Wonders to Behold:

Just a few of the rare and wonderful things that one may notice...

The twinkling stars of night's grand sky,
The golden rays of sunlight through trees,
The glowing moon mirrored on a lake,
The scent of pine in the forest mist,
The glittering auroras of the northern climes,
The leaves of autumn dancing on the wind,
The craggy face of a mountain's peak,
The crashing waves of the singing ocean,
The misty spray of a waterfall's drop,
The crystalline ripples of winter icicles,
The mesmerizing dance of the fire's flame,
The polished sands of a mountain beach,
The polished stones of a river's bed,
The clouds of a perfect fiery sunset,
The blazing force of a lighting strike,
The light rain on a warm summer night,
The warmth of the hearth in winter's grip,
The double arcs of a brilliant rainbow,
The hazy ice-bow around moon or sun,
The sparkle of fire in a well-cut gem,
The deep-frosted blue of an arctic iceberg,
The rush of wind across a planted field,
The mists of dawn rising from a hidden lake,
The silent dark of a deep-rooted cavern,
The view from a height, as the sun does see,
The calm scent of a candle during meditation,
The squeezed light of eclipse, solar or lunar,
The morning dew on a spider's web,
The living force of a tropical rainforest,
The infinite depth of a fractal's dimension,
The artistic wonder of natural symmetry,
The tingling rush of ecstasy and insight,
The perfumed scent of a botanical garden,
The awesome perfection of deep mathematics,
The fascinating wonder of natural illusion,
The chaotic dance of smoke's trail swirling,
The downy touch of a young animal's fur,
The spark of understanding in a infant's gaze,
The intense power of a massive thunderstorm,
The delicate flight of wisps on a playful breeze,
The happy unexpected result of years of work,
The great idea that was first discovered by you,
The ripples of rain on a lantern-lit lake,
The passionate kiss of a lover's sweet lips,
The perfect order of a well-kept oriental garden,
The dendrites of crystal frost grown on a window,
The everyday sounds of the living woods,
The music composed and played by a master,
The explanation of all things by the methods of science,
The fact that you are alive and wondering,
The exquisite joy when everything works out just right,
The smooth rush of an adrenaline high,
The music of a breeze playing with wind chimes,
The earthy roar of a rock laden river,
The elation of your child surpassing expectation,
The first moments of shared intimacy,
The vividness of a dream you just woke from,
The airy lightness of rainbow coated bubbles,
The calming mist of a hot sauna on a cold night,
The downy warmth of sunlight on chilled limbs,
The brisk autumn air in hungry lungs,
The scampering of a squirrel on too thin branches,
The delicious aroma of a just-peeled orange,
The subtleness of beauty frozen in time,
The realization that it's all very simple,

The works of mankind, that genius wrought,...
...and the rest of the natural universe, waiting to be found.

Writing Craft


The craft of writing is the hard work part - these are the techniques and skills that you can learn and improve on, to produce better writing. If you are interested in any of these topics then please go to the following link - http://www.bellaonline.com/subjects/2958.asp

About Fiction Vision - Fiction Writing Newsletter

Sign up for Fiction Vision, a free weekly newsletter to help you improve your writing craft. The future is all in your head.

Avoiding exposition pitfalls

There are some areas in a story where you simply have to give an explanation to your reader, but there are some common mistakes and cliches many writers resort to in order to either avoid using direct narrative exposition, or through poor planning and editing.

Characterising in terms of relationships

The best point of reference you can give your reader regarding your characters is how the characters feel about each other.

Choosing a title for your book

Sometimes the right title for a book or short story is easy to think of and it fits perfectly with the storyline through any rewrites. Other times you may struggle to find a title you're happy with, or the one you chose earlier doesn't bear any relation to the story once you change part of the plo

Constructing your first chapter

It may seem unfair but you first need to sell your story before it will ever be read. Your opening chapter is your sales pitch, and agents and publishers have specific expectations of this process.

Controlling the rhythm of your writing

Rhythm is used to great effect in poetry, but fiction writers sometimes ignore the rhythm they are producing when they write. An unintentional cadence can jar the reader, whereas clever use of rhythm can speed a piece of text up or slow it down.

Crafted writing

Some authors prefer to freewrite their first draft, getting the words down as quickly as possible, with no regard for spelling or format. Other writers spend a great deal of time crafting well-polished sentences, producing a first draft that, in some cases, may need very little further work.

Describing actions and behaviour

Used properly, describing the actions and behaviour of your characters can be a useful tool to break up elements that could otherwise overshadow your scenes. Or it could flatten your writing and have your readers skipping huge chunks of your story.

Describing your characters

Description is one element of a story where it is easier to lose the interest of your reader than to capture it. In most writing styles, description is scaffolding that you want to rest the action of your story on, rather than displaying it for its own sake.

Developing your writing style

Your writing style is unique, a bit like a fingerprint. Combine that with your unique perspective, and you have the ability to produce an original story, even with only 32 basic plots to choose from. Hone your writing style into a powerful tool, rather than relying only on your plot or characters.

Exposition in fiction

There are points in almost every story where exposition is necessary. Working out when to explain the plot and when to leave the reader to draw their own conclusions can be tricky for even experienced writers.

Freewriting

Writers who choose to freewrite believe that the magic of the story occurs because they don't attempt to control every detail. They like to allow the story to unfold to them as they write.

Holly Lisle´s Forward Motion [offsite link]

Author, Holly Lisle offers a vast resource of writing-related articles, workshops, and FAQs on her website. Be sure to download her free e-book, Mugging the Muse - you´ll read this gem dozens of times.

How film and television influence writing

For many authors today, film and television make up just as much of their exposure to stories and plots as books do and the techniques of audio-visual story-telling are rubbing off on the written form. Sadly, the tools being lost are far more powerful than the techniques borrowed from film.

How your reader experiences your book

People who are very good readers don´t tend to read word by word. Instead they experience or absorb the concepts of your story. You need to take this into account to avoid jarring your best readers out of your story.

Past and present tense

Past tense narrative, with present tense character dialogue, has been common practice for a long time. But writers have been experimenting with tense, especially in shorter works and literary fiction. Selecting the tense for your story is something to consider early on in the process.

Plot versus character - which drives the story?

What should the writer develop first – the plot or the main character? And which element should drive the story?

Robin Hobb´s rant on Fan Fiction [offsite link]

Robin Hobb, author of The Farseer Trilogy, believes attempting to learn the craft by writing Fan Fiction can stunt a writer´s creativity.

Showing and telling

"Show don’t tell" is a very common piece of advice given to writers of all levels, but it can be difficult for beginner writers to grasp this concept when they first start out.

Weaving symbolism and imagery into your story

Although you may be surprised by the quality of symbolism that your story seems to have drawn on subconsciously, usually you will add most of the metaphors and symbolism after you have begun your book, or even after several drafts.

Writing action sequences

Action can enliven a plot and add challenges for the characters that stretch their skills and character development. If you write action and adventure stories, or even another genre, at some stage you might decide to put your characters into an action sequence.

Writing Effective Dialogue

Dialogue is one of the trickiest components of the story due to the balance between authenticity and clarity. Every segment of dialogue should have a purpose - either to advance the story, to give the reader some information, or to highlight something about the characters speaking.

Writing good dialogue

Fictional dialogue is a careful blend of natural sounding speech and more eloquent lines pre-written for the character, and made to make the most of dramatic effect.


If you like this topics and want more detailed information on them then go to this link http://www.bellaonline.com/subjects/2958.asp

Have a great day on justsayhi!

There's lots of stuff to think about here John. And it isn't easy.

I just posted my story opening on a Writer's Forum. They tore it to shreds, tossed it in the trash can, and told me to get a life because I'm surely no author.

Seriously they are tough! But it's cool because I learned a lot even though I felt like a dog that just got run over by a semi.

They pointed out that I was basically doing everything wrong that I writer could possible do wrong. And they weren't even nice about it. But hey, that just means that I have a lot of opportunity for improvement right?

One thing they didn't like was the opening scene itself. They said that it was totally uninteresting drivel and it didn't have anything exciting to offer. This brings up your point about constructing the first chapter.



It's more than just the first chapter, they want to be engaged in the first paragraph! And certainly within the first couple pages. This is the day and age of instant-gratification. They don't want to waste any time reading mundane drivel.

They suggested that I just drop my road trip scene altogether and start in where my story truly begins. Well, that's difficult because my story begins with Cathy and Tanya. What the hell do they want?

After arguing with them for a while, I suggested that if they desperately need the story to begin with a conflict I could back up even further. Instead of starting with the road trip I could go back to the City and start with a heated argument between Tanya and her parents. Tanya doesn't want to be on this trip to the country. Then they can have their heated conflict to open the book with.

Then I would just skip the road trip altogether and jump right into arriving at grandma's horse farm.

So that's what I'm considering now. I'll just trash this whole road trip and the 20-questions game in favor of starting the book off with a heated argument between Tanya and her parents.

All because the opening few pages have to satisfy the reader's lust for instant gratification and suck them into the story with drama or mystery.

My friendly 20-questions-game was too 'normal' and mundane. Not exciting. They want a conflict right off the bat.

I don't think this would be necessary in a movie, but for some reason people won't start reading a novel if it doesn't start off with something extreme.



This is the other thing I'm working on. I prefer writing in the present tense. They shot me down for that one too. They said that only the past tense if acceptable.

I'm going to look into this myself a bit deeper and see what I can learn about it. Most novels do use the verb 'said' in dialog which is past tense. I don't think any novels uses 'says', but then again, I think if you're writing in present tense you avoid that altogether somehow. I'll have to look into this further.

I'm going to study tense and choose one. It looks like past tense is the most popular by far.

Vantage Points

I also need to learn more about vantage points, and how to write from different vantage points, and how to change vantage points.

I think I'm going to need to study writing for about a month or so before I begin to write. There really isn't much sense is scribbling down drivel if it's all wrong. My time would be better spent reading the How-to-Write books.

Then I can hopefully come away from that little mini-course and start writing with these technicalities all taken care of. Then all that will be left to worry about is my actual writing skill itself. I can begin to improve on that without all these other things getting in the way.

Interesting.

Ok. I'm really curious at this point. Just what are your qualifications? Where are you getting these little "tidbits" of information? Are you a published writer? Are you a professor? Are you an editor? Please don't take these questions the wrong way, I'd really like to know.

Hi James,

While it can be helpful to get feedback from unknown people about how a novel should be written one should always remember that the story will initially be written by you! Now those 10 people may have given you their opinion, but perhaps the next 20 would have said that is a great read.

For me personally I like the road trip. It allows us to get to know the characters a little bit before getting into the story. I can also envision this in a movie right off the bat meaning it would be a great beginning for a screenplay.

Now that I gave my opinion it will be you who truly will have decide how you feel most comfortable with. You can use present tense or past tense, verbs, he or she, said or not! Whatever you feel best. There are no rules! The main thing is that the story makes sense and can appeal to the public.

Concerning the first passage it seems this is sadly true. Most publishers these days only look at the first 3 pages and decide to publish the book or not. The time when Ernest Hemingway wrote books a publisher would actually read a whole book before deciding!
I think what the problem maybe is that there are alot more writers who wish to publish these days. It is said many publishing companies get thousands of manuscripts per month and they just don't have the time to read whole stories anymore.

I mean if someone gets published these days consider it alot of luck, compassion. perserverance, and will power to really have the stomach for rejections and corrections consistently!

JK Rowling the author of the Harry Potters Series was rejected over 50 times before she got a good deal!

If you feel you need to study the art of writing then here is a link of free online college courses on writing. How effective are they I don't know, but with some research I am sure you can take a few courses (if neccessary) to get the feel of do's and don'ts in writing!

http://education-portal.com/articles/10_Universities_Offering_Free_Writing_Courses_Online.html

FYI

"In 1995, Rowling finished her manuscript for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone on an old manual typewriter.[34] Upon the enthusiastic response of Bryony Evans, a reader who had been asked to review the book’s first three chapters, the Fulham-based Christopher Little Literary Agents agreed to represent Rowling in her quest for a publisher. The book was submitted to twelve publishing houses, all of which rejected the manuscript.[29] A year later she was finally given the green light (and a £1500 advance) by editor Barry Cunningham from Bloomsbury, a small British publishing house in London, England."

Twelve times. Not "50".

Good day to you!

I am not offended at all. I simply research on the internet and add helpful information in the Writer's Club to any who are interested. Of course it is only helpful if that person finds it to be. For some it is not what they are looking for and use other alternatives to help enhance their writing skills. I simply ask for anyone who is interested in writing to provide information to help others. One can also post poems, short stories, or share other works if they may.

I am a editor for a book publishing company and have a bachelor's degree in English and Literature.

John

Yes that would be a accurate count. The main reason why I wrote this is to make writers understand that it is a long journey and it is a tough one.

It is no different for Stephen King who wrote many books of which all where rejected in the beginning.

The main point is even the best writers get rejected and that one should still write because it is enjoyable and have passion for it.

I've been kinda freestyling a book for the last 4-5 years now lol. I'll go from an early chapter to a later chapter as ideas flow. The character histories and basic plot outlines were worked out in my head well before I started writing it. Mostly cuz I really hate writing things out twice. I also never use paper when I'm writing. Everything is typed out on my puter and triple saved.
Whenever I get serious writer's block, I smoke a nice blunt, soak in a nice hot tub and just let my mind go where it wants. If that doesnt' work, I just put it aside and work through it for the next few days, sometimes weeks. When it becomes weeks tho, it's not writer's block anymore, it's just figuring out which details I want to include and which details will just bog the story line down. Sometimes I've managed to work up some interesting sub-plots during this process.
I don't worry a whole lot about puncutation and grammar when I write. I usually run it thru grammar and spell checkers before I print off a completed page then read the hard copy thru making punctuation corrections.
I love the whole experience of writing, especially when I get some sub-plot going that surprises me with the direction it winds up going in.
Some day it'll be done

Here are more stories of rejections! Don't worry about being rejected and just believe in yourself! Write, write, write!

Beatrix Potter would have been familiar with O’Flynn’s struggle for recognition. The Tale of Peter Rabbit, now considered to be one of the most important children’s book of the 20th century, was rejected by numerous publishers before it finally came out in 1900.

Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows, Wells’s The War of the Worlds and Golding’s Lord of the Flies all faced initial rejection.

Rowling, whose Harry Potter books have now been read by more than 350 million people, was turned down by a dozen publishers before she was picked up by Bloomsbury; Wilbur Smith, whose books have sold tens of millions of copies, almost gave up writing when every major publisher in London spurned his first attempt more than 40 years ago.

The record is held by the crime novelist John Creasey who suffered the indignity of receiving an unbroken succession of 743 rejection slips. He went on to enjoy some divine justice, selling tens of millions of books.

Jack London received at least 600 rejections before selling his first story. These are collected in an exhibition at the House of Happy Walls, London’s estate in Sonoma County, north of San Francisco.

Another frustrated author confirmed last year what other aspiring writers have long suspected — that even Jane Austen would have difficulty finding a book deal today.

David Lassman, who had tried in vain to interest a publisher in his own novel, discovered that only one of 18 publishers and literary agents spotted Austen’s writing when he retyped the opening chapters of three of her classics — Pride and Prejudice, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion — and submitted them under a false name. He changed only the titles and the names of the characters. O’Flynn’s break came when a a small independent publisher, set up in 1998 by writers tired of endless rejection, recognised her potential.Alan Mahar, publishing director at Tindal Street Press, said: “What Was Lost doesn’t fit neatly into the standard pigeonhole that publishers like to put their books into. Publishers are hidebound by those categories, which are largely ruled by the book trade and Waterstone’s.”

Really. What's the publishing company? Again, not asking to be offensive, but merely because I'm curious.

Wizard

Sounds like a great technic you use! Thankyou for sharing this! If you have some stories to share then don't hesitate to post it on here for us!

Yes I realize you were making a point, but unfortunately many people would take that as a literal statement. New writers are obviously very tender and take much literally and to heart. While not claiming to be an author, a publiser, edit or poet, I do state things very literally because a fledging writer lacking confidence will base much of their future movements on a statement that someone will throw out there as fact without qualifying it. As someone who states they are a publisher, I'm sure I'm only pointing out what you already know, yes?

Now to tell you my personal information on where I work or who I work for is something I don't like to do on a dating site full of people I don't know.

Besides must one have qualifications to start a writer's club? I don't think so. It is merely a get together to share our experiences in writing. Perhaps one day if I know you better I will tell you for who I work for.

In the meantime just say I work as a editor for a book publishing company and like to give advice when I can on writing. Most of all I like to read other stories and also be adviced on how to improve my writing.

cheers

I have known James for a long time and am sure he can handle my information knowing I have only good intentions for his writing endeavors.

I never stated I am a publisher but work as a editor for a publisher. There is a difference.

Now to not ruin the intent of this forum perhaps I should ask you if you have anything to share in this forum that may help others. If not them perhaps you have a poem or a short story you would like to share.

Oh. Well, I suppose that's cool. Personally, in my own opinion which means oh so little, I do not believe you need any qualificatioins to start a "Writer's Club", however if I was starting one myself, I believe that in order to be credible, I would have to have enough experience as published author, a professor of literature, an editor, literary agent or publisher in order to feel comfortable flying advice all over a site. But that's just me. I do know my own editors state it's not generally accepted to "give advice" to people who are not "publishing with them, or who have not worked with them, or asking for it", however, each to their own; whatever works, yes? Have fun passing it out~I'm sure any tidbit of factual advice is a gift, I know I myself appreciate it and I'm enjoying quite a bit of what is posed on here as there are so very many gifted writers on this site.

<<-----scampering off to complete a piece...

Well it pleases me that you come in here occassionally to read on other writers experiences. I do hope it is also beneficial to you at times. Most of all, I would like to see this Writer's Club flourish with many creative writers who enjoy sharing their experiences and knowledge in the topic.

There is a published author who comes in here occassionally. If you are looking for such credentials then I can introduce you to him if you like.

I am hoping more writers will come in this forum (published or not)to share their experiences in the near future.

Trust me, I am well aware of the difference between editors and publishers. I simply asked where you stood in the qualifications deparment regard in regard to giving advice. Why that could possibly "ruin" a forum is beyond me. It was an honest question.

"Share a poem or short story"? Well, I may I have shared one or and two in my time...

There is really no need to introduce me to the publshed author you are aquainted with. However I do appreicate the author.

Anyway, good luck with this forumn.