Scribbled beginnings

So I promised that this was a blog about starting out in writing, yet all I have done is talk about squirrels. Sorry about that, I will change that now with a promise.

For the next 7 days I will post something about writing every day, and include a link to an article about writing written by somebody who knows what they are doing. Should help me get back on track.

So where to start? Well I suppose the beginning is the logical place.

A good piece of advice I have read in many many places is to study your favorite authors. Their styles, plots, characterizations, dialogue etc. It's very interesting reading those books you have read dozens of times, only this time with a critical eye, opens up new understanding and appreciation.

The first thing I have noticed in every book I have read is, not surprisingly, the beginning. Or perhaps a better way of saying it is how the beginning character relates to me.

Now I read fantasy in the main but I should imagine this truism holds through most genres (it does in some of the non-fantasy books I read). In (almost) every case the beginning is not too fantastical. Its not a premise that I have trouble getting my head around and it introduces a character that I can sympathize with.

How do they achieve this? Usually by using the everyday. To take the last 2 books I read as examples.

1. Magician by Raymond E Feist.
Feist introduces the main protagonist Pug. He does so by having him run an errand and then has him lazing around with his errand half finished. Which of us can say we haven't done that on occasion?

Importantly we are not bombarded by concepts, names, races, magic etc at the start. We are eased in with a scene that enables us to imagines ourselves in the characters place and so develop a bond with him. He is then placed in peril, which gets our blood pumping and gets us worrying about him.

2. Scar Night by Alan Campbell 

Here you would think building a character we can instantly relate to would be more difficult. After all the character is an Angel, how many of us have big, feathery wings sprouting from our backs? Not many I should imagine. But despite the physical differences we have a couple of scenes that allow us to relate to him straight away.

He is kept in his room by well meaning church members (most of us remember being kids and having our parents do the same to us). This leads to boredom and small rebellions like trying to collect snails and sometimes using them to annoy people. I'm sure we've all been there, even if not using snails as our weapon of annoyance. I know I liked to drive my siblings crazy when I was bored.

Now go find any fantasy book that you struggled to get into. I am willing to bet in a lot of cases the first chapter or two is infodump. Where they give you names of countries, leaders, races, concepts... they probably think of it as setting the scene, but to me its just dumping information about stuff I don't care about yet.

So the first tip I can manage is this: get the reader to care about your characters, start with scenes they can relate to, leave the infodumping until later (if you have to do it at all).

I'm sure most of your favorite books will have started the same; Hobbits having a smoke and a sit down in the sunshine, a character having a drink in a bar, a teacher physically drained after a hard day in school... the list is endless.

So what's the best everyday situation you have read for leading people in?

p.s. The link for today will stay on the subject of starting to write.

Unfortunately rain has stopped play.  It seems funny saying that whilst enjoying one of the few days of glorious sunshine Wales has per year.  But last night we were hit by a thunderstorm that caused localized flash floods, meaning my neighbour suddenly has a serious call on his time fixing emergencies... calls that will be paying him more than the few beers deal we have!

I know it seems lazy of me.  All I have to do in theory is wait till the squirrel has abandoned my attic, then reattach or replace one tile.  However 2 issues stand in my way

1.  I have no idea about tiling.

and perhaps more importantly 
2.  A couple of weeks ago I broke my foot whilst playing rugby; so I am in a plaster cast and need crutches to get about.

This means that doing the work myself is pretty much out.   The squirrel remains, for now, unaware that it will soon be made homeless.  I hope it enjoys my hospitatlity.

Seems fanfic is a bit of a theme at the moment.  I have had a bit of a discussion about it with some friends of mine and there is a strong debate on it in this community, seems most people are in favour of it.

Personally I am against it.  I have posted on that discussion an excellent article on the subject (not my article I hasten to add)
here
that shows that it is far from hissy fits or authors not 'letting go' of their creations, but actually sensible legal reasons that make them want people not to write in their universes.  Considering all writing is IP you can see why they need to defend it as tightly as they can.

I have felt the lure of fanfic.  When I was younger I hunted Buffy fanfic with a passion and the other day I was struck by the urge to continue Raymond Feist's work following on from Wrath of a Mad God.  So I know about why people do it... what I don't get is why they do it so often.  Leaving aside the rights or wrongs of the arguements in the debate and article above I don't see why someone posts dozens of stories.  It may be just me but I think if you are creative enough to come up with stories for someone else work you are creative enough to come up with your own sandbox to play in.

I might even make a sandbox somewhere that has squirrels' tails being worth a lot of money and me hunting them down.  starting with that one up the attic.  Buffy might even be in it.

Well my journey as a writer has now started.  Ineptitude is one step closer and my dreams of handing out soap to the great unwashed is a tiny bit nearer.

How?  Well I have just submitted my first ever short story to an ezine.  Its not a paying market, but then I am not of the quality yet to be paid!  Having looked through some of their stories though they are of a very high caliber and so I fully expect a rejection.  But thats fine, every writer has stories to tell of their rejections.

So fingers crossed, wish me luck and all that jazz. 

p.s.  Squirrel must have gone to sleep, I can hear myself think

It seems that blogging is addictive.  Not so much the writing of it, though  I may be catching that bug as well, but more the reading of them.  I have now got about 20 different blogs on my favorites list, including a number of agents, a number of authors and a couple of randoms I came across by accident but find quite funny.

The problem is this addiction is getting in my way.  

I don't think I mentioned it earlier but I actually run a (one man band) engineering design recruitment agency, and so only get paid by the amount of work I do.  it used to be I would do 14-15 hour days, then facebook came along and it seemed to go down to more like 12-13 hours.... and now between my new interest in writing and my new addiction in blogs I am finding it is closer to 10 - 11 hour days.

I'm not sure I can afford any more addictions... anyone have a cure?

p.s. That squirrel is still winding me up

Well as I am hoping my profile says (goodness knows if I have filled in any of these forms right) I am blogging here to create my own personal path to writing ineptitude.  Trust me, from where I am now ineptitude is a far off dream.

My writing credits to date.  

A couple of short story plans (fantasy) that I have never finished
One flash fiction contest entry (science fiction)
One truely awful poem

And thats its, aside from an odd fantasy thing I once wrote for an ex-girlfriend.  Hardly the stuff of legends, or even the stuff of really drunk stories now I come to think of it.  But I shall persevere, I shall overcome, I shall join the great unwashed ranks of distinctly average writers (though I may hand out some soap when I get there)!

Just to massage my ego the only piece of writing I have done is in a contest here

I won't tell you which one, but feel free to look through and vote on whichever takes your fancy - there are some surprisingly high caliber entrants in there. 

So this is a blog just about writing, right?

Well, no. Firstly because even I would find that boring (and I love reading about writing). But more importantly because I will use any soapbox I can find to mouth off on. Be it sport (most likely), politics, random rants (expect a lot of these), books, how to spell colour... pretty much anything.

Especially expect a lot of shoutings about rugby. I am a devout Welshman. Yes I mean devout, anyone who knows a Welshman can tell you that we take national pride to religious levels. And like any good Welshman I am obsessed with rugby; I play it, I watch it, I post about it on message boards and I bore my non-welsh friends to death with it. And now I shall do the same to you.

Sorry

Cymru am byth