A Thread About Writing

[Gail Simone]

I would like to have this thread be just for general tips and thoughts about writing. If you have a tip of your own, or something you have discovered that works for you, or if you have read a great tip from someone else, put it here.

We may make this a sticky if it works!

[ever_seeking]

Write something every day. Even five minutes at a time if that's all you can really spare, it keeps you sharp for when you have more time.

[BClayMoore]

Here's some personal advice pertaining to writing comics. Particularly genre, non-superhero comics, where editorial has a light hand.

I think the best stoytelling medium to study as a training aid is television. With the rise of episodic cable drama, we're in the middle of a golden age of American television, and there are so many things to learn from the best the medium has to offer.

I just watched the pilot episode of Luck, and it contains one of the most brilliant storytelling sequences I've seen in years, featuring much to be gleaned about how to structure a story within an episodic medium.

Something I can apply to things I'm working on, or, at the very least, something that makes me re-examine how I've approached certain things in my own work.

Nothing inspires me creatively like well-written television.

-BCM

[Kevin T Brown]

One of the best suggestions I ever received in college is that if you have writer's block on the current subject you're working on, put it away and then start writing about something else entirely. Even if it makes no sense. Just write. Don't think about it. And write by hand. No typing.

That got me through a few tough assignments.

[Dragonbat]

When you are writing the next chapter/installment of a work, the last scene of your installment should be the SECOND-to-last scene in your head. The last scene in your head? That's what's going to kickstart your next chapter.

[Babsbatgirlfan]

Very good ideas so far, I am working on two novels at once. And am stuck in both. Definitely going to come back and read this thread again when I get more time just skimmed it right now, but it's great so far

[Shurato2099]

People have told me that a good plotting technique, sometimes, is to start with an ending and work backwards from that point. It has helped me in plotting out my upcoming tabletop RPG if nothing else.

[sunbird]

Drink.

Also, have some people you can talk about it with, over coffee, or a beer, or a game of Mario Cart. Explain what you are doing. They will ask questions about it, and listen to their questions. Some of the questions will elad you donw new ways to do what you want to do. They will also make it clear which bits need explaining, or clarifying, or simply don't work. Perhaps in answering you'll find new ways of moving on. Your friends are a focus group. Use them.

[Corrina]

Talent will only get you so far and that's not far at all.

Over and over, I've seen writers, even those whose work I thought was awful at first, keep going and going and working and working and being persistent and, eventually, they get it and their work improves, and they have success of some sort.

And I've seen incredibly talented writers who write things that blow me away who never finish their books, which makes me sad as a reader because those stories are lost forever.

Talent is a part of it. A far larger part is the drive to get it right, to improve, and to keep working in the face of inner and outer voices that say the writing is awful and will never amount to anything. The keys there are recognizing what you do wrong and what you do right, and improve what's wrong and polish what's right.

[BClayMoore]

Oh, yeah. I have to have a sounding board. I have a network of writers and artists that I'll talk things through with, and that's the best way for me to develop story.

A lot of comic artists are up all night working, looking for something to keep them awake. It's nice to be able to babble at them while they're drawing Wolverine or whatever, even if I'm never sure they're really listening.

-BCM