Pretty much everyone feels like they have a story to tell at some point in their life, but only a small percentage of those people will go on to try and produce that story. And of those who get their works out of their heads and onto a page, very few have what it takes to create something worthy of being published, even after copious amounts of editing and re-editing.
The problem is, most people don’t know even the simplest rules and techniques that are necessary to create a well-written story that does not insult or offend its readers via its poor structure and complete disregard for basic grammar, or leave the reader abandoning the story due to boredom and frustration in order to find another which is able to properly entertain them.
I’ve read quite a few books in my time and have come across many which fall into the above category. Everything from poor sentence structure, bland, unlikeable characters and glaring plot holes have plagued them, causing me increasing frustration whilst they’re being read, which is then replaced by a massive wave of freedom when the book is put down.
I never would have thought that it would be possible to get so irritated when reading, but experience has taught me it can happen at the drop of a hat. We all know that starting the first sentence of your story with “Your” instead of “You’re” will be enough to cause some people to hurl the book into a fire without ever reading another word, but while that problem is very well known and loudly addressed, I’d like to highlight some of the lesser known obstacles to help people realise simple mistakes that are turning their potentially gripping thrillers and magical adventures into literary nightmares.
So, once the Gens have given you your ideas and a starting point for your story, it’ll be time to properly translate them from your mind to the page. For this, I will be calling on my own experiences, online references which have clear, astute advice and rules on writing and grammar, and books and e-books which will help in a range of topics. To begin with, I have two recommendations:
Techniques of the Selling Writer (Book) by Dwight V. Swain, and
Writing Fight Scenes by Rayne Hall, 1 of 5 books in the The Writer’s Craft book series.
These two books are highly recommended for intermediate writers, and I will come back to these for reviews shortly. Both these and the rest of the Writer’s Craft books can be found in the RanGen’s Recommendations section of the site, which will see new additions as we go along.
In the Recommendations, you can find the product descriptions, reviews and prices, then go on to buy the books via Amazon. Each purchase made on Amazon via RanGen provides RanGen with a small commission from Amazon itself (you don’t pay anything except the price of your purchase), so helping yourself with these books in turn helps RanGen stay online and grow, so do check out the selection. As always, your support is greatly appreciated.
In the meantime, have fun with the Gens, good luck with the February Writing Challenge, check out a few non-intrusive text ads, and keep an eye on Twitter and Facebook for updates, news and random silliness!
