The Pub Discussion Board

Rule 1:  Ignore any of the following rules that don't work for you. 

Rule 2:  Before I start writing, I get to know my characters a bit.  What's their past?  How will they react to things?  First I build my character, THEN I put him or her into the situation.  I don't like plot-driven characters: I much prefer character-driven plots.

Rule 3: Knowing where you're going is a good thing, but don't be so closed-minded about it that it can't change.  I outline most of my stories in some fashion or another.  It isn't always the same kind of outline.  Sometimes I have just a vague set of "things that are going to happen in this chapter", and other times, I have a complete story outline.  In either case, if the story progresses such that my outline doesn't fit, I change the outline to fit the story, not the story to fit the outline.

Rule 4: REPOSTING IS BAD.  Get it right before you make people read it.  If this means pestering someone until they look it over and comment on it, do so.  If you're not confident in your mechanics (grammar, spelling, punctuation), find someone who is.  Nothing annoys me more than having to go back and re-read a chapter three times because someone keeps changing and reposting it.  The only thing I ever use reposting for is fixing typos or changing formatting.

Rule 5: It really helps to know where your story is going to end before you start writing it, unless you like stories that wander all over the place.  CAMP had no direction, and as such, it wanders into every imaginable territory.  This is one of the many things I hate about it.  My stories now are usually more directed, because I have an idea of where I'm going.  The exception to this rule (in my case) are my episodics.  That is, the stories I have that are written in "episodes", like Justice Seven and Paladin.  These stories are more of a running journal than a novel, and wherever I end the "book" will probably be completely arbitrary.  (Though even in these cases, I have multi-episode plot lines running, and an idea of where the story is going.)

Rule 6: Chapters end wherever it seems like chapters should end.  In an episodic story, obviously the chapter ends when the episode ends, that is, when the episode's conflict is resolved.  In a regular novel, the chapter ends whenever it seems like you have a decent place to break.  That can either be right after the resolution of some problem, right in the middle of some problem (ie, cliffhanger... readers love to hate these...), or right after some important scene.  If you're writing erotica, chapters can also end right after sex... but right BEFORE sex is probably not a good idea... leaves your reader frustrated, if you haven't written the next chapter yet.

Rule 7: Your story must have a conflict.  If it does not have a conflict, it is a journal, not a novel.  Even episodic stories should have an over-arching conflict.  If you're going to write on the episodic model, best to think Babylon 5 rather than Star Trek.  B5 had a story arc that covered its five-year run.  Star Trek just wandered about "doing stuff".

And that's the basics of how I write stories.  Rule 1 is the only inviolable rule. 

Net Wolf