To scared to write?

What are you afraid of? Nobody is going to come and beat you with a stick if you suck. And if you do suck, you can always revise it later and make it fantastic.

It's okay for you to not be brilliant, especially the first time around. Drop the fear. Start with one sentence. Then write another.

If you don't like to go by the seat of your pants, try writing down a series of "what-if" questions. What if there was a girl who lived inside a hollow hill? Why does she live there? What if she was imprisoned there by a sorcerer to pay for something evil the girl's mother did? What did her mother do? What if her mother stole some magic from the sorcerer and hid it in the girl's soul, but the girl doesn't know about that yet? How can she find out about it? What if she is allowed to come out of the hollow hill on every new moon, and this time she meets a normal girl who looks just like she does, and who knows some great stories about the sorcerers who used to live in these parts? ...etc. That's one way to start building a plot.

There's no best way which will work for everyone. You'll have to find what works for you. Some people outline a complete story before beginning, some people start with a couple of characters and just go. Experiment. See what feels right.

For me, I started with two characters and an inciting incident, and ended up building a world. Nine years later after lots of detours I've got two novel first drafts, three partials, and several short stories all set in the same universe.

That said, some basics:

Don't be afraid to make mistakes. It's really hard to learn anything and look good at the same time. You are under no obligation to show anybody anything you've written until you're ready to do so.

The first words you write won't be the last words. First comes writing, then comes editing. Separate phases. Can't edit what you haven't written, shouldn't edit while writing or you'll paralyze yourself. If you're aiming for a novel, you're preparing for a marathon, not a sprint.

If you haven't found it yet, take a look at the "Learn Writing with Uncle Jim" thread in the Novels forum. Lots of great information there including a link to the "Permission to write dreck" certificate. BIC = Butt In Chair.

Are you new to writing? Rather than starting with the novel, play with some short pieces. What genre are you interested in? Several of the Share Your Work forums here have monthly or weekly challenges with prompts. Again, if you're not ready for feedback, don't post, but try to write the challenge.

Or for the "go for it" approach, NaNoWriMo is coming up in November. That's a great way to learn to just write and not worry about what's ending up on the paper.

Good luck!

Papa.Mark said:

Ok, so I've got a few ideas for a Fantasy novel I'd like to start writing.

When I say ideas, they're very rough ideas, not much of a plot and certainly nothing noted down which could be called a story.

How does everyone go about starting to write a new book, in your experience what is the best way?

I've written a few random pages, mainly with a couple of characters in dialogue and a few scenic descriptions but it's jumbled up and as I have no set idea for a plot and such, it seems pointless. I even wrote a couple of pages with a character having a rather one sided conversation with a rabbit.

I feel, I'm perhaps scared to actually start writing properly and commit myself to it, scared of failure, poor story or writing skill. I actually get nervous when I stare at the blank screen.

This is my biggest stumbling block I think, not including the lack of plot, right enough.

So yeah, has anyone got any advice?

Sorry if this has been asked before (I'm sure it has, now that I think about it) or if it's in the wrong forum section.

Click to expand...

Well I've said this before but, character leads to desire, desire leads to specific obstacles, which lead back to character.

I think the key word is character.

Maybe the fear is of fiding out that you aren't a good writer. That's a legitimate fear, all writers have that. I've spent my whole life regretting the things I was afraid to try, and never found out if I was any good or not.

Papa.Mark said:

Thanks for all the replies, it does make sense that one shouldn't be scared to write, as it would be upto me if anyone were to read it. Good point that.



Yep, I'm new to writing. My preferred genre is Fantasy but I'm intending to write a comedic/fantasy novel, similar I suppose to Pratchett.

I'll check out them challenges, cheers!

Click to expand...

It's all right to be scared. I was. Still am, sometimes. Just don't let being scared stop you.

The SF/F SYW forum has a monthly challenge. Current thread is stickied to the top of the forum. I've been using the challenges to develop back histories of some of my characters. Great practice.

What you describe is exactly how all my stories start: some dialog, some scenes, a few characters, all in this jumbled up mess. Usually, I keep writing until I have tens of thousands of words of jumbled up mess, and then I start going back through and organize it into a novel. It's not the neatest system, but it does keep me from getting overwhelmed by the size of my story early on. Instead, I'm just writing one scene at a time.

Sometimes, when I'm having a hard time going, I think of one scene that I want to write--something shiny and cool and possibly all fluff, but fun and using the main character. And then I just try and figure out how she could get there. I guess having something to write TO makes it easier for me. Maybe it'll work for you, too.

I had the same problem as you, and it lasted for FOUR YEARS. I had this one story I wanted to write, and I couldn't force myself to begin. Then, one day, I wanted to. *shrug*

The first thing I did (telling myself the whole time that it wasn't writing, it was simply a non-threatening exercise) was to write scene descriptions on index cards. Then lay them out on the floor in order. Then pick a card. Then type a bigger description of that scene. ...etc. It works its way up to actual writing. And once you get going, it's not so scary anymore.

Papa.Mark said:

Ok, so I've got a few ideas for a Fantasy novel I'd like to start writing. [...]

I feel, I'm perhaps scared to actually start writing properly and commit myself to it, scared of failure, poor story or writing skill. I actually get nervous when I stare at the blank screen.

This is my biggest stumbling block I think, not including the lack of plot, right enough.

So yeah, has anyone got any advice?

Click to expand...

Yes, don't write your fantasy novel. Instead, write something else. Anything else. In fact many something elses. Short things of no more than a few thousand words. A few reasons:

1. You'll be less attached to them so you'll be less worried
2. Even if they're crap, they're small crap and easily replaced with the next one
3. You'll learn lots of valuable lessons from finishing small things
4. It'll build your confidence
5. Nothing will provoke you more than not writing the thing you want to write. So you'll end up thinking about it a lot, and building up fragments of story, scenes and so on...
6. If you submit your short stuff to SYW you'll get critiques which will help you learn -- and you won't mind as much because it's not the thing you actually wanted to write.
7. You'll meet folk who can help you later on.

Also as a suggestion write things other than fantasy as well as writing fantasy. In fact, try just writing scenes between ordinary people. If you can make those interesting, your fantasy will fly.

Hope that helps.

Do you know the characters from the story well enough to place them in unfamiliar surroundings to see what they will do? Try writing a short story, it doesn't have to even be a fully-realized start-middle-end story, even a scene will do... Once you have started writing the characters, they should be easier to write in a longer form such as a novel.

You might be more comfortable writing your first draft or getting started on paper. Yep, pen and paper, or pencil and paper. No big computer eye starting at you. If the whole page of paper is too big, fold it in half. It's easer to fill up.

Lots of books began this way.

I also find that BriMaresh's way is a huge help. Sometimes I'm writing from the middle, once I had to write toward the climax with no clue who the people were, or how they got there.

I write a bit and have days off doing other writing-realted work. In that time other ideas come and eventually consolidate. It's like swimming through a fog then you start to see shapes that become clearer as the fog lifts. Quite an experiance, really. And enjoyable. Don't try so hard you lose the enjoyment.

I love RUv's advice!!!

I was going to say... I have the same problem. I have a great idea for a book, but am kind of scared so I haven't really sat down and forced myself to finish it. I had a genius moment one day, wrote the introduction/premise for it, then.... trailed off after that. BUT, one thing I'm proud to say is that when I get a good idea for some kind of setting or I find a neat little anecdote or pic or something that reminds me of my book idea, I add it in to a table of contents page that I set up. Occasionally I go back and edit the contents according to how I see the story line going. I haven't gotten to more specifics, but have little notes and stuff that I scanned in and added as pics in the story to use as prompts later.

The book I'm actually almost done with consists of a HUGE file that started out as just half pages of papers that I printed out and put in a manilla folder until the folder started looking messy enough that I said "I should probably make a real file and type this in just so it's in some kind of order... oh what the heck. I'll put a table of contents in here too..." and once I got the table of contents, I just started "proofing" and went overboard on the proofing until it became humongous...

I think you have to start out with the intention of NOT finishing it to get yourself into a groove. Once you get rid of the expectation to finish it, it kinda catches on... then once you get to a point where you have over half of it there (no matter what order), THEN you can start forcing yourself to expect to finish it. That's the only way to get rid of the fear, ya know?

Papa.Mark said:

I feel, I'm perhaps scared to actually start writing properly and commit myself to it, scared of failure, poor story or writing skill. I actually get nervous when I stare at the blank screen.

Click to expand...

I'd suggest starting with the Litany Against Fear. Fear is the mind-killer, remember?

Gratuitous Dune allusions aside, what is there to be afraid of? Why do you care if you fail? Why are you worried that you're not a skilled writer or that your story is going to stink? Why not just accept that you are going to fail, that you're not a skilled writer yet, and that your story will stink at first. This is to be expected if you're a beginner.

I first started writing when I was 18 and in college. The first story I wrote was about a long-haired metalhead who found a black crystal sword in a trashcan and used it to put the forces of Heaven and Hell to death just because they decided to start Armageddon on the day he was going to take his girlfriend to see Iron Maiden. It was utter crap. The main character was a Mary Sue, I gave no thought to the characters' motivations, and the prose was such a deep shade of purple that it was playing "Smoke on the Water".

Yes, I failed. I had failed so miserably that to this day, I still haven't dared to show my wife the first story I ever wrote. But I kept at it. I kept the concept of a weapon that could strike down gods and angels and started thinking about why such a weapon would exist, and what would be the price of using such an absurdly powerful artifact, given that power corrupts and absolute power is even more fun? I kept writing one version of Starbreaker after another, and it wasn't until May of this year that I finally had a novel-length first draft with which I was mostly satisfied.

Don't be afraid of failing. You have to fail, and learn from your failures, before you can succeed.

If you find it too difficult to organize anything, you might want to consider writing an outline. It doesn't work for everyone but I find that it helps me when I have a rough idea of the overall story arc.

Hemingway's famous statement is that "all first drafts are sh-t." It's funny how no one seems to believe him.

I had a friend who'd published about 5 books who said that writing was a "messy business." After writing a lot myself, I believe it is true. I think if I had a good idea, I would sit down and dream up story possibilities and just start experimenting until I came up with the one that worked. The WIP I am writing now actually went through 2 other story possibilities (and a lot of written pages) till I finally decided on the present form. It may yet, as a I contemplate changing the entire location and also the occupations of 2 of the main characters. -- I am about 50K words from the end of the first iteration.

Don't be scared. Nothing is carved in stone and no one will see it until you're happy with it and show them.

Trust your characters. If they trust you, they'll often help you along.

Go for it. The mere fact that you're scared means you're serious about writing well. Far too many writers are not.

For me, I have the entire story in my head. Sometimes I'm scared to write, too, because if I do, it won't come out the way I imagine it. Everyone imagine things different, so I think to myself, who cares...it's my story, I'll write it the way I want to, and if people start debating on whether a scene or characters is protrayed differently to them, in one of my interviews after my book is published (hopefully?), I'll tell them how wrong they are. Ha!