I've been meaning to write one of these for a while. I might as well begin now. As a professional writer, I'm going to show you the tricks of the trade I learned from English Majors, my professors, and other writers. Please note that this can be used for RPs and Fan Fiction too, so don't think this can be used only for writing books.
To begin writing a story, you first must know the story. What is it you are going to write about? The solid foundation for all fictional writing is knowing what you are writing about. What story are you telling? Once you figured out what you are going to write about, you need to research the topic. Yes, that's right. You need to research. For RPing on this site, likely research you would have to do is cards. What cards do what, yada yada yada. For my book, The Seattle Massacre, I had to research a lot about serial killers, human biology, maps and locations in Seattle, criminology, and a lot more subjects to make my story not only believable, but entertaining.
After you've researched your topics, you can now begin process of developing your story. There's several things that need to be developed; plot, symbolism, characters, conflict, and several other aspects.
Plot:
The plot is one of the most important factors of the story. The plot is categorized in several steps; exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. The exposition is where you introduce all the main characters to the story, establish them, and insert personality. The rising action is where things begin to pick up. This is where the conflict is introduced into the story. The climax is where the turning point of the story. The characters are making their decisions, all the action is happening. The falling action is the opposite of rising action, everything is declining. Loose ends are being tied up. The resolution is the ending of the story. There's a wide variety of endings. Protagonist wins, antagonist wins, neither win, guy gets the girl, girl gets the guy, and so on.
For my book, I've installed a concept after watching the movie The Prestige. When performing magic, there's three steps. The Pledge, Turn, and Prestige. I've incorporated that into my book. The first ten chapters in my book is The Pledge. I've given it it's own 'mini plot'. It has all the same functions as a plot, except that it ends at the climax continues right away in the next step, the Turn. The Turn is the next ten chapters and is almost a mirror of the Pledge. Where the Pledge has the rising action, the Turn has the falling action and a very small point of resolution before another rising action and climax. The next step is the Prestige, where there's falling action, resolution, and finally one last rising action, climax, and falling action at the end before hitting the final resolution. I will be following this formula throughout my series.
Characters:
This is the biggest problem that I see when I read peoples posts for RPs. The characters are dull and one-dimensional. Another problem is that they are 'Gary Stu' or 'Mary Sue'. What that means is that they 'can't do any wrong' and 'they are the best'. I will use Bella from Twilight as an example. Her character is supposedly 'perfect'. Smart, beautiful, and innocent. Bella is a classic case of the Mary Sue. However, there is yet another problem with characters; they are far too tragic. Before the 'ban on orphans', nearly all of the characters were orphans. While tragic is good, it's not the only thing you can use to develop your character. What really develops characters are flaws. Give them weaknesses alongside their strengths. These weaknesses allow the character to develop and give the character a whole new dimension for the reader to explore.
In my book, Richard starts out as a very cocky homicide detective. As you read my book, his weaknesses are shown and are exploited by the serial killer. At the end of my book, Richard is but a shell of his former self; a skeleton.
Symbolism:
Symbolism is commonly used in stories and won't be spending much time on this subject. Symbolism is picking an object and giving it importance. An example of symbolism is Jack's knife, the object he uses to kill his victims.
Conflict:
Self explanatory.
After making the decision on each of these steps, you may now start on the writing. There are several styles one can use. Two of the biggest is First and Third Person. First person is where the reader is in the mind of the main character. While writing, you use words as 'me' and 'I'. Third person is the opposite. Third person uses 'his' and 'her'.
After deciding on which of these to use, you next need to decide on which point of view to use, omniscient or limited. Omniscient allows the reader to see through multiple character's minds. Limited means from the main character's mind ONLY.
I personally use omniscient. In my book, I allow the reader to express the point of view of several main characters. This gives the reader the experience I want them to have while keeping certain aspects away from the reader until I want them to know.
The next step I want to address is the writing itself. I am going to avoid the whole grammatical correctness. If you can't use the correct difference between 'know' and no', or spell right, then writing probably isn't for you. I do want to show the difference between 'showing and telling'.
Here is an example of telling:
"My brother is talented."
Here's an example of showing:
"My brother modifies sports car engines, competes in ballroom dance tournaments, and analyzes chess algorithms."
This article will likely be edited in the near future. I hope this has been of use.
