Any authors here?

Well, everyone has his own style. I don't know what's my own style, but I'll tell you guys.

Since I'm a very detailed person, I write first how's the environment and how's every place's characteristics and then I start writing very character's action. At the end, I try to read 2 or 3 times each paragraph, just in case I make grammar mistakes or to try enriching it with rich lexicon. And one last time, if I like it, I go to the next paragraph.

That's how I work not only as an author, but also as a reader. If you want to give something to the readers to imagine, be the reader yourself.

Originally Posted by Thaurin
Speaking of which, there are so many required things to remember when writing a story. You need to establish an environment and a situation early on. The story needs to have a beginning, a middle and an end, the characters need a goal or motivation, challenges, need to grow and change. Look to any story and they'll have it.

I used to have discussions with friends about this. By shoehorning these elements into a story, they argue, you lose freedom and imagination. While actually, these are just part of the formal construction of a story.

Not necessarily, at least not on a first draft. Ignoring post-modern Literature crap, quite a few people start off by picking a starting point and writing out the story as it comes to them. There are quite a few little contests and challenges, like National Novel Writing Month, that run with that idea.

Stories can, and often do, change as you write and get to know the characters, so this can be a good way to do a first draft. Some people write like this just to get to develop characters, a setting, the general plot, or whatever, then extract those and use them in an entirely different story. In later drafts you can worry about making it follow narrative rules.

Of course, this is all down to personal preference, and anyone who tells you there's one true way of writing is just wrong. Some people need to have everything completely planned out before they even think of writing. Others sit down and let it all flow organically. Others just rip off other people and make a vast fortune.

Originally Posted by Thaurin
The story needs to have a beginning, a middle and an end, the characters need a goal or motivation, challenges, need to grow and change.

And that's actually the fine thing with Short Stories : You don't really need it. It's like snapshot. Taken with a camera, somewhere, somewhen, with a distinct angle - which might not even represent the whole reality. You can take a picture of an object from almost every angle - and you can hold the camera even so that the picture will be(come)

- blurred
- showing just an edge
- show the object vertically, horizontally or neither of both
- you can apply filters, too !

And so on. Short stories are alwys capable of doing that, and YOU decide how it's going to be like !

I'm not so avantgardistic that I would apply all of these possibilities. sometimes I only apply one or two of them. Showing things from a "Different Angle" (that was the title of my short-lived commentary series on the 'Dot) is an excellnt technique - especially if you want to create emotional or even horror moments !


I have invented something which I call "Sensual Writing" or "Sensual Reading".
The principle of it is to use sensual words as often as possible to appeal to the readers' senses - and thus create immersion through "virtual sensing", so to say. Through evoking emotions.

Okay, here's a sample, at least for those who can read German - a Justifiers short story called Bounty Hunter. It was published today in Ulisses Games JUSTNews Nr. 9. You can download the latest JUSTNews pdf here: http://www.justifiers-spiele.de/?p=634
EDIT
Next Saturday (October 22nd) I'll be haunting the games fair (Internationale Spieltage) in Essen. Meet me at the WerkZeugs booth if you dare .

I'm currently writing a THIRD novel. This time a medieval one with romance elements in it.

Firstly, let me tell you guys that I'm writing both 3 novels parallel. Just now I completed the 2nd episode of the "Red Dream - The Lovecraftian Effect".

I'm thinking seriously to reach 8 or more episodes in this current horror novel.