iambecauseiwrite asked: Research nonfiction and fiction. Find other books similar to what you want to write and pick them apart. What don't you like about them? What would you change? But also read nonfiction about conflicts and ways that historical problems have been solved because it will help you understand what real people do when faced with those circumstances.
submarinedreams asked: Re: war/corruption writing. When I write stories like this I try to keep in mind that I know far more than my characters do. I know what all the generals are saying, where all the ships are, exactly who is corrupting the government. But the character in the story probably knows very little of the larger geopolitics. Especially if the gov't is corrupt and secretive. Hope that helps.
whitepowermilk asked: do you have any tips for writing stories that are set during periods of war/insurrection/government corruption?
Research research research!
I’ve never written anything like that so that’s all I’ve got, but does anyone else have any advice?
diariesofasoliloquist asked: Writing in english when it is not my first language has been one of my biggest dilemmas. I'm from Brazil and I write both in Portuguese and in English. What I've been told about all this is that, yes, the publishing industry in English speaking countries is ridiculously bigger, faster and more diversified, however, the market in other languages isn't as saturated as it is in English, which means you could start a whole new niche by writing in your own language. So, pros and cons to both sides.
trans-gentleman asked: Depends on what you're looking for. Something big with a shiny prize sitting at the end? No, not so much. But you can always make your own competitions if practice is what you seek! If you have friends who write, play with them. What about online friends? Still no? Well, make your own then! Advertise for a writing group, get a blog or forum going. Just get get creative! Writing competitions are a good way to put your skills to the test. Just keep it friendly and respectful and have fun~
Maybe if/when I have more time this summer I’ll make a Yeah Write writing contest, where the winner’s story gets published directly to the blog instead of just the usual link.
I’m also thinking Yeah Write should have some merch… pens or T-shirts or mugs or something (if anyone would be interested in that kind of thing haha) so the winner could get some free stuff too!
fcknggirlnextdoor asked: I have to say I loved to know that there are more people in my situation. My first language is not English (I'm Brazilian), but I live in America and I've been feeling guilty ever since I realized I prefer writing in English. I think it sounds better when I read aloud, and my dialogues are way better than they are in Portuguese. But still, thanks to this I've been struggling with my writer's block and the thought that I will never find an editor because I should be writing in my native language.
musicintuition asked: to skulls-attract-attention: I heard it said somewhere that a book written by someone whose first language is not english is like a girl with two different colored eyes - unique, beautiful, and interesting. Your 'accent' will come through in your writer's voice if you use english. It's your decision, but publishing in english certainly won't be a limitation.
oooooh
skull-attracts-attention asked: Hi, I've got a problem. English is not my native language and right now I don't know if I should write in my native language or in english... I fear I don't have that much vocabulary to write in english. And if I wanted to get published, I don't think anyone would like to publish my book in different language... What should I do? :c
Hmm, this is a hard one. I know that if I tried to write a book in German (my second language) I’d have a really hard time!
But your English sounds really good, so I might suggest you write it in English anyway. You’re right about more things being published and sold in English than any other language (in this hemisphere, anyway). And if you did get your book published, you’d of course have an editor who could help you work with grammatical mistakes, funny word choices, etc.
But also, there’s a huge market for translating popular foreign-language books into English. So I’d say just go with what your heart desires!
otherwaystolive-max asked: I love books from kid's pov, most of the books I read are. My shortlist: Everything Matters! by Ron Currie Jr., Apologize, Apologize! by Elizabeth Kelly, When We Were Romans by Matthew Kneale, Up High in the Trees by Kiara Brinkman, The Last Child by John Hart, The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet by Reif Larsen, The Dolphin People by Torsten Krol, When the Finch Rises by Jack Riggs, Wolf Boy by Evan Kuhlman, Submarine by Joe Dunthorne, Room by Emma Donoghue, My Side Of The Story by Will Davis
fairytalesandmonsters asked: Also about the POV question.. again a teen book, but I've always thought GG. Kay's Ysabel was a good adult book with an authentic sounding teen narrator, in this case a 14 yr old boy. It's also just an awesome fantasy, read it if you can. :)
I’ll put it on my list, thanks!
thehallows asked: I think The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas is really worth a look at if you want to write from a child's POV. It really captures the innocence that is needed for that view of the world.
Edit: My b, you can’t hyperlink in asks, just weirdly in their responses? So I’ll start doing it :)
almostspring asked: For the person who is trying to write from the POV of a child, I would suggest reading Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. The speaker in that book is older, 14 I think, but I just think the book does a really good job of speaking from the POV of a child/teen without it sounding like a teenie-bopper story. The book has very adult content and is told very honestly. I know it's ab out a teen, but it might help.
Speak is maybe my favorite YA book of all time! I’ve read it like 5 times. And actually, Kristen Stewart played the main character in the movie adaptation—that was the first movie I saw her in, and I was a big fan of hers until Twilight.
Do asks let you hyperlink text? We all have to remember—including me!—to try to hyperlink book titles back to their pages on their publishers’ websites (not Amazon!). It’s the right thing to do, yaknow?
alicekilledthelights asked: To the person who wanted to write from the POV of a child, an obvious and not-too-difficult way of doing this is by narrating things that children don't see second meaning in. For example, narrating an event that is actually crucial for the novel (ie, seeing mrs Doe out with her neighbor mr Bloggs even though mrs Doe is married) from a really innocent, vague and maybe even confused pov- you don't even need to talk like a child vocab-wise, just narration-wise!
sodoyou asked: I'm thinking about entering a competition for short stories, and I'll probably use the POV of a child (9-11 years old). So I was wondering if you, or someone else, have some tips on writing from the POV of a child, whitout it being a story for children. I still want it to be for older readers, and the subject is kind of a serious and sad one. I'm thinking about the way Harper Lee wrote the "To Kill a Mockingbird", but I still need some advice. Thanks!
I always have a hard time with this too! Cause I love writing from the point of view of teenagers (it’s the easiest age for me to write, being only a little older myself), but I don’t want everything I write to sound YA.
But you’re on the right track—I’d suggest reading more stories like To Kill a Mockingbird and studying what it is about that story that works. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is another book that comes to mind that’s narrated by a kid, but isn’t a kid’s book.
Another thing to consider, and that we talked about a lot in my fiction writing class last fall, was when your narrator is writing this down. Your narrator could be a 40 year old man writing about the period of time when he was 9, 10, and 11, without mentioning anything that happened in his adult life. Think the narrator on The Wonder Years. You just obviously have to use past tense. That way, you can use “big” language concerning events that happened to a child because he/she is looking back at them as an adult.
Hope that helps. Do others have anything to add?
Actually in response to vikingeek, the rule of thumb is that dialog should be doing more than one thing at once. If it’s only furthering the plot of the story, you can use exposition or action to do that, same thing with characterization, the character’s clothes, mannerisms or actions can characterize a character. (How useless/boring is it to have dialog that just says: “oh that’s Marcy coming through the door”).
Also, all dialog should be characterizing the character anyway, so if the dialog is revealing something new about how the character is feeling/thinking/their personality, is furthering the plot/conflict, and/or doing more (revealing something about the setting/history/past, etc), it’s doing a good job. It’s something, I think, can only be done in revision (or with practice). Basically, I try to edit or cut any dialog that doesn’t fulfill this rule. That said, another rule of thumb is to not have the characters explicitly say what they’re thinking or feeling. Once you get good at implying it through subtext, things start to get interesting. Burroway’s Writing Fiction is really helpful when it comes to learning craft. Also, reading fiction in which dialog is well done (like Oscar Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray for example)—or plays, I love reading plays for this reason, because you can see all the different things a line of dialog is doing at once. Sorry, I just graduated with a Creative Writing degree at SFSU, so I’m very pumped about this stuff!
YW/Livia says: I just graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill with an English/Creative Writing degree, so I’m right there with you!!
And yes, when I said that dialogue has to further the plot or characterize, I didn’t mean that those two things were mutually exclusive. Think, for example, about a character exposing an important secret through dialogue: The secret can further the plot if it exposes something important, and the fact that the speaker is sharing a secret shows something about his or her moral character.
I love what you say about the characters not being explicit in their dialogue. Not that dialogue is supposed to mimic real-world conversation, but when you think about it, how many of us really are saying what we mean all the time? That tip is definitely going to stick with me. So thank you!
I have to disagree about the dialogue in Picture of Dorian Gray, though. I felt like it went on and on and on and Wilde just uses the dialogue as a platform on which to spew his worldview. I haven’t read it in a while though.
