As new stories are written, the directery is being updated. If any coreections are needed, post them here or e-mail me and I will edit them. Keep up the writing.

A more general piece of advice.

Writing is a creative process, but not neccesarily a linear one. To produce the finished article many writers use the trick of once the plot is planned, they then write the bits they want to first. For instance, if Chapter 10 is more intersting for them to write than chapter 1, 10 gets written first and so on until all that is left is the relatively simple task of linking all the bits together. You do not have to write in a linear fashion, even if publishing it in this way appears the best option.

The statement below is true.
The statement above is false.

Fuzzy-Not fluffy

I've decided share my beliefs about writing stories.

Planning a story:
This is easily (and obviously) the most critical part of creating a story. Planning a story before writing it will drastically help with avoiding plot holes and misleading events/information that might come up if a story was winged. A much added bonus is that it will help keep you as the author from spending 2 weeks wondering what your next chapter will be about.
Constructing the plot keeps a story flowing smoothly. I find that it is easiest for me to list all of the major turning points and events and then connect them with smaller events that will guide the story from point to point.
Make a list of the characters . plan their traits, beliefs, personality, and anything else that you want use to define their character. This will help you as an author keep from accidentaly using them OoC (Out of Character). I have had trouble with this aspect of storytelling before. If you think it is necessary, you can also describe why the characters are they way you made them, ie what happened to them in the past that made them who they are.
Develop the universe that your story takes place in . This aspect of planning contains anything else that may or may not be essential to the story. Cities, societies, technology, and the history/background of corporations and locations are just a few things that would fit into this category. It is a good idea to keep your readers informed on what is happening and why things are the way they are. If you are doing a crossover between two stories, I suggest that you have decent knowledge of both and find a convincing and understandable way to make them merge. Follow this guideline and almost any crossover can be an entertaining story. I have seen such a story before - who whould've thought that a serious (not humorous) Halo/Sonic crossover story would be a good read?
Write down what you plan . You may think that you can remember everything that you have designed for the story, but it is easy to forget. I know this from personal experience from writing Ragnarok; there have been several times where i had to review the entire story thus far to see if something that i wanted to happen would work with everything else that i had written. This can become a major pain in the a**.

Writing a story:
Find a balance in describing what your characters are doing/what is happening around them. I have seen many stories that suffered, some greatly, because the author did not find this balance. It is important to know that too much detail will bore readers, while not enough will leave them unsatisfied. Try to describe what is happening so that the user can visualize what is going on. And remember, as an author, you may know what a scene is supposed to look like, but the readers do not. Let your story describe the scene as you see it.
Proofread . Once you have written a section of your story, look over it for spelling and grammatical errors. Look over it multiple times if you have to. And if you are unsure, let someone else take a look at it. Fixing these errors makes the story easier to read, and is a key element if you want to keep readers entertained.
TAKE YOUR TIME ! This is a constant topic on the writing advice forums, but it cant be stressed enough. Writing can be very time-consuming - all of the things that I have already suggested take time. Think about what you are writing, where your story is going, and what it is doing right now. Then use what you find to write the next part of your story. Do this sentence-by-sentence if you have to, and DONT be impatient. I myself have spent well over 300 hours writing, reading, fixing, and describing all of the bits and pieces that I use in Ragnarok in order to make it a good read. The more time you spend developing your story, the better.

Reviews:
I dont have much to say here, but you should not write a story just to get reviews. You should write a story for the sake of telling it. If you do get reviews, take all constructive criticism seriously, and just ignore any flamesyou might get.

Thats all i have for now. I hope that you find this information useful. Good luck with your stories!

Hmm, just found this one... and, although I havent sent anything in yet, I agree with all the advice given- and would like to add one more thing:

Keep all you write.As a true Educator told me some time ago, you may not like the way the story develops as you begin, but there were some elements that you liked or you would not have gotten as far as you did. Sometimes , you have to give a story idea time to 'steep', if you will, before you can find a way to present it correctly. Keep them in a box and re-read them when you want for inspiration (or in Word if you've the space) and see what you can create anew.

Eh, I'm working on one right now that my main problem is that I can't find a way to smoothly introduce the main characters and set up the story. It's set 85 years after Freelancer, so I'm not planning to have any of the characters from the game in there. There is some good advice here, and I've been looking ever since I first had trouble starting my story but thus far.... I'm sorry to say but it hasn't been much help.



Seeing as how a person who will remain nameless (The Evil Thing) ruined my sig by answering a rhetorical question, I'll just use this as the line and see how long it lasts.

Most of the advice has already been said, but don't fall into the cyberpunk trap:

Being that, you become so obsessed with small asides and pleasing a geek fanbase it hampers the quality of the story.

small running gags are alright, but try not to over do it. (if anyone wants to look into it, there's always something with a sentient coffee machine in my writings.)

-:-
I'm Rick James, *****.