Want to write a book

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I aint completly sure if this is the right section but here it goes.

I want to write a book, i can`t tell you what kind yet because i don`t want anyone to steal my idea. (not that you guys would but if someone else read`s this.)
The problem is, i don`t know where to start, i have no experience with writing in general, i can write stories and such but i have never written a book.
Do you guys have any tip`s or some pin-pointers on how to start i would be gratefull.
And if there`s any authurs or publishers that could help me to beginn i would be eternaly gratefull.
Contact me by MSN or PM

(I'll do it here anyway)

The most different thing between a short story and a full-on book is the length. Because of this, you can often find the structure of Beginning-Middle-End to not work very well, and you have to structure the Beginning with a Start, Middle and Finish sections too, and the same applies to the Middle and End. However, this depends on how long your book is going to be. If it's not a particularly large book, then leave out the Middle section of Start, Middle and Finish for each section of the book.

Of course, I've go no experience whatsoever, but I imagine this is one of the differences.

Another one would be more stuff. Usually, to make a novel good, you need to keep the reader interested with more things happening, more characters and character development, more locations (or change of locations, don't be afraid to go back to used ones).

The best way to start is to write up a brief overview of what'll happen. Nothing specific, like "Koise walks over, says a line, walks back" but more along the lines of "Koise returns to base, has an argument over Clarrissa and then leaves". This is specific enough for you to have your wanted outline, but broad enough for you to indulge in creativity.

Hope this helps! (P.S. If you don't want to risk your story being stolen, try posting in the Member's Only area)

Thanks alot. It isn`t gonna be a fiction or novel book, more like a bioghraphy (kinda) with fact`s about something.. if you understand what i mean..

But thanks anyway KRABZ, that will help me on my way.

Is their any book wrtiters or publishers or something like that on this forum?

(erm, it's KBABZ)

The closest you can get would probably be squier. Technically he's not particularly good, as he turned 14 or so a few weeks ago, but he made a book/biography (from what I can tell similar to yours) which deals with the subject of growing up with AS.

Okey thanks. Sorry for the misspelling KBABZ

Airbrush,

I both write and publish. Books do not just happen, and beginnings are no place to start. There is an issue, the meat of the story, it goes in the middle. This is the core content, the message, the story. It takes a lot of drafts till the story tells it's self. Write, wait, read, with pencil in hand.

First it is the collected facts, then the order in which they are presented, it is construction. Some things can be fixed, but mostly I write, make notes, then rewrite. When the concept storyline is working, character identity comes next. Books are human, for humans, the reader must have something to identify with. Several charecters give the reader a choice of viewpoints on the story. Characters need background, personallity, and motive, before they reach thier role in the main story.

Stories are the common thread, but the action is several characters interacting around the storyline.

Mood and scene have to be filled in. Emotions tied to action before dialog begins. Whole houses can be defined with a sentance, or the description can be spread through the story. It fills empty spaces in the storyline and dialog. Where there are holes, fill with background.

When the middle works, it becomes three quarters of the story, characters have been developed, the story line laid out, the main action like a play. Now all must narrow and head toward an exit. What has been created is a given, but the story must continue to the last word. Endings resolve the tension built by the story, it concludes.

With a middle and end, now an introduction is needed, First and last lines of a book are remembered. You have only a paragraph or two to hook the reader into the story. Some start with a scene, then explain who was in it and develop the characters in relation to the opening, you are creating a picture in the readers mind. A snapshot followed by a movie. The introduction gives a taste of what is to follow, defines the time, place, background, history of characters, and starts the thread of the main storyline without giving away the plot.

It is also called the Army method. First you tell them what you are going to tell them, then you tell them, then you tell then what you just told them.

Good stories are large and rich in detail, then edited down, dropping words that do not carry the richness. I sometimes write about a character outside of the story, who they are, what makes them tick, their past, so when I use them in a story, I can bring a lot of identity with a few words.

Readers must react to the characters good or bad, this is their vehicle for viewing. They want to see something that would not happen to them, from someone else's shoes. They have come for a ride on someone else's life. When Mickey Spillane splits some yegs lip with a hard right, the reader should tense their arm and feel their knuckles.

You can relate to people by going where they are, people do like themselves, or taking them where they dare not go. Or both. If you have a woman in a story, women will want to know what she was wearing, how she did her hair, and men want other information about her. Just describing characters can run for pages which does not go in the story, but it fills out the identity so what does go in the book are key words that work.

Chapters can change scenes, but all builds around the main story. See each chapter as a story in it's self. I has to hold interest from beginning to end. Chapters have to flow into one another, unity of the whole work.

It is now a book, but the work is just starting. Some information come early or late, some things need more explaining, and some action points an increse of emotional energy. See it like curves making a staircase, it builds to the next rise, then sudden action, then building again. It is a pace that brings them in the right frame of mind to the main story idea, the peak action point of the book.

No two writers are alike. You have to write till you find your storytelling voice. We all carry a lot of garbage around, writing gets it out, some stuff belongs in a locked file cabinet. In time it comes easy, your writting flows, and even then it is a good day when I turn out ten pages double spaced. It can take several months at the keyboard just to get a manuscript.

Then comes proofing, book layout, fonts, page layout. When done I print a few copies spiral bind them and get people to read it. Writing is great, but it has to work for readers. They are not writers, other writers are not much help, they would have done it different. Collect comments. What the reader say was important, might need more work, bringing up reader interest.

Think reader, who will that be, sex, age, education, for they are the customers and it has to work for them. Each book is a journey of information, education, entertainment, and feelings. It has to touch both the analiticle and emotional levels.

I find it helps to work it over on a computer screen, then print it out double spaced. Errors I miss in one medium show up in the other. Sitting back and reading it like a book is much different than a screen. Keep the pencil handy, note errors, put question marks by doubtful stuff, then go back and make changes, can't read, proof, and rewrite at one pass.

Writing is great for the brain. When I started I had problems with a one page, now ideas flow. You can think this is for you but it is me talking to me about writing, exploring, defining, and practicing.

Enjoy overcoming yourself, for that is all writers have. It only gets better when you write more.

Wohow! Thanks alot! this will come in handy! Thanks again!

Another very important part of writing is to make sure you use proper spelling and grammar. If you're writing the book on a program like Microsoft Word or anything similar, there are tools that can help you make sure you get everything correct. Proof-reading your story after you've completed it is also a necessity. Hope this helps!

That was very helpful for me too, Inventor!

When I write, it seems to me like the story runs itself for where I want it to go. Pieces of dialogue come naturally and need no real thought to them (but proof-reading is always helpful when things seem too easy). My problem seems to be in descriptions. Usually my descriptions of things are too long for the reader to handle, but I think I've solved the problem. Big descriptions should usually be for places that get visited a lot or are a major part of the story (which usually means revisiting that place anyway). But this leaves big chunks of descriptions and walls of text even I find hard to get through. I solved this by spreading out the description over time. First, write the big chunk, the big wall you don't want. Then, take those passages and spread them out over the story, and re-format them to fit the part of the story you put them in.

I believe I have an inadvertent feed-back source too. Often after I write something I take it to school, proof-read it a bit, and then give it to my friends who are more than willing to read it (one time one of them asked "Tim, have you written any more of your story yet?"). This gives me the chance to have an instant source for feedback on how the story is going, any plot holes (I HATE those) and spelling and grammar mistakes.

Thanks for the help everyone! i`m still thinking on it, i haven`t begunn yet.
I almost can`t wait to start, but i gotta do some more research and digg deep inside of me to get inspirasion.

Thanks everyone, you have been to big help!

As important as beginning to end formating is story texture, the topography.

There is a whole level of setting, the ground upon which the story plays out. Write it, the whole world in which the action will happen, and it's reason for existing.

Mitchner in Hawaii starts with a volcano beneath the ocean, which becomes the island. In a few paragraphs he covers vast time, and gives an idea, Hawaii is the top of a 15,000 mountain.

Descriptions convay visuals. Start with a picture, then describe it in words that will reproduce the picture in the reader.

Tolkien created Middle Earth as a background for his charecters and the action. By the time he was done he could draw maps.

Once you have the world, time, structures, they are a story of their own. We do keep catching more of our own images, write it down. all of it. Just like the book, the location gets over written, then edited, and it is still much more than you would use, but is self organizing. Ten pages may turn into one very strong introductry paragraph, and a collection of good descriptive sentences spread through he story.

Orient the viewer, then feed them map points as the story develops. If you start with a description of a Space Port, an overview, then a few sentences can define a barracks or a repair yard, within the context of the first description.

Write a page on what a space ship looks like, then strike the weakest sentence, then the next, till it is a third of a page that still conveys 80% of the information. Then rewrite it to a page, and delete the weak,

Each is a story, The time and world, what lead to the space station, all of the buildings.

The ship, its class, what other ships come through, it's age, condition, how it rates compared to the oldest in service and the newest. Hardware and technology.

Then there is who went there and why. They are going to meet the story line, but they first have to be born, growup, become trained/educated, and have formative events in their lives. They also are important so they have size, look, a way they dress, there must be tension and conflict, within the group. for it is the basis of the group dynamic.

The story line is the same, in a universe far away on a group of planets on the outer rim, after many formative events, a story settled and developed. It is, and now all events move forward, never knowing the others exist. Everything about them is known before they collide.

Two opposing forces take a description of both.

You now have six or ten stories, all over written, and each must fit the main action of the center of the story, resolve to the end, and have an introduction.

Now comes what is the action. What is most important. Star Wars had a vauge plot, there was this bad guy who wore a black hat. Most of the story was about the charecters. They had to take the one ring to Mt. Doom, and cast it into the Death Star. It was a one shot deal, they were not well prepared, they had never even played the video game.

Here comes the art of the edit. They all have to fit, and where one action slows is filled with another. Terrain is defined, who goes where, what they bring, how they interact and react. Stories tell themselves. keep editing away the parts that do not move the story or define the vision. Half the words can go without losing the story and the compacting makes it denser and richer. All of this passes through Chapters, each a complete sub story, long action is broken with a Chapter about some other view, and then later return to the heros who have been lost for a month but finally comee to a highway, and the plot moves forward.

When it comes together from beginning to end shave the furry things sticking out, patch little holes with slick words, and polish.

It should read smoothly from beginning to end. The pace and cadence of the story is like music. It starts, builds, changes, grows, reaches a peak of intensity, then comes in for a landing.

Books are a device to manulate the human mind. Art is that which causes a reaction in the viewer.

Who the patrons are has a lot to do with the action and word choice.

I'm a bit concerned over that last phrase there. I'm not really writing my story for any particular age group, except maybe young adults, but other than that I'm really writing it for me.

Anyway, the style of writing for my story is such that I like to spice up descriptions a little bit with humour ('the toilet looked as if it had at least 60 years of buisness done on it and was never cleaned once' or 'the garbage can was filled with banana peels, apple cores, old cippie packets and that mysterious green sludge you always see in cartoons'). One of my favourite descriptions though is that of ash in my story. A lot of the story takes place in a realm where it's always overcast with ash clouds, and that they were 'high up in the sky, but they formed a claustrophobic roof covering any hint of Space or daylight. The black ash on the ground looked like fine sand, and when Koise walked over it, it felt soft, and yet sharp.'

I read the bit posted, write enough and find your writer voice. it is another consistant part of the story, observations from a point of view.

The storyteller tells the story, they are connected, and seperate. It takes a lot of wandering around to find the story. Writing is getting it out, seeing what worked, re-write around the best.

From what I read your story would appeal to pre-teen through teen. Strangeness, odd creatures, violent death, and none of that kissing stuff, much less anything else.

After you write enough about a creature, it comes and sits next to the keyboard and says, we need to talk. You got a lot of it right, but you left out my motive, my inner life, my personallity. It is not just to get their parts padded, they just want to be fairly described.

There is more reading in your chosen demographic than in older groups. You do have to enjoy doing it, because it takes a lot of hours over a long time on one project.

I wrote about when humans who had been unchanged for long ages suddenly changed in a generation, and produced a true technology. It was much to complex and scientific for adults, so I wrote it for teens, even though I am out of practice. It was the only people who might read it. The people who changed the world and created what we call the Mesolithic, the middle stone age, were teens.

[quote="Inventor"]The storyteller tells the story, they are connected, and seperate. It takes a lot of wandering around to find the story. Writing is getting it out, seeing what worked, re-write around the best.

From what I read your story would appeal to pre-teen through teen. Strangeness, odd creatures, violent death, and none of that kissing stuff, much less anything else.[quote]

Thanks for that. Actually, I do have a few romantic luvvy-duvvy scenes and a relationship going, but she winds up with the gory death.

Also, yes, while I do write the story, it feels like the characters are directing and producing it, and I usually don't have to think about what lines they should say next. Their influence is even greater when I write in first-person.

If you want to write a book, write and write and write, and also read and read and read. After writing a lot, and having some ideas, if you want it , the book will apear. Of course all the technics described above will help a lot.

Hi Airbrush,
I too wish to write a novel but find I have difficulties staying focused due to my short attention span, so I am writing a book of poems instead. My advice is simply to believe in your-self first and foremost. What kind of story do you want to write? I usually come up with the small details first then work on the bigger picture (the reverse is usually true for most writers). Always keep proper grammer in mind and try to exppress the events in your story with as much aesthetics as possible. As far as publishing goes you can visit websites from major publishers such as random house and look at thier policies for submitting work. Get an agent if you can afford it.