I guess I'll go on ahead and put this out here.
So, you got a good idea and you wanna write it down. You've wanted to write a story, too. So, how do you do it? Well, not that I'm an expert but it's pretty simple to write a story, but writing a coherent and consistent story is a little more challenging. But there is no concrete way to write a story. Do what you will with your tale. But here are some tips from me to you.
1. Write what you know
The best stories are the ones you know. Things you're familiar with tend to resonate better and continuously develop scenarios and ideas to write down. A lot of iconic and well-known stories are usually because the author based some ideas around things he liked as a child or grew up around. With Mission, I based that around my fun with my friends as a kid and write it based on that fun we had with some other things that were around during my younger years. You can easily create stories on something you liked or stood out to you, even as an adult. Again, whatever you know, use that as the groundwork for your story or novel. Of course, it helps to dive into subjects you're unfamiliar with, but we'll get to that later.
2. Plan ahead and map out where your story will go
Writing a story is easy. Writing an ongoing story has some issues. I'll use a non-traditional form of media as an example. A long running manga like One Piece is successful because of Oda's planning and mapping out the story. Granted, the pacing may be a little slower with some of the recent arcs, but overall the attention to detail is amazing. He really loves his work, even risking his health to finish it. Of course you don't do what he did, but it shows he cares enough to put out some impressive work. A good work ethic goes with any job. But nonetheless you have to plan ahead before you write a story. If you intend for it to be short, like say one or two books that's fine. But for longer works, you'll have to see how far you can take it and also where you feel you can end things with minimal loose ends untied.
A big issue with long running series is fatigue. Do you still have it in you to keep going after say, ten years and up? If you don't feel it in your heart to continue, you're better off ending your story right there and then. But let's go to the next point and also expand on what I mentioned with work ethic.
3. Stay on point with writing
Staying on point with your material means, don't get lazy or intimidated. In this age of internet, phones, texting and emojis, it doesn't seem like people read too much let alone write. Hell, even a decade and change ago people would ream on you for writing a giant wall of text, even with paragraphs. Even I admit, reading paragraphs can be intimidating. With writing a book, you have to be prepared to read and write a lot and especially rereading your material a lot. When I do a volume, rereads are the worst part after trying to fish for ideas in unfamiliar subjects.You gotta look for typos, grammar mistakes and punctuation errors. However, I did say that writing a story has no concrete rules. Perhaps you want to take a word and corrupt it to fit the story. That's fine.
What I'm mentioning is the general lack of grammar skills. You can't write something without having that basic knowledge. A good example would be any comment section on any site. The grammatical errors and misspelled words could fill the entirety of the universe. If you want to write a story, you can't go around typing shit like
"the girl went inside the shack and got the shovel to pick up shit lol"
or
"The Girl Went To The Shack To Get A Shovel To Shovel Horse Poop From The Barn"
Or this, which I feel is worse:
"dana was a girl who was trying to learn how to be farmhand in Texas. She wanted to learn how to ride horseback but was told by her father, that she couldnt ride one until she knew what it was like to take care of a horse and all its necesary needs"
What I'm saying is, read a book or learn how to separate your social media from your professional work.
4. Keep it simple
Not your story, but your overall use of words. You don't have to be a scholar and use big words like extravagant, morose, lightheartedness or microspectrophotometry (A personal favorite that I made a direct attempt to memorize and pronounce). The best stories are not the ones with the longest or smartest words, but how words in general are used. You can make a great story with small words and you can make a so-so story with larger words. Basically don't show out. It's okay to not know some words you hear college professors use. You have nothing to prove to anyone. Just write and enjoy writing, that's all that matters.
5. Have fun with writing
I said it before and I'll say it again. The best way to get your story finished is to enjoy writing it. If you don't enjoy writing, you can't enjoy your book or your material. Even if you're writing a non-fiction book you can still enjoy the process of writing one. One thing I love about writing is that there's no set method. Every writer has their own style and way of creating a story. With that versatility, you have plenty of works that stand out so no two works are the same. In fact, I'd say it's best not to follow a particular way of writing outside basic grammar and punctuation. I only had a year of actual writing class in high school (The same year I had economics, something not present in my old school in NY. Go figure.). I learned a lot then and a lot from reading books. I didn't have to go to college to write, I just wrote. I started writing in 11th grade and spent most of my time writing instead of doing the actual schoolwork in my last year. In hindsight, it was the best choice I ever made. The public school system is a flawed one and you learn very little from it. I feel for the people who went to college just to learn how to write better.
6. Be original
Originality is the best way to stand out from the rest. Taking inspiration from other works is okay, in fact I'd wager most books took some pages from a lot of things. It's when you take a lot of pages from a work to where it's just a retread of that work is where things get a little off. Originality isn't hard to do, it just takes time. I'll give an example: Writing a story inspired by Superman is okay. It's when your character is more or less Clark Kent with a different name is where you have a problem. If you want to be original, you could have your superhero come from a dimension parallel to ours and he made it his duty to keep the planet safe from the evil forces he lived with, or have him appear from that dimension as an infant and raised by earthling parents, while learning to defend the Earth as he grows up. While the origin story is similar, it's the execution that makes Superman stand out from Nova Guy. Even if it's something silly like a Dragondile in the fairy world of Sparkleboom, that's still original for the most part.
Silly, but original.
7. Research
I don't know everything, and I don't claim to know everything. So, I do research. If I'm writing a chapter of Mission and I take my characters to another country, I do some Google-fu based on where they are and take my time searching and feeling out said country's culture, cities and so on. After I get what I need, I continue writing. I do this often, especially if a character is a native from that country. I try to use some words from their native tongue to give them more character and stand out. I do struggle on if I should have said character talk entirely in their language or just think their thoughts in English, though I always do the latter.
If I need to look up certain things I want to incorporate in my story, I do the same process above with just about everything, and even read up on things I do know but forgot along the way. It's much easier this way compared to drawing, which takes more time to do. I did have an interest in drawing but never took the initiative to pursue it or hone my skills. It's never too late, and I'd like to draw my characters so the audience can know what they're about visually.
Overall, I think that'll do for this entry. There are plenty of things you can talk about with writing and writing a book, but in general it's up to you how you want to create your story. Don't treat this like a go-to guide but a simple advice sheet.
And do visit my site if you have the time.
