The fiction writers resource compendium.

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Well, I finally decided to start making one to post on these forums, mostly because of how many people I've noticed stating that they have writing issues and stuff. As stated in the title, this will be geared mostly towards those who write fiction. Also, if anyone in particular wants to submit advice to be put into this, post it and I will consider merging it with the first post. The Guide will also be in a permanent work in progress, so please don't complain about the bumping up of it whenever a MAJOR update to it occurs.


(Will be adding some more to this later. Got a bunch of things to get done :/ )


And past this line lies the realm of the guide...
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Sections
I: Some general words of advice.
II: The Creative Spark
III: Getting your act together
IV:










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Section I: Some General Words of Advice

Just as the name of this section states, this is section is filled with advice to keep in mind before, during, and after you are done writing your story.
- If you ever decide to start writing a story, realize that if you want it to be good you do have to put work into it. This is especially true if you decide to ever try to get something published.
- Family and friends aren't good critics. They usually tell you what you WANT to hear, not what you need to hear. I will talk more about getting your works read and critiqued in a later section.
- Practice makes perfect: You aren't going to be writing a masterpiece from day one. You should be 'exercising' your writing ability as often as you can. For example if you aren't working on your story or are just simply bored or whatever, grab a notebook or open up a word document and just start writing. It doesn't necessarily have to be a story either. Simply writing sentences can help ya learn how to make them flow better for example.
- Don't give up. This is the biggest one for most people, and I myself have been guilty of it at times. You aren't gonna get anywhere if you never finish your projects. Even if you feel your current project sucks, keep on working at it. It helps you gain experience in writing. It ties in a lot to my previous statement, practice practice practice.


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Section II: The Creative Spark

Numerous people complain about not being able to come up with any ideas for a story; or if they do have an Idea, they have problems thinking up names among other things.
------ Ways to get the creative juices flowing...
----------Read stories by other authors
----------Watch various TV shows and movies
----------Keep a dream journal
----------Get into philosophy and simply observe human nature at work
----------Read/Watch the news
----------Go out into the world and see/hear/touch stuff, engage your senses
-----Coming up with names is a problem quite a few people have. Here are some tips as well as resources on it.
---------- Make sure the name fits at least the culture/time period the character is from. A Knight from England named Sai does in no way make sense, unless he has Asian ancestry or something. Now if it was modern day new york or something, most names would work, especially since we have parents that name their children after various TV and book characters as well as Internet memes and nonsense words like Nimrod or Dweezle
---------- If you have to you can always resort to a name generator. A few links to some decent ones are as follows.
--------------- http://www.rinkworks.com/namegen/
--------------- http://www.seventhsanctum.com/index-name.php
-----Become familiar with the various cliches/tropes. In my opinion though, using them isn't necessarily bad, it all depends on how you use them. Of course overdoing and relying on them is a bad thing.
---------- A good place to go to become familiar with them as well as waste time is www.tvtropes.org


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Section III: Getting Your Act Together

This section will most be just glazing over preparation for writing your story among other things, laying out your story before you write will also be discussed.

----- Carry a notebook around with you wherever you go. It can most definitely prove handy, especially if you are trying to work out certain aspects of your story, or if you simply just get some interesting ideas you want to think about implementing.
----- Make sure your work space is comfortable and that it is somewhat organized. One of the worsts things that can happen is if you have your story outline or the story itself written on loose leaf paper and you lose it amongst everything else in your work area, or end up spilling a drink or dropping food on it if you eat/drink there as well.
----- If you do this from a computer, make sure to save often AND make a back-up to a separate storage device.


Now when it comes to actually laying out the framework of your story, there are quite a few different approaches. I personally use an outline format myself as well as individual character "resumes". This is basically where you have to decide important things such as plot direction, character persona, The point-of-view of the story and so on and so forth. As for my advice regarding this...
----- Keep your genre and INTENDED audience in mind. You should try not to introduce theoretical physics to the uninitiated, the readers wouldn't know what the hell is going on unless you explain to them in laymans terms unless your reader demographic consists of theoretical physicists. You can insert little bits as a bit of a treat for those who would understand it, and this sort of tactic tends to be very common in Sci-fi stories.
----- Point of view. one of the most important things to consider when writing a story. It has a very large effect on how it is read and written. And as a general rule you really shouldnt switch the point of view constantly unless you know what you are doing. (George R. R. Martin's 'A song of Ice and Fire' is a great example of the proper use of multiple point of view characters.) The following is just a little explanation of each "type" of Point of view. There are various subtypes to each class of PoV, but I mostly just want to familiarize those who are reading this to the more common explanation for them.
----------First person PoV: This is usually a subjective style that is intended to get the readers to learn more about an individual character. Said character in question that the story would be told from is almost always the main character.
----------Second Person Point of View: Very rarely used. It basically turns the reader into the narrator/main character of the story.
---------- Generally written from an 'outside' point of view. Third person limited will focus on one character in particular AND tends to be the most commonly used. Third person omniscient though is when you would be having Multiple viewpoints. It is indeed written in the third person, You wont be writing "I opened the door" but "<character name> opened the door." Instead for example.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1h4rm57UIg[/youtube]

Actually I do have some advice, because I do write and I consider writing an integral part in the development of my social skills.

In no particular order....

1. PROSE: It doesn't matter how good your story is, if your prose is horrible it will greatly detract not only from the marketability of your work, but from the ability of the reader to properly process the information and enjoy the story.

The best way to develop your prose is to note the prose of other authors. Attempt to mimic them just to become familiar with the underlying patterns and various ways of stating things. Your prose should be your own but you may develop it by incorporating the prose of others. It often takes a while for an author to develop their prose.

Refrain from frequent usage of obscure or elaborate words when more common ones will suffice, and be careful that your story does not read like a police report.



2. Tense: The most common tense is 1st person past tense. The least common tense is 2nd person present tense. The biggest mistake many inexperienced writers make is to write in a prose that uses present tense for the entire story. Present tense is like parsely. A little on the side is fine but it makes a horrible meal.

The NT reader generally prefers stories written in 1st person because it helps them empathize with the main character. The downside to this is it prevents the author from presenting a broader view in which multiple characters can be discussed in an impartial fashion.


3. Number of characters: Wouldn't it be great if you could cause temporary AS in an NT? Well you can! Readers get confused when you introduce too many characters at once. Particularly when these characters have familiar relationships to other characters. For example, if, within just a few paragraphs you introduce the main character Jose, then Jose's wife Deborah, then Deborah's sister Jill, and Jill's Husband, Jose's brother Carlos, and Carlos' 2nd ex-wife Tanya who was the step daughter of Deborah's father's 3rd wife, Susan, people get confused.

Space things out and try not to introduce more characters than you need to for the moment.

4. Assumptions: Do not assume that the reader follows your train of thought. Pretend the reader is thought blind and you have to explain you train of thought for them. Explicitly state things for your reader.

5. What would Jesus do?
Well, what WOULD Jesus do? What would Jose do? What would Deborah do? And...WHY? This is where YOU as a person with AS/autism, are going to have to really put a lot of thought into how other people would think. How would they respond to certain situations and what would be their motivation for that response? If you can master this with your characters, you will likely better understand people in the real world because it forces you to consider how other people think and analyze that thought process.

Updated.

Kxmode: I should definitely put that video in with the first section.

Chronos: Good points made. Been planning to address quite a bit of that myself, but since you already explained it, I might as well plug it in where needed.