the project.
Writing workshops is also a good idea that was mentioned here.

And one more piece of advice was given to me that I've really taken to heart: Write because you want to. Don't force yourself. Writing, even when writing another fantasy story in the sea of them, is an art and and expression. If you're forcing yourself to write, it's like bad acting. Do what you can to get in the mood for writing (The right setting, music, whatever), but don't force it. Forcing it will only dilute the vision in your mind.

 

[Da Joz]

If you've never really written before, I'd say start small. Like a short story, or series of them all connected. A book is a serious and grand undertaking. If you haven't the experience, there is a very good chance you'll get lost in the enormity of the project.quote]

I agreee that you should start small. One of my friends just got his book published and he is having a hell of a time keeping up with his other work while promoting his first book, and all he wrote was a simple childrens book. You huys should check it out. Its kinda hard to find.

http://www.flipkart.com/woolly-big-cow-jonathan-burrello/1436358280-uox3fcdk2d

 

[Flying-Emu]

If you've never really written before, I'd say start small. Like a short story, or series of them all connected. A book is a serious and grand undertaking. If you haven't the experience, there is a very good chance you'll get lost in the enormity of the project.
Writing workshops is also a good idea that was mentioned here.

And one more piece of advice was given to me that I've really taken to heart: Write because you want to. Don't force yourself. Writing, even when writing another fantasy story in the sea of them, is an art and and expression. If you're forcing yourself to write, it's like bad acting. Do what you can to get in the mood for writing (The right setting, music, whatever), but don't force it. Forcing it will only dilute the vision in your mind.

This is truth. I started out writing short stories based on simple concepts; for example, spin-offs of stories/games I enjoyed. My first completed piece was an admittedly horrendous piece of fanfiction set in the Legend of Zelda universe. Only fifteen pages.

Now I'm on to writing longer stories. The one I'm currently writing (A science-fiction story in the vein of Dune) is currently seventeen pages, although I'm beginning to reach the last stretch of rising action.

That reminds me! Learn and love the diagram of a plot.

 

[Leorex]

I support anyone that wants to write, I am an aspiring writer myself with my own sci-fi novel. Right now it is at 17-18,000 words (larger than animal farm I believe).
I could read it if you want, I haven't read Void, but that might be a good thing.
Aynway, if you want to email it to me, I'm at [email protected]

while i liked his effort, animal farm was little more then a five year old playing with his markers. i mean really, pigs, as rulers. and sheep walking?

 

[Merteg]

I am wondering, in one part you say that the daemons come out of the gate, while later you say they are fighting daemons that were once human. Are both true?

I finished what you sent me, and it was very good!

I will hope you remember me and send me more as you finish it.

 

[Merteg]

I support anyone that wants to write, I am an aspiring writer myself with my own sci-fi novel. Right now it is at 17-18,000 words (larger than animal farm I believe).
I could read it if you want, I haven't read Void, but that might be a good thing.
Aynway, if you want to email it to me, I'm at [email protected]

while i liked his effort, animal farm was little more then a five year old playing with his markers. i mean really, pigs, as rulers. and sheep walking?

It was an allegory after all....

 

[Leorex]

by the way, how do you pick names for people, i find that the hardest part.

 

[LewsTherin]

Wait.....
A cheap knockoff of LotR inspired you to write another cheap knockoff of a cheap knockoff?

I'd say that oncce you take a deeper look at the lore of Shanarra it quickly loses most of those similarities.

Spoiler: For Instance...

It's set in a post-apocalyptic Earth, with remnants of our technologies damn near everywhere.

 

[Trivun]

by the way, how do you pick names for people, i find that the hardest part.

Well, no idea how to come up with names for fantasy and sci-fi characters, I'd imagine you could probably create your own language and use words from that as names, or just make up any old gibberish word and use it as a name. An example of both of these being used would be Ian Irvine's Well of Echoes Quartet. A character called Cryl-Nish Hlar is a main character, this is basically a gibberish name, but in a dialect spoken in the world the book is set in, 'Cryl-Nish' means 'pipsqueak'.

As for other types of fiction, any name will do. For example, my ongoing series of short stories, Digs (as seen on this site and on Deviant Art), has five main characters, who I named simply because I liked these names: Rob, James, Scarlett, Abby, Niamh. For the record, Niamh is a common Irish girl's name, pronounced like 'Eve' with an 'N' at the start (I actually got that as a name for my character because I admit that I had a kind of crush on Niamh on the UK television show 'I'd Do Anything' with Andrew Lloyd Webber...).

But yeah. That's basically it. Real life names, or for Sci-fi/Fantasy, go for gibberish names or make up a language.

 

[Same River New Water]

here are the frst few couple of paragraphs

Bryntoth woke suddenly, bathed in a cold sweat. It was the dreams. Even now he couldn?t escape them. Four years since his failure, four years since he abandoned his path and still they came. Unbidden. Unwanted. Always when he slept. Each dream was different, each one attempting to guide him on his journey. They were always fragmented, never giving him a clear picture of what he was supposed to do. One moment he would be standing with friends in a bright vibrant city, the next he would be stranded in a desolate wasteland, alone, afraid and without his magic to call on. One showed him the future if he was successful, the other showed him his failure. And his failures were becoming ever more apparent.

He tried to ignore them, but it was hard. It was no easy thing to dream the future. Especially one as bleak as this. Every failure shifted the balance further away from the light. Pushing humanity into the embrace of the daemons that poured forth from the netherworld. Every failure brought a new dream, a new hope, and a new despair.

He lay there for what seemed like ages, lost in his thoughts, contemplating his life. He felt as if he failed at everything since that day, four years ago, when he had lost his way. He was leading a company of the king?s guard, the elite troops of Bostratan Kingdom, into battle with a small group of daemons. He had not foreseen the ambush. His men were slaughtered before him. They stood to the last, hacking at their enemies, only to be rent apart by vicious claws and shredded by row upon row of black teeth. He knew he had the power to stop them, but he couldn?t find the will to call it forth. Instead, he ran. Ran as fast as he could and never looked back.

I'm going to echo thedailylunatic, but in capitals:

[HEADING=2]SHOW, DON'T TELL.[/HEADING]

This passage is suffering from infodump. You seem to be tripping over yourself to 'tell the story' and it's hampering the ability of your writing to paint a picture for the reader. You need to focus on engaging the reader in the moment, and let the plot take a back seat. I recommend you go back to the books that inspire you, and pay very close attention to how they impart the story. You'll find the most effective writing gives out information about the story subtly, as a seamless byproduct of describing the action occurring right now.

TVtropes is indeed a good source. Go there and read all about 'exposition' and all the related topics. Then try to avoid it.

Tip: Don't tell big slabs of the story all at once, as you've done in the opening paragraph. Even if it was engaging to read, it would still leave the reader less motivated to turn the pages, as they already know everything about the story. Try hinting at things while leaving most of the back-story a mystery.

Another tip: It's ok to use a character's internal thoughts to let the reader in on story details, but restrict it to things the character is likely to think about and the way in which they are likely to think about it. While Bryntoth might think back to the failed expedition, he is very unlikely to go through all the details of it in his mind. For example, he would have no reason to think to himself "it was four years ago", unless it was the fourth anniversary or something. Or unless he thought "it doesn't feel like four years ago". I don't mean you have to write in the character's voice; but your narration should be tied directly to what the character is thinking about, or it breaks the reader's sense of immersion in the moment.

Take this passage:

He was leading a company of the king?s guard, the elite troops of Bostratan Kingdom, into battle with a small group of daemons. He had not foreseen the ambush. His men were slaughtered before him. They stood to the last, hacking at their enemies, only to be rent apart by vicious claws and shredded by row upon row of black teeth.

The strongest part of that is the second half of the last sentence. It's a vivid illustration of a scene, and it makes sense for it to haunt the mind's eye of the protagonist. Everything before that is filler. Below is an example of how I think the passage would be stronger. (I'm not an experienced fiction writer, so I'm not suggesting my writing is at a particularly high standard of quality. I'm sure you would write it differently and in a style that better suits your voice. But consider how I'm trying to impart the story indirectly, and think about what is effective about that style.)

Bryntoth could hear the steady crunch of his men's marching feet. He remembered enjoying the quiet of the day, the lack of bird song or animal sounds; stupid, not thinking, not realising what that meant.

I should have known, he thought bitterly, for the thousandth time.

He remembered seeing Harrison suddenly stumble and topple to the ground. At first he thought Harrison had tripped, and he jogged over to help him up. An awful feeling took hold in his gut as he noticed the arrowhead sticking out the back of Harrison's throat. The grin shrank from Bryntoth's face and the friendly joke died in his throat as he looked up at the tree line - but slowly, too slowly, as though he was moving underwater. Where a moment ago he had seen trees and bushes he now saw hiding positions and ambush zones. His thoughts seemed to run thick and slow like honey as he saw the demons begin to leap from the forest, all flashing teeth and glinting claws.

The faces of his soldiers seemed frozen in his mind: some confused, some surprised, others still smiling and looking the wrong way, unaware of the death they faced.

I should have done something. I should have trained them for this.

The screams of his wounded men and the screams of the attacking demons mingled in his memory. He could see the vicious claws ripping into the bodies of his soldiers - his men, the ones he should have kept safe. He could smell the iron tang of fresh blood, he could almost taste it. Everywhere he looked, men lay torn open, while their brothers-at-arms struggled and died on their feet.

And he could see the faces of their families, their wives and children, as he stood at their front doors and told them the news, the awful clatter of battle still raging in his mind. And although none of them had said it, he could hear their voices asking "Why?"

"Why did you survive when good men died? What god saw fit to spare your life, who couldn't protect those who trusted you? Why didn't you die?"

He hadn't found an answer in the four long years since then. He didn't think he ever would.

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

Bryntoth woke suddenly, bathed in a cold sweat. It was the dreams. Even now he couldn?t escape them. Four years since his failure, four years since he abandoned his path and still they came. Unbidden. Unwanted. Always when he slept. Each dream was different, each one attempting to guide him on his journey.

First paragraph and already we're cliched, sentamental, and really breaking the rule of "show, don't tell" in general. Show us that Bryntoth feels his dreams are unwelcome. Show that the dreams are trying to guide him. Show that he's abandoned his path. Don't tell us.

I get that you're an aspiring author - and I don't want to crush your dreams - but the worst thing I can do right now is tell you that it's okay. If you're even semi-serious about this you need to improve your storytelling skills. Learn the dos and don't before you go breaking rules. Maybe check out Stephen King's book on writing. People swear by it.

 

[crypt-creature]

Maybe check out Stephen King's book on writing. People swear by it.

I'd hope that his 'how to' book is better than his writing.

Lovecraft is much better (opinion of course), and is the person King was inspired by, and gets so little credit. Granted, Lovecraft can be very long winded and tedious in some of his works, but still entertains me far more than the ideas and subjects of King.

 

[EMFCRACKSHOT]

by the way, how do you pick names for people, i find that the hardest part.

I just throw letters together until the sound likie they could be a name. That or tak the names of very minor charachters from games or books. Only ones whose names only appear once or twice though.
You could also try out the welsh language that has some wierd fantasy sounding names in it

 

[Same River New Water]

I'd hope that his 'how to' book is better than his writing.

Lovecraft is much better (opinion of course), and is the person King was inspired by, and gets so little credit. Granted, Lovecraft can be very long winded and tedious in some of his works, but still entertains me far more than the ideas and subjects of King.

He didn't sell nearly as many books, though!

Seriously though, Stephen King is generally considered to be a very accomplished writer of characters, in particular. For some reason his recent work seems to have got worse and worse, but his early books are solid. Different strokes for different folks, of course, but Stephen King definitely has the better technique for writing fiction that engages the reader. After all, Lovecraft had great trouble selling his work for much of his life; a problem King has never had. That's not a final judge of quality, of course - or else Stephenie Meyer would have won a Pulitzer - but it shows a knack for making his writing engaging. Lovecraft's ideas arguably ran deeper, but they were also further removed from everyday life, and his writing emphasised that by its arcane style.

It's been a while since Stephen King has written a book I like, sadly, but his early works are great.

 

[crypt-creature]

I'd hope that his 'how to' book is better than his writing.

Lovecraft is much better (opinion of course), and is the person King was inspired by, and gets so little credit. Granted, Lovecraft can be very long winded and tedious in some of his works, but still entertains me far more than the ideas and subjects of King.

He didn't sell nearly as many books, though!

Seriously though, Stephen King is generally considered to be a very accomplished writer of characters, in particular. For some reason his recent work seems to have got worse and worse, but his early books are solid. Different strokes for different folks, of course, but Stephen King definitely has the better technique for writing fiction that engages the reader. After all, Lovecraft had great trouble selling his work for much of his life; a problem King has never had. That's not a final judge of quality, of course - or else Stephenie Meyer would have won a Pulitzer - but it shows a knack for making his writing engaging. Lovecraft's ideas arguably ran deeper, but they were also further removed from everyday life, and his writing emphasised that by its arcane style.

It's been a while since Stephen King has written a book I like, sadly, but his early works are great.

King might being selling more while he is alive, but there is also a market for it now. When Lovecraft was writing, his works were being published in a magazine, and to a very select group of readers, since they were more or less short stories than actual novels. No one at that time really became popular when writing about the macabre, but his works did become popular after his death, when more people became interested.

If you wanted to, you could compare Lovecraft with any of the great painters, and King to a commercial artist. Out of the great painters, not many of them did well while they were alive, it took time to appreciate their works. But when people finally did, the works became a much sought after item.
Commercial artists are usually very successful since they will go with what will sell at the time, maybe being more polished in a certain technique but not really offering anything new to the original style. Maybe even toning it down slightly to make it appeal to a broader audience.
Lovecraft was very much an artist, while he did write to support himself he didn't seem to let that impact his writing a whole lot (he can get long-winded, but his earlier works seem to have more of that than his later ones).
It seems like King started out the same way, but he figured out what sells and cared a lot more about that than maintaining quality writing.

*shrug* It's just a pet peeve of mine, so many people like to say that King is the best author of macabre and horror when usually he is a cheap knock-off of his idol, Lovecraft.

 

[Zombie_Fish]

If you would like to read what i have so far let me know and i will email it to you or something. Feedback would be greatly appreciated. It is my first attempt, and i would like to know if i should keep up with this or go for something different.

If you want we do have a short story thread you could use for feedback:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.110578?page=1

 

[Same River New Water]

*shrug* It's just a pet peeve of mine, so many people like to say that King is the best author of macabre and horror when usually he is a cheap knock-off of his idol, Lovecraft.

I'm with you for the most part - certainly King is more commercial than Lovecraft, although it's not as though Lovecraft wasn't trying to sell his work. But it's a bit rich saying that King is just imitating Lovecraft. I'm sure Lovecraft was a big influence on King, but he wasn't "the" influence, as though there was only one or King is just trying to emulate Lovecraft. Their writing is barely alike. Their stories are just not that similar, beyond the fact that they're both writing in the supernatural horror genre. Lovecraft is eldritch; King is everyday. Lovecraft builds horror with a sense of unimaginable immensity and power; King builds horror with 'domestic' scares on a personal scale. Lovecraft's imagination is focused on demons and hell-worlds; King's imagination is focused on the human beings and their emotions and state of mind. Lovecraft certainly writes about his characters' state of mind, but it's always 'blasted with indescribable horror'.

I must sound like I'm trying to promote Stephen King, but I don't mean to. He's the pop star to Lovecraft's cult-underground act. But he's not a knock-off of anyone, cheap or otherwise.

 

[soaringbiscuit]

like neonbob said, i kill my characters off too!

Who doesn't?! That's the only way to keep people interested! I always kill off the reader at some point in the story too XD. Well sir, as ThrobbingEgo said, you need to work on showing, not telling (I bet you've heard that from every English teacher ever). And you might want to spell "aspiring" right (first line of the first post). Otherwise, I have to say that was... a 2 out of 5. No elaboration. That one scene you described in two paragraphs could have been a page and a half if you had done it right. I'm not saying go for quantity over quality, because if you're going to be a writer you need both.

 

[Zydrate]

I have mentioned it in a few other threads, but i am an sapiring writer. Ever since i first read the sword of shannara i have wanted to write a fantasy book. So far, i have about 3,000 words. I havent had much time to work on it recently with exams and everything though [no period] XD
Terry Brooks has been my greatest influence and people familiar with his work will probably see glaring similarities between this and the word and the void trilogy, even so, its a good distraction and i enjoy it [no period]

If you would like to read what i have so far let me know and i will email it to you or something. Feedback would be greatly appreciated. It is my first attempt, and i would like to know if i should keep up with this or go for something different.

Find another career, seriously.