Writing with Dorkthehunter: Part 1

[Dorkthehunter]

I'll edit this post and add more later, but for now I will just briefly start out with some tips to make your writing better:

 

1. Use capital letters. when john was writing his book in alabama he didn't use capital letters and he was shunned by the publishers. Don't let this happen to you! Learn from John's mistakes. 

Capital letters help a story flow. Starting a sentence with a capital letter makes the reader focus on what the words are and what the author is trying to say rather than wondering why the heck the first word isn't capitalized. Editing one's work is crucial.

 

2. Once you've written something, read it out loud to yourself. This goes a long way in the editing process. You can catch many simple mistakes and errors in grammer, punctuation, and word choice just by reading it aloud. And yes, read it out loud. When you just read it to yourself, your brain will sometimes add in missing letters and words, correct spellings, and all sorts of things. When speaking it, you will not do this.

 

3. Start with an outline. Know what you want to write. You need to link the story together and have it be a single idea instead of a bunch of fragmented paragraphs that somehow fit together. Lead into the next event and if you get good, try to foreshadow events that will happen in the future. If a character plays a role later in the story, maybe introducing the audience to them now is and developing their character until you get to that crucial moment is more effective than talking about them right before the event. Readers are more apt to get drawn into the story when they connect with the characters and enter into your brain, into the world that you have fabricated through your writing.

 

4. Indenting and seperating paragraphs is a great thing! This is very simple and makes it a whole lot easier to look at and read. When something is spaced out, I will be more apt to read the whole thing and not skim it over because there are so many words so close to each other.

 

5. Be open to ideas. When you have a closed mind is when you are doomed to fail. You need to be open to criticism or advise from other people. You don't always have to agree with them, but sometimes other people actually do have good ideas. Imagine that! Some critics are harsh, but that's life. But even the harsh ones many times have very good advise, just worded in more of an attacking way.

 

Hope you take something away from this. More later!

-Dorkthehunter

[Mikan Cyclone]

May I give some more tips? 

 

Don't Use Capital Letters At Every Single Word or, TALK IN ALL CAPS LIKE THIS.  All caps is used for when a character is shouting or saying something loudly, and even then it's bad grammar.  I do it all the time, but whatever floats your boat.

Use periods (.) and commas (,) (and occasionally ; )  It looks silly when you have two sentences that don't have a beginning and an end run ons are bad and can lead to bad mistakes

[Dorkthehunter]

Note: This is only Part 1. There is much more to come in the future. Many more tips will be covered. But if you think of any that you would like to share, go for it.

[Guest]

I'd like to say that this should not only apply to any fanfics you write but use it all around in general. Sometimes I have to read some of you people's posts 2 or 3 times through to understand what the heck it is you are trying to say. Punctuation is your friend. And try to spell out words. Try to avoid using acronyms too much, some new members (if we ever get any) may not understand what it is you are talking about. I remember when Cain first put up the subforum for medieval 2 total war. He put the subforum's title M2TW. And I didn't know what the heck it was until I dug around in there and found out what the actual name of the game was.

[Dorkthehunter]

Here's a big tip to fan fic writers:

 

Develop your characters! They are the heart and soul of your story. Introduce them, giving the readers their name, nicknames(if relevent), experience, height, build, gender, species(if there are more than humans in the story), and other physical descriptions. You might want to take a little jump to the past and talk about one of their finest missions or accomplishments in order for the reader to better know the character. Make sure to include the general emotions of the character: Is he/she generally mad, sad, depressed, happy or do they have an infamous temper? Things like that will make a great description.

 

Once you have introduced the character, go back into the action and make sure to show some of the characteristics you mentioned earlier. The character's height could be a detriment to his/her disguise, or maybe their species and gender make it hard to blend in. The character's ruthless nature and bad temper could result in him/her killing someone that a more compassionate person would have had arrested.

 

Now build on these charcteristics. Will an event(like witnessing a genocide)make the character more compassionate? Or will the death of a close friend drive him/her to bloody revenge and execution? Sometimes characters struggle to overcome their flaws, and othertimes they grow to see them not as flaws, but as weapons to gain more power. Sometimes youth can be a big barrier that one must overcome. Proving oneself to your superiors is always a good route to go in order to develop the characters. Perhaps your character is so driven to succeed that he/she will stop at nothing, including murder, to obtain respect and a promotion. It is up for you as the author to decide how to develop your characters, but please do not just have them stay the same throughout the story. Most minor character remain static(the same)throughout the story, but that does not have to be true for yours. A minor character could have a change of heart and help the main character out in a tough spot. That could be an enemy soldier that gives the main character a key to the enemy fortress or to a weapons storage room. It's up for you to decide. Make sure your main character changes from the beginning to the end. Some characteristic or flaw or something should be developed, changed, or realized by the end(hopefully). If all else fails, at least make the story exciting.

Edited June 4, 2007 by Dorkthehunter

[Dorkthehunter]

Don't Make It Boring! Use fun words like destruction, deranged, utterly, annihilation, abomination, scum, void, vehemously, decaying, brandish, vengence, etc. when writing. You could write "Everyone died." That would be very boring though. You could change it to something like "The utter destruction of those present at the battle made the world void of life and decaying. A cry of vengence rose up among the populous of the surrounding planets and an effort began to annihilate the abomination that ruthlessly disposed of an entire planet's citizens."