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im not talking about grammer and syntax im talking about coming up with ideas and stuff are there any drills or things to make you better at creativity.
Posts: 7 | Registered: Nov 2006
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If one's goal is to make money, writing is probably not the way to go.
If one is driven to write, that's a whole nother story.
If one wishes people to actually read what they have written, they are advised to put in the effort to make their writing legible. If you can't be bothered with grammar, syntax, punctuation, or capital letters, why should we be bothered with reading what you write? Especially if we're talking pages of the stuff.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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The key to writing well is to read everything you can get your hands on. If you're not already constantly reading, you're not a writer -- and you probably won't become one.
Anything's possible though, I suppose.
Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:Originally posted by custiom: im not talking about grammer and syntax im talking about coming up with ideas and stuff are there any drills or things to make you better at creativity.
Nobody can really teach you any of those thing, you just discover them yourself. I can't give you any of my ideas because I want to keep them to myself and the same goes for pretty much everyone else. Just close your eyes, and try to make up a story line from your thoughts. I get lots of my plot ideas from my dreams too. But then again, my medium is animation, which is completely different.
Posts: 3389 | Registered: Apr 2004
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quote:im not talking about grammer and syntax im talking about coming up with ideas and stuff are there any drills or things to make you better at creativity.
posted
Once again, read. Old stuff, new stuff, get an idea of what's out there and how it's been done.
Everyone does it differently. Sean McMullen makes up stories by creating technological or cultural "limits" and figuring out how a society would develop and what problems they would encounter.
OSC mentioned some tips for world-creation in his book How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy that might help. Check it out.
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There may be some books to stimulate creativity. A Whack on the Side of the Head was one. But if you want to write well, there are really 2 things to do: * Read a lot * Write a lot OSC's book Characters & Viewpoint has a plot-creation exercise. But if you want to write well, you're still going to need to read a lot and write a lot. (It's sort of like: how do I get to be a black belt w/o doing all that martial arts practice? How do I get to be a pro ball player w/o playing a lot of basketball? Practice is the only thing that works for the rest of us.)
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
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There are certain authors who help, at least imo, Lawrence Durell and Dylan Thomas are my favorite writer's writers.
That is for prose, nobody can help you with creativity. Generally the problem is not in having ideas, I for one have had or have ideas for innumerable novels, but in expressing those ideas.
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Well, alright, I'll let you in on the big secret. It's deserts.
Unfortunately knowing that only gets you so far, as it seems that what deserts work for a person is a highly individual thing. Shakespeare really cranked things out after cunching on a concoction of cream and cranberries crammed into a crust. Mark Twian was partial to shoe-fly pie made with blackstrap molasses a. Papa Hemmingway was a fiend for the lemon custard. He confided in later years that A Farewell to Arms was written in under 56 hours while in the grip of an enormous, meringue-fueled sugar high. Tennesee Williams was forcibly ejected from numerous restaurants because he would attempt to devour their entire stock of after dinner mints. Stephen King is reportedly partial to chocolate covered pretzels dipped in peanut butter and consumes them with a diabolical glee. And consider the inordinate amount of time J. K. Rowling spends describing bizarre fantastical sweets and candies.
All you need to become a world-famous and (more importantly) rich writer is to find the appropriate desert for you. Is it a pie? A candy bar? Does it have nuts? Is it served hot or cold? These are the questions you need to answer to unleash your writing talent. Good to it good sir, your gustatory gusto may be rewarded beyond your wildest dreams.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong: Read good books well.
He needs to go to the Derek Zoolander Center For Children Who Can't Read Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good. Learn to read and learn to write good!
Posts: 3389 | Registered: Apr 2004
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I just figured you never learned the mnemonic I was taught. Dessert has more esses than desert, because after all, which would you want more of?
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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The secret to good writing is actually quite simple:
All you have to do is <clutches chest, falls to floor>.......
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Posts: 892 | Registered: Oct 2006
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Surround yourself with things that make you think. Get your brain used to working, and let it run free often.
If you like Sci-Fi and want to write it, read science magazines and books. Take notes. Ask yourself "What if . . ." constantly. That works for all genres.
Surround yourself with interesting people, or better yet, find the interesting parts of the people around you. What about them makes you laugh? Cry? Get angry?
Didn't like the latest movie you saw? Don't shrug it off. Think about why you didn't like it and what might have made it better? You can learn a lot "fixing" other people's mistakes. At the very least, you might learn to avoid them in your own writing.
Be a conversation starter. Ask people challenging questions and let them talk. Actively listen and make note of what you hear. Find out what your friends' dreams are. How might they come true and what could stop them from coming true?
Don't get discouraged. 90 percent of what you come up with will be junk. Maybe more. But if you do it enough, that 1-10 percent could bear something brilliant.
Don't let anyone tell you that you can't learn creativity. That's unmitigated horse-pucky.
Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
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Read Stephen King's On Writing, it's fantastic.
And you HAVE to read a lot if you want to be a good writer - how would you know if you've got a good idea or not, if you don't know what a good idea looks like? Stories are universal, but the ways to tell a story aren't.
Posts: 1281 | Registered: Feb 2001
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10) Write. This forum is actually my secret test bed of ideas and practice forum for writing .
9)Read. Not just for ideas, but find what you like then figure out why you like it.
8) Rewrite. James Michner wrote "I am not a great writer. I am, however, a great rewriter." That means take a long hard look of everything that you have written, and find out how to write it better.
7)Show, don't tell.
6) Focus on the story, not on the money, accolades, and awe your wonderful talent will bring.
5) Don't give up. This is the hardest of them all.
4) Genius is Passion * Talent. And talent can be learned if you have the passion to work at it long enough.
3) Write what you know.
2) Writing is work. Schedule your time and keep your schedule.
1) Mark Twain said something like, "writing is not finding the right story or the right paragraph or even the right sentence. It is finding the right word, the perfect word where no other word would do. Then finding the next one, and the next, and the next until you have a story."
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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On the subject of Mark Twain, I gotta say, for someone with such an emphasis on finding the perfect word, there's a lot of 'the', 'and', and 'a' in his works.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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I write in fits of creative passion, followed by an insane number of editing sessions once my mind had calmed.
Posts: 97 | Registered: Jan 2006
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quote:Don't let anyone tell you that you can't learn creativity. That's unmitigated horse-pucky.
Is it? How would someone learn creativity? I've always viewed creativity as an aspect of your brain's natural capacity; like having a high IQ. Can you learn to have a high IQ? Why are some people naturally good at math and terrible at English? Why can some people sing with perfect pitch while others can't? Could you teach a tone-deaf man to write a symphony? (A good one I mean!)
I don't know the answers to these questions, though I am predisposed to a certain kind of thought -- which is that most human beings come pre-packaged with natural talents as well as limitations.
Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:Originally posted by custiom: no actually it's writing well writing good is bad English
Punctuation and capitalization are also proper English, FYI.
Relatively few good writers ever make enough money to actually support themselves from their writing. That's the sad fact about any artistic career. Don't count on living off of your art until you've been actually bringing in a livable wage, consistently, for several years.
Also, I agree that you really need to read - everything you can, not just the genre you intend to write - before you seriously try writing. You need to know what good (and bad) writing "looks" like before you can begin to understand why some writing is good and why some is not. No decent writer out there slacks off on his reading. Writers read everything they can get their mitts on, all the time.
Finally, understand that writing is about communication. If you don't know who to communicate coherently (as in, using complete sentences and at least some attempt at punctuation), nobody will ever want to read what you write. Ever.
Posts: 1006 | Registered: Jun 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Altáriël of Dorthonion: I get lots of my plot ideas from my dreams too.
Ooh, me, too! I've had some doozies, too. Overthrowing robot overlords, murder mysteries at Christian rock concerts...the list goes ever onward.
Posts: 1006 | Registered: Jun 2006
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quote:Originally posted by custiom: im not talking about grammer and syntax im talking about coming up with ideas and stuff are there any drills or things to make you better at creativity.
Dude, no one is going to care about what you write if you won't take the minimum amount of time to punctuate your sentences. How long would it have taken you to type "I'm" instead of "im"? And "grammer"? I want to slap you.
And I'll repeat what King of Men said. Mark this down, because it's very, very rare that I agree with him on anything. If you don't read, don't even bother. The only way you're ever going to be capable of writing anything that doesn't seem like you just drooled on the paper is if you have a familiarity with the written word. And no one can give that to you if you don't write.
Get a ghost writer if you find that you have an actual idea. But again, if you don't read, I suspect you're never going to have much in the way of ideas, either.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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It's your house key! Just make a wish, and toss it in the nearest writing well, along with all your pocket change and other keys.
Posts: 1379 | Registered: Feb 2002
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Dead_Horse, that is terrible. How could you trick her that way? (Him?) The secret will be revealed when you mail me your credit cards along with your full name, date and location of birth, and social security number.
(Edit: Also, Lisa, you said everything I wanted to say in exactly the way I wanted to say it, but I wasn't brave enough to phrase it that way.)
Posts: 1006 | Registered: Jun 2006
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