Any authors here?

Yeah, writing in another language is a great excercise. But translating is an even harder - and more thorough learning … lesson / curve.

A few days ago I wrote down the first part of another non-fantasy story in one afternoon - and ashowed it to a friend, who is also an author. She said that I have a feeling for diologues and situations.

I write intuitively. I do know that I can do it, that I have a certain talent for it. But as an author, I'm rather like a raw diamond. Unpolished.

Don't get me wrong, I think I can probably write better in English than in Dutch. There's just something about that extra layer of abstraction that makes me feel more comfortable. I'm also pretty fluent in English. However, there is a difference between being a good English speaker and having the kind of grasp of the language to make it sing. I have feeling for English, but not *that* much. I may think I do, but then I have to be realistic and be humbled by the really great authors.

Also, realize that no book is written in one go. Stuff gets rewritten, edited, rewritten again, thrown out, rewritten, etc. So, nothing is polished in the first version.

Originally Posted by Jaz
Wow, Tanno, you're a true Renaissance man . Drawing from your own experience (dreams do count, of course) usually is a good thing. Have you found a publisher for your novels yet?

I'm an author, too, among other things, but unlike most of the authors in my vicinity I'm not doing it for a living.
My writing discipline depends on the circumstances. If there's a deadline, I set the alarm clock to 5 in the morning and write for two hours before I go to work, five days a week - I write on weekends/holidays only if the deadline approaches. If I don't have a deadline/contract but have an urge to write, I write. If I don't have a deadline to meet and don't feel the urge, I don't write.

As far as movies/games are concerned: Don't get your hopes up too high there unless you're planning on producing your stuff yourself. An author friend of mine has been approached by movie makers several times, and each time something else happend - the project ran out of money or time, samples were so bad that the author stopped the project (luckily his agent had thought of bargaining for his veto rights), and so on. Now he's planning to have it done as an animation flick.

I have found a publisher, but I'd rather let him wait and try to write it to the end, so that I can publish without problems.

Speaking of which, I do have the hopes high, because the same way Sam Lake(author) did use to release his own games with Remedy Entertainment(Max Payne 1+2 and Alan Wake). Same goes for CDProjekt for Andrej Sapkowsky's The Witcher novels. The same happened with Pattchett's famous comics of "Discworld" and "Discworld Noir" being a trilogy of point n' click adventure games.

Originally Posted by JDR13
I have a dog.

And I have a cat… Hrrrr… meow =^-^=

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
Hm, didn't use Tolkien a similar method ?

Heard of him once, but never heard of him using the same method like me… :/

___

Speaking of the translation, I'd love to, but I don't know German language, however my lil bro knows well German, but I doubt he'll make it to the end since he has low level of German language knowledgement.

I wrote a novel several years ago as an exercise in discipline to prove to myself I could. I think Jaz actually posted the first few chapters with a link on one of her websites. Maybe one day I'll try to get it published.

Shall we open a thread and publish our prologue of our novels?

Only if they're in English!!

Originally Posted by Thaurin
There's just something about that extra layer of abstraction that makes me feel more comfortable.

Had exactly the same feeling when I was young. (I started writing my "poems" as a teenger.)

One other point I think must be mentioned: research. A proper book requires it. Lots. I'm not sure that I'm knowledgeable enough about any one usable subject to write a book around. Medieval architecture, martial arts, mythology, neuroscience, anything. I think it would just take too much time to write a full-length novel that I would be reasonably happy with.

Originally Posted by Thaurin
One other point I think must be mentioned: research. A proper book requires it. Lots. I'm not sure that I'm knowledgeable enough about any one usable subject to write a book around. Medieval architecture, martial arts, mythology, neuroscience, anything. I think it would just take too much time to write a full-length novel that I would be reasonably happy with.

The problem is, the more you learn about any one subject the less you feel you know about it. Hell, I've got a Masters degree in archaeology and wouldn't feel comfortable writing historical fiction. That's why fantasy, traditional, urban, or space, is such a handy genre!

Originally Posted by Menigal
That's why fantasy, traditional, urban, or space, is such a handy genre!

Definitely … but even there you need to do your research (provided you're forced to describe 'mundane' things or actions). Though readers usually are more willing to suspend disbelief if it's a fantastic genre.

But most of the time, many of the things in these books are based on real-life knowledge. Especially science-fiction would be a genre to use a lot of actual science. What about fantasy, how would you describe a sword fight if you've never been trained in swordfighting? It's gonna be dull and awkward if you don't inject some believable technique or scientific basis into your fantasy or sci-fi story.

Or, for example, using elements of real-life philosophy and/or religion to create your factions/groups/people/history. You can be shallow about it, but then again, you will end up with a shallow book.

I write project plans

Originally Posted by Thaurin
What about fantasy, how would you describe a sword fight if you've never been trained in swordfighting?

That's exactly what I meant:

Originally Posted by Jaz
(…) but even there you need to do your research (provided you're forced to describe 'mundane' things or actions).

Originally Posted by Thaurin
What about fantasy, how would you describe a sword fight if you've never been trained in swordfighting?

I'm on it with my current novel "Paradisia - The Secrets of Paradise", since I do train Japanese swordsmanship IRL(Kendo Athlete - 1st Dan).

I don't do research for my own fantasy universe.

I invent it.

I have written a few years ago (2 ? 3 ?) a short story trying to explain an event that I had already hinted to in my first story about my own fantasy world 10 years ago : The so-called "Demon Wars".

This era is still only outlined in my mind, and even I don't have much of its concept ready - I don't know why it began, who participated (except that it was "magiocians" - I only know that it was an devastating event that rocked (perhps even literally) the "world" so muh that the Gods themselves had to intervene … One particular Goddess called "Shakti" was so much occupied in healing both the world and its inhabitants that she got almost litrall exhausted and needed to rest several millennia. Only "today" hs she begun looking for a place to build a temple of her own. Right now, she is wandering around in an insect-like shell she had built for herself and where she is living in (in my imagination, the shell looks like the sorceress called "Shakti" from the game called "Sacrifice").
Other Gods haven't been involved or/and exhaused that much : They could (re-)establish themselves much, much earlier in the "world" again (like the unnamed "Mountain God", for example).

This just as an example of my own outlines of the world I'm writing for. I invent things as I need them - but last week and the week before that I think a friend pointed out that I didn't describe what i mean with several new-invented terms. Which means that I need to do an lexicon for my own world.

Originally Posted by Jaz
Definitely … but even there you need to do your research (provided you're forced to describe 'mundane' things or actions). Though readers usually are more willing to suspend disbelief if it's a fantastic genre.

True, there's no way to avoid doing some research, and if you do go with something unrealistic like fantasy you'll still have to create rules of your own. My point is that fear of doing research shouldn't stop someone from writing, and you don't always need a super in-depth understanding of something to throw it in.

You don't need an encyclopedic knowledge of nuclear physics to write an adventure story that just happens to be set in space, and you don't have to be a chemical engineer to have a dragon breathe fire. If you write a fantasy swordfight you don't need to throw in fencing references like William Goldman. The style of story you're writing dictates the level of detail required. A soft-science comedy space opera can gloss over a lot more than a heavy, hard-science epic.

Of course, if you're interested in something enough to write about it, you've probably done a fair bit of reading into it already.

Originally Posted by Menigal
If you write a fantasy swordfight you don't need to throw in fencing references like William Goldman. The style of story you're writing dictates the level of detail required.

Exactly. I could just write that some people engaged in a sword-fight. And that's it. I do not need to explain this further if my focus lies elsewhere.

Originally Posted by Myrthos
I write project plans

That's also part of the fantasy genre.

A friend of mine who's a project manager for IBM would say that's the main part!!

Originally Posted by Menigal
The style of story you're writing dictates the level of detail required. A soft-science comedy space opera can gloss over a lot more than a heavy, hard-science epic.

Okay, agreed. But I do still maintain that there needs to be some meat in it somewhere. Ah, well, looking at Douglas Adams, maybe space humour and an overactive imagination is enough , but that's Adams. He's special. Even Pratchett (more so in his later books) has brilliant comical references to real-life stuff. It makes for more interesting reading. After all, we do need to connect to the story and its characters in some way.

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.