New to writing

Hey people I'm new to writing and have just started writing a post-apocalyptic type book. Does anyone have some ideas that can help me out with my book? Because right now I think that I could use some help since the beginning of the book is a little boring.

One of the problems new writers often have with beginnings is that they want to explain too many things: what the world is about, how it came to be, what the characters are about, how they came to be...

Don't start with the background.

You have a main character, presumably, and the character has a problem that needs to be solved, I hope. Start with the first step the character takes on the road to solving the problem.

Keep going. Boring beginnings are a revision issue, not a writing issue. When you have more of the story, it will be easier to figure out what the "right" solution to your problem is. Maybe it's background. Maybe it's in the wrong place. Maybe it just needs to be punched up. But you won't know if it needs to be on page 321 instead of page 1 until you have a page 321.

Don't stop and worry about it.

I would suggest getting some novel-writing software. I like yWriter (free, and my favorite, favorite, favorite) but I know Scrivener is popular (Free Linux beta, and paid mac&windows versions), and Liquid Story Binder might be worth looking into (It's the one I know the least about.) Anything beats the crap out of scrolling through a long Word Processing document looking for that place where...

starfox -

I've been writing for years and I still don't know how to begin a book. Generally I just write the book, then go back and figure out where the book actually BEGINS. Where the action picks up, where the characters come into being developed. Cut everything before that and figure out how to put anything really VITAL back in.

But basically, the best thing you can do is write. Write every day, and read every day. Read the best books in your genre. If you have favorites, read them a few times and try to see what makes them so good.

Come up with an interesting or difficult situation. Put your character (i.e yourself) in that situation.

Then write your way out.

Good advice all around, especially the tip to keep going. Your first draft is supposed to be awful, boring, terrible (insert your favourite negative adjective) etc. Write it for the sake of the telling the story to yourself and don't look back, not even at your previous sentence, until you've written 'The End'. Only evaluate it after that.

Every writer has their own preferences. Sometimes I like envisioning the end, maybe even writing the end, and then writing towards it, letting things happen as they will along the way. Sometimes I try a detailed outline and writing to that instead, chapter by chapter, with everything pretty much worked out in advance. Do whatever allows you to keep going all the way to the end.

Start with a striking image, then explore the character's response to that image.

The blond boy's eyes were open, still shining. It looked as if he was thinking about what to say, but his pale arms and legs were askew, and his brains were splattered in the muck.

Who could do such a thing, and then leave him here, abandoned?

I'm not trying to plug my own blog, but I recently posted something specific to the topic at hand.

Common Newbie Writer Mistakes
And How to Avoid Them

http://cdeannaverhoff.blogspot.com/

I hope this is the best place to ask. I haven't prepared a manuscript for submission since about 1990, so before the age of electronic submissions. I'm trying to find a guide on acceptable formatting these days. Any suggestions?

>9 varielle:, Rather than figure out a one-size-fits all format, be prepared to alter your formatting according to the sometimes exacting specifications of each publisher which sometimes differ from one another. Check the publisher web site and look those up, in each instance.

Thanks, right now I'm agent shopping.

>11 varielle: The same advice applies. Check each agent's website for their preferred formatting and submission package. Be prepared to change with each submission.

Absolutely check individual agents' guidelines before submitting...but as a rule, standard manuscript format is 12-pt Times New Roman, double-spaced (I usually set mine to 25 lines per page) with 1-inch margins all around.

Looks like I need to have at least three versions ready to send. I found some that want double spacing, others double spacing beetween paragraphs, one wants single spacing. Then the fonts-- Times New Roman, Arial or Courier. Arrgh.

>15 ratnarat:, you're asking in the right place (no flags-into-oblivion here), but I'd recommend sharing this in a better topic, or even starting your own, instead of randomly tagging it on to the end of Starfox's request for assistance.

Congrats on taking the big publishing step! That's how you do it. A step I've still not taken, so I'm being earnest.