I want to write, but i cant think of a "direction."

[melchi]

Blehsphemy!

Blobsphemy

 

[HiddenDraconic]

Spoiler: AI

A Sardonic Narrator's Guide for Dummies: Finding Your Direction in Writing (Without Falling off a Cliff)
So, HiddenDraconic, you’ve decided to join the noble ranks of wannabe writers. A commendable endeavor, truly. Let’s be real, who doesn’t want to spend countless hours bleeding words onto a page only to be met with a sea of indifference and rejection? But hey, if self-inflicted misery is your jam, let’s dive right in.

Step 1: Setting the Stage (a.k.a. "Where the Hell Are We?")​

You’ve got some settings in mind. Great! Now, make them somewhat more interesting than the inside of a shoebox. A setting is more than just a backdrop; it's the sandbox where your characters will throw their tantrums and make their terrible life choices.

1. World-Building 101: Think about what makes your world tick. Is it run by a corrupt government? A shady corporation? Magic? Or, my personal favorite, utter chaos?
2. Details, Details, Details: Don’t just plop your characters in "Generic Fantasyland" or "Dystopian Future #47". Give us something to chew on. Is there a city built on the back of a giant tortoise? A village that worships a toaster? Go wild.

Step 2: Crafting a Magic System (Or: "How to Complicate Things Unnecessarily")​

Magic systems can be a blast, provided you’re ready to spend hours devising rules that your characters will promptly ignore when convenient.

1. Limitations are Key: Sure, having unlimited power is fun until you realize there's no story without conflict. Make your magic come with a cost. Maybe casting a spell drains your life force, or every time you conjure fire, your eyebrows catch ablaze.
2. Consistency is Your Friend: Once you set the rules, stick to them. Nothing kills a story faster than a magic system that bends like a wet noodle whenever the plot needs it to.

Step 3: Characters – The Puppets in Your Drama​

You mentioned having some protagonists. Lovely. Now, let’s make sure they’re not as two-dimensional as a piece of cardboard.

1. Flaws Make the Hero: Perfect characters are boring. Give your protagonists some juicy flaws. Maybe they’re cowardly, selfish, or have a nasty habit of eating their weight in chocolate when stressed. Whatever it is, make it memorable.
2. Motivation, Motivation, Motivation: Why do your characters do what they do? If they’re just meandering through your plot like lost sheep, no one will care. Give them goals, desires, and fears.

Step 4: Plot – The Murky Path from Beginning to End​

Connecting beginning, middle, and end can be as tricky as herding cats. Here’s a roadmap to help.

1. The Three-Act Structure: It’s basic, but it works.
   • Act 1: Setup. Introduce your characters and world. Drop a bombshell that shatters their cozy existence.
   • Act 2: Confrontation. Your characters face obstacles, fail spectacularly, and learn some harsh truths.
   • Act 3: Resolution. The final showdown. Your characters either triumph or crash and burn. Either way, wrap it up neatly (or leave a tantalizing cliffhanger if you’re feeling cruel).
2. Subplots are Your Friend: These can keep your middle from sagging like an old mattress. Throw in a romance, a betrayal, or a quest for the world’s last Twinkie. Just make sure it ties into the main plot somehow.

Step 5: Direction – Navigating the Literary Minefield​

You know you need direction, but you’re floundering. Here’s a secret: every writer does at some point. The trick is to keep floundering until you stumble onto something that works.

1. Start with the Ending: Sometimes knowing where you want to end up can help you figure out how to get there. It’s like using a map, but with fewer arguments in the car.
2. Write Out of Order: If you’re stuck on the middle, skip to a scene you’re excited about. Sometimes writing the fun bits first can help you fill in the gaps later.
3. Embrace the Suck: Your first draft is going to be terrible. Accept it, and keep writing. You can’t fix what doesn’t exist.

Final Thoughts (or Lack Thereof)​

So, there you have it. A not-so-comprehensive guide to finding your direction in writing. Remember, it’s less about the destination and more about the absurd journey your characters take to get there. Now go forth, scribble nonsense, and maybe, just maybe, you’ll stumble upon a story worth telling. Or at the very least, you’ll have a pile of words to show for your efforts.
P.S. Get some sleep. Your characters will still be waiting for you when you wake up, presumably with their own set of grievances.

I am personally now incredibly interested in what YOU'VE written.

There are two ways to begin writing at a pace you will be satisfied with:

Hard Drugs
Sleep Deprivation

Also, for directions to write in, starting in the top right and going across the page, followed by down a line, is usually the best direction to go in.

There's no shortcut for this stuff, writing might be the only thing I have ever encountered wherein 'bootstrapping' really is the key to personally defined success.

Holy sht, that first option hit me like a box of rocks my guy. You good?
You guys went so hard with this post, thanks.

This is the most relatable meme I've seen in awhile.




The best thing you can do, is start small. Better with something than nothing.

1. Start Small: Kick off with a few characters. They don't need names yet, just a reason to be in your story.
2. Pick Your Setting: Figure out what kind of world you want to build. Is it a fantasy land, a futuristic city, or something else? Think about what makes your world unique.

Now, we're going somewhere. You have a few characters, and a world where they can live in.
Whats next?

1. Decide on the Story Type: What mood are you aiming for? Comedy, drama, action, or a mix? Knowing this helps set the tone.
2. Plot Ideas: Start mapping out your story. Where does it begin? What happens next? Sketch out some key scenes.

Begin writing some short scenes for your novel. For example:​

• Character one suddenly earned power. Wow? How? A new mystery?
• Character one learns to use his powers.
• Character one also learns that there are also others than him, and they come after his life.
• Character one meets character two, and team up.
• Character two explains to character one that everyone is killing because that way they can steal their power.
• The plot thickens.

1. Expand Characters: Dive deeper into who your characters are. What's their personality? Backstory? Powers?
2. Plan Each Chapter: Outline what happens in each part of your story. This keeps everything moving forward.
3. Revise and Refine: Go back and tweak your plan as needed.

Each writer has its own ways of making their own story come to life, which is why I would suggest finding your own inspiration and methods. But if this helps, then thats great.
Hopefully, this method is some help to you as a starting point.

 

[Story_Marc]

Here you go for my answer. Primarily, start with a story seed. The setting and magic system are inefficient starting points, in my opinion, but protagonists are workable.

 

[OokamiKasumi]

A Sardonic Narrator's Guide for Dummies: Finding Your Direction in Writing (Without Falling off a Cliff)
So, HiddenDraconic, you’ve decided to join the noble ranks of wannabe writers. A commendable endeavor, truly. Let’s be real, who doesn’t want to spend countless hours bleeding words onto a page only to be met with a sea of indifference and rejection? But hey, if self-inflicted misery is your jam, let’s dive right in...

This is frikken brilliant!
-- I would post this on its own thread as a tutorial.

 

[Zagaroth]

When I started, I had an idea for a scenario in my head.

So I wrote it, and I kept asking myself, "what would these characters do next?" and I kept answering that question.

From that process, the characters eventually gave each other some brief answers to "so how did you wind up here?"

I then took those answers, used one of them to provide a major antagonist, and another one to provide a minor antagonist related to that major antagonist.

As I kept writing, I kept building out the world and figuring out the antagonist's place in it, and filled in where they would interfere in the protagonist's lives again. I started developing future plot points, because I now knew enough about the world to figure out the plot.

But it all started with building on that first scene.

And this world-building is going to be useful in the future too, the scale of this story means that I can keep writing more stories in the same world. Some of them even set in the same area, with the MCs transitioning into background characters.

 

[Lau.R.Griffin]

Try discovery writing, where you just start with one of your ideas without plans and sees where it takes you?

This is good advice, especially for someone new. Writing is a skill like any other and simply needs to be practiced, even if the products of that practice aren't necessarily something you want to share. Just sitting down at the keyboard and bashing out sentences and paragraphs to get a feel for it, at least initially.

The other thing I'd suggest for a new writer is to look at what they read. Not just in terms of thinking critically about a given text, but also ensuring they have a fairly broad range of texts they're looking at. It's useful to be reading widely: if you're a genre fiction writer having a grasp of literary fiction goes a long way, and vice versa.

 

[Hopper]

Hi, I'm a new wannabe writer and I have a problem.
I have loved reading stories (primarily fiction) for a long time, and would like to write my own. I have had a few story ideas, but not really whole story plans. I mainly have ideas for settings, a "magic system" or two, and some protags. I have some ideas of how I would like them to turn out, but I can't connect beginning to middle to end; and let alone to make a middle in the first place.

The best way I can summarize this is that, I have some foundation, but I can't figure out where I want to go with it. Direction feels like the correct term for it.

If you may, I would love any advice anyone may like to provide.

Ps. Bouta sleep, so will come back to absorb data ltr.

Now, let's get your imaginations going.

What is your novel?
What is it trying to tell?
What are you trying to show?
What genre are you writing?

 

[Verdant]

Hi, I'm a new wannabe writer and I have a problem.
I have loved reading stories (primarily fiction) for a long time, and would like to write my own. I have had a few story ideas, but not really whole story plans. I mainly have ideas for settings, a "magic system" or two, and some protags. I have some ideas of how I would like them to turn out, but I can't connect beginning to middle to end; and let alone to make a middle in the first place.

The best way I can summarize this is that, I have some foundation, but I can't figure out where I want to go with it. Direction feels like the correct term for it.

If you may, I would love any advice anyone may like to provide.

Ps. Bouta sleep, so will come back to absorb data ltr.

Pretty sure a lot of people are or have been in this stage. A lot of people recommend the ‘asking question’ and ‘paragraph’ format to novels which is a very used and common way to format.

I highly suggest for you to write all of your info on something other than free-style it. People can tell when a story goes on for way longer than it should have… A notebook works or online notebook equivalent. Me personally, I use google docs.

If you don’t want to go paragraph format and want things to be very known (for you), then I suggest the column-bullet point format. I don’t know how many people actually use it since it’s something I came up with after studying but it’s quite helpful for me!
With this format, you put in a chart, the top column is the broad name of what you’re going over (Cast, worldbuilding, power system, etc). Then the right-column is the specifics of that but shortened (Villians, specific town name, power system name). The left column is where the details are put. It depends a lot but I usually use bullet-point format, which means above all else it should be easy to read and concise.

If you need more help than try going about it in a filling way. For example
Main character: John
Personality: Down to earth (grounded and realistic) and silly. Close minded and rigid.
Strengths: Realistic, helpful, independent, charming
Weaknesses: Close minded, rigid, callous.
Problem: John’s close minded personality can lead him to turning down good opportunities at his job because they sound too bizarre.
Fear: He’s afraid of rapid change and being financially insecure.
Goal: To pay off his college debt, works 17 hours per day for this..
Likes: Cats, coffee, sleep
Dislikes: Rabbits, soda, the cold
———-

More stuff could be put below like their powers or actual backstory but I hope that helps! I use this format all the time lol