posted
Ok so I'm partly here cus I know I have plenty of good ideas, but have never made use of them and I want to explore my potential as a writist. (and see exactly how much poor spelling and/or grammer I can get awa4 with as such a writist ) So seriously I have a few Ideas but I'm not sure where to start.
Outspace I posted 13 lines on this. But those I just wrote up on te fly I don;t know anything beyond the earth is destroyed and humanity has to make a global exodus in the search of a new planet. Even Harriman I made up on the spot. No development here, simply I don;t know where to start.
The Protectors It's abotu cops, I came up with it primarily becuase I wanted to be a cop. I've changed my mind since but it's still an interesting idea. I have several characters adn events in my head and I've even wrote a few points down some old place. I've put considereable thought into parralels and sequels to this one. (The Copkiller, Sit Wait And Talk, The Heroine, The Rangers...)
Dreamscape Not actual name I, litterally, dreamet this up. I mean it actually all came from a dream. I am about as far as withthe protectors, minus additions (which are neccesary given the ending)
So any thoughts on what I shoudl start with? I have many other ideas which will come back to me given the proper amount of time.
If you are serious about writing, you'll proof your work. Even if it is wonderful, if it uses slang or has many many typos, it won't get read. Ever.
quote: Ok so I'm partly here cus I know I have plenty of good ideas, but have never made use of them and I want to explore my potential as a writist. (and see exactly how much poor spelling and/or grammer I can get awa4 with as such a writist )
Short answer - None.
I wouldn't have replied because your post was so terrible but compassion outweighed common sense. Also, the vain hope that you were serious.
Start a story where you think it does, if it's not working you might have started in the wrong place but the thing about writers is . . . well, we write. Pick an idea and follow it.
If you want to work on The Protectors, as an example, spend a day with some police officers, do a civilian ride along and then write. And proof read. And edit. And work, sweat, cry and miss lots of sleep. Then when you think its the best you can do, THEN and only then (IMHO) do you put it up for comments.
No one can tell you where your story starts until you've written it. No one is going to do the hard work of figuring out the plot for you.
posted
"How much poor spelling and and/or grammar can I get away with..."
Depends on how much you want to publish, and where.
As to where to start, that also depends on you. Which story pulls at you. Which one is ready to evolve from kernel to plot.
It sounds like you have some concepts. That is significantly different from a plot. And plots are the vital foundation of writing fiction of any length. So now you need to know what your medium is. Some of your characters sound comic-based (not a judgement, just a feeling). Since I don't write those types of things, I wouldn't know where to tell you to start.
Also, it all depends on what your writing style is. Some people sit down and free-associate at the keyboard. Then they go back and see what they ended up with and where they need to go from there.
Others sit and plot and outline for days/weeks/months and then just sit down and write the story. Since I'm one of the "Others," that is the style I'm most comfortable with.
Regardless, this is a self-driven business, so follow your heart and you will be happier than if you didn't.
posted
1) Learn your grammar. Learn to spell (or utilize the spellchecker). The only time you should misspell something is for dramatic purposes (something that you want the reader to read that written by an illiterate character, or a character that spells phonetically). It's the same for grammar, you use it as a dramatic tool. However, you have to know how to spell and proper grammar if you are to intentionally misuse them.
2) Apparently, you don't have stories, you have ideas. The first one sounds like Battlestar Galactica. (There are three movies--that I can think of--called The Protector[s], and one movie, starring Dennis Quade, called Dreamscape, so tread carefully.) Perhaps, as OSC and Lawrence Block suggest in their writing books, you should try to integrate two of these ideas: What if A generation ship had a police force? What kind of crimes might they stop/investigate? How could a criminal escape? As you fit the ideas together, a story will develope.
3) Develop the characters. The more real you make the characters, the more likely the antagonist[s] will be created naturally. He/she/they will be more believable. The story will take on more depth, and you will know which way the conflict is leaning.
posted
Ah--dreamscape! Now, I know why that sounds familar. It was supposed to be based on Roger Zelazny's Dream Master, but the writers veered so far off course that he took his name from the project. The guy from Green Acres played the president.
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posted
"The Protectors" was a 70s TV show about international private detectives. It starred Robert Vaughn and Nyrre Dawn Porter and it wasn't as good as "The Man from U.N.C.L.E."
posted
The dreadful truth of it is that you have a huge learning curve in front of you. You will have to learn to turn your ideas into potential story ideas. Then you will have to learn how to plot your stories and learn to understand story elements. Your grammar will have to be very polished, and you will have to learn ways of expression that they just don't teach you in grade school or high school. (Little nuggets of wisdom like--you should almost always use "said" and not the alternatives to indicate a speaker.) Dialog, scene structure and beats, theme and symbolism, good subplotting, research and setting, effective description, rules of POV, how and when to break rules of POV, how to start a story, how to create suspense, when to summarize and when to show detailed action, what makes a story too complicated, yaddah-yaddah-yaddah.
You have to do and learn all of this and more (unless, unlike me, you are some kind of natural genius) in the hopes that in the end your ideas are actually interesting enough to read and that you actually will be a half-way skilled writer once you train yourself.
Believe it or not, I'm not trying to discourage you. I'm setting your expectations so that you *won't* be discouraged when you start realizing these deficiencies. If you've got some stories in you and you really want to be a writer, you won't let these things stop you--you will pick up the challenge and persist.
quote:How much poor spelling and and/or grammar can I get away with
It depends. I'm reading Magyk by Angie Sage, and I'm seeing some glaring errors in just the first fifty pages. I think my favorite was "'And please, just call me Marcia,' said Marcia." I know this is a children's book, but don't be an idiot. There are also a lot of unnecessary adverbs. The author will have a line of dialog that was obviously meant to be scathing, and tag it with, 'said scathingly'. A lot of the rules I learned here are being broken, but she was published by the same UK author that published Harry Potter, so maybe they were desperate enough for another hit. It probably doesn't hurt that her father was a publisher.
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posted
No I wasn't serious about using as much poor grammer as possible. Thanks for taking it seriously thogh it made life fun. People who get to know me well find I can be humourous about serious topics sometimes. Who knows why.
Anyways, on to seriously serious business in as serious a serious matter as is seriously possible in all seriousness possible.
Well ok I already have a story for Protectors, actually I was afraid of posting the stuff i have yet becuase I read somewhere on here that that wasn't allowed, for good reason. Though if I've misinterpreted the rules I'd appreciate letting me know.
Anyways, Seriously...I already have stories written for both DS (for lack of a better name) and Protectors (not suprised, it's an easy enough name to coem up with) I suppose I can;t really get advice on where to start without telling what I've got so far, which obviously isn't very far. I'll have to sit down and actually write down the event I have so far sometime I suppose, as soon as I get time, something, which to me anyways is a precious limited resource ( can't neglect too much sleep I'm afraid, Ten hours in the factory is not something you want to fall asleep in the middle of ) And witohut that I lose all credibility. Maybe then I'll have a better idea of what I'm looking for.
posted
You can write stories in copyrighted universes all you like as long as you have permission from the copyright owner. Please don't post 13 lines from them here, though. We believe in honoring writers' copyrights.
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posted
Actually by rules I was talking about just the thirteen lines. I mean I can't discuss plot or anything. Which kinda makes it difficult to answer this question. The names I've come up with I came up with completely independently without knowledge of any others using said names. I have no intention of writing ST or SW or SG at this time (though it might be interesting at some point)
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) So seriously I have a few Ideas but I'm not sure where to start.
People who get to know me well find I can be humourous about serious topics sometimes. Who knows why. 
