Writing Stories Which Don't Suck (Part 1 of 2: Cutting the Crap)
Everyone loves a good story; but not everyone is good at writing them.
I'm a bit of a writer myself, I've been doing more writing as of late than I have modeling. Writing is a fine art, and, like most art, it takes practice.
You may write a story and think that it sucks. It probably does suck. But, since most of you can model, think of the first thing you EVER modeled. Didn't it suck, too? But, with practice, you got better. You stopped sucking so badly.
The same holds true for writing.
With writing, practice makes perfect, and even with lots of practice, stuff you write may still suck (a lot of the things I write suck, even). Ernest Hemingway even once said to F. Scott Fitzgerald, "I write one page of masterpiece to ninety one pages of shit. I try to put the shit in the wastebasket."
The trick to any writing is re-writing. The first draft I write is normally absolute SHIT, for example, here's a piece (which makes absolutely no sense out of context) where I haven't altered it in the slightest from when I first wrote it down:
Quote:
Church in the colony was held at the gates which formerly guarded the single access road. As it now served as the entrance to the colony, all entrants to the colony were forced to be turned away when church was in progress.
Candles lit up the entire area, and Flyboy saw that an altar had been set up at the entrance to the gate itself.
Things were flying from place to place, the smell of burning objects filled the air, and, overall, no one had any idea what was going on. The only thing which people seemed to know was that they thought God was a pretty cool guy; he saved them and doesn’t afraid of anything.
The entire church service was confusing. Even if you knew what was going on, you'd still be very confused.
“ALL HAIL OUR LORD!” one of the purple-clad minions proclaimed exuberantly, with a violently insane tone in his voice the way violently insane tones tend to do that from time to time before going back about their business.
“AMEN,” chanted the crowd, a similar tone in their own voices.
It was a very odd scene, a very odd scene indeed.
“The future isn't what it used to be,” Puma said, and Flyboy nodded in agreement.
Nate was fascinated by the scene. Something about it just seemed to strike a chord within him, and he almost looked as if he were trying to make the image stick in his mind or something, I don’t know. I may be omniscient, but don't expect me to know everything.
Finally, after observing the ritual for quite some time, Nate said, “This appears to be their form of propaganda… Church… It’s how they get the masses to do whatever they want them to.”
“Nate, are you taking notes in your head again?” Puma asked.
“No! Of course not! Down with propaganda! And whenever I'm talking, everyone should be taking notes, so I suggest that you begin taking them as well.”
Puma glanced at him awkwardly, and Nate resumed taking notes or whatever it was which he was doing.
“No one placed under Our Lord's divine protection faces discrimination!” chanted one of the minions, “For under His divine providence, everybody is discriminated against equally!”
The crowd cheered.
Even I say that's absolute shit, and I wrote it. But, eventually, I'll re-write it, and make it better. And then I'll re-write that. And then I'll re-write that. And so on and so forth.
The key to writing is re-writing, and knowing when something needs to be cut.
When it comes to cutting things, the writer has two objects at their disposal: the machete and the scalpel.
I used the writer = artist metaphor earlier on purpose, at least partially because an artist, when sculpting a sculpture, has to see the sculpture within, and know when to cut off large blocks of marble as compared to when to cut off small blocks of marble. The artist has to know what it is he's looking for so that he could add in small, tiny little details to make his sculpture great.
The same holds true for writing.
Use the machete to butcher entire paragraphs, sometimes a full chapter. I've personally butchered three chapters because nothing was happening in them, and I just took the jokes and the essential details inside of each one and crammed them in everywhere else.
Use it to whittle it down to size, but sometimes a machete is too much, and after you're done getting rid of the large chunks of crap, it's time to go through and look through each individual sentence to find where things need to be changed.
The best way to use your scalpel is to read your story aloud. Make sure no one's around, so that no one thinks you're crazy. Just read your story to yourself, and you'll find things which you would never had caught if you just read it silently.
Reading your own story out loud will help you find where you could say how someone says something, ("'Get down and give me 50,' Nate said" turns into "'Get down and give me 50,' Nate said gruffly") as well as when you accidentally use an excess or redundant word redundantly.
Just using these tips alone will get you on the path to becoming a better writer.
Remember, just like any other piece of art, writing takes time to perfect. You wouldn't show off a model which you made in 2 minutes, and so you shouldn't show off a piece of literature you wrote in 2 minutes, either.
Anyone can be a writer. It just takes some practice.
