: Re: Translating from mind to paper I've had a story developing inside my head for years (literally about 5 or 6 years now) but every time I try to put that story onto paper it never turns out

Many writers have this issue. I think we should simplify this to something as innocent as a baby.

You give birth to the child, but you don't discipline it right away. You let it grow and become amazing, and then when its old enough to understand discipline, you discipline it. You wouldn't go around shouting at your newborn, would you?
You mustn't hastily punish your baby at an early age, you need to let it grow and see how it goes. Then, you can discipline it the way you want.

Your book is like the baby. You can't give up on something right away. What you should do, is you should put the idea on paper the best you can. You can try this, to help you not give up on your baby (your book):

My writing might be bad now, but that's because I haven't edited it and made it the best I possibly can. It doesn't matter if my first draft is bad, because I can go through and edit it.

For the first time writing your story, it DOES NOT have to be good. Because that, is your first draft - your first time going through it. When you go and edit it, you'll get rid of all those silly imperfections and tidy up all the unnecessary paragraphs and sentences, reorder events a bit, perhaps change structure, remove chapters. You'll do everything then.

I think the best way for you to appreciate the work you're doing, is for you to know that this is only your first draft. A blacksmith doesn't just run his whetstone along the weapon once to sharpen it - he does it many times. Think of the image in your mind as that final version of the weapon.

Conclusion:

Remember, you mustn't discipline your newborn.
You must acknowledge that this is only your first draft and not the final product.
Keep sharpening your weapon time after time until its as sharp as it is in your mind :)

My analogies were bad, but I hope this helped.

Load Full (0)

: Should I use contractions in my narrative? Should I use contractions in my narrative, or only use them in dialogue? I have noticed that in some books, like The Passage by Justin Crownin, contractions

@Sims2267584

Load Full 2 Comments

: How should I write a utopia? I think the utopian fiction you're describing would be challenging to write because it lacks climactic points. Its predictable. You describe it as if there is

@Sims2267584

Load Full 0 Comments

: Typographical styling of UI text in document What are the usual typographical conventions to set off text from the UI in a user manual? For example, how should I style the text of the label

@Sims2267584

Load Full 1 Comments

: All of my answers are ludicrous and too long, so you can skip to the conclusion at the end if you don't want to read. Introduction I think it can be quite easy to make sure your sentences

: Re: Translating from mind to paper I've had a story developing inside my head for years (literally about 5 or 6 years now) but every time I try to put that story onto paper it never turns out

More posts by @Sims2267584

: Should I use contractions in my narrative? Should I use contractions in my narrative, or only use them in dialogue? I have noticed that in some books, like The Passage by Justin Crownin, contractions

: How should I write a utopia? I think the utopian fiction you're describing would be challenging to write because it lacks climactic points. Its predictable. You describe it as if there is

: Typographical styling of UI text in document What are the usual typographical conventions to set off text from the UI in a user manual? For example, how should I style the text of the label

: All of my answers are ludicrous and too long, so you can skip to the conclusion at the end if you don't want to read. Introduction I think it can be quite easy to make sure your sentences

Login to post a comment!

0 Comments

Back to top