How to Start Writing Fiction: 7 Tips for Early Success

get ready because today I'm going to help you get off the sidelines and into the action of writing by the way my name is Brandon McNulty I'm the author of bad parts also the author of Entry wounds and welcome to my writing channel one of my subscribers requested a video on the topic of getting started as a writer and I thought this was a great idea for a video and we're going to focus on this today I'm going to give you seven practical tips that'll help boost your confidence and also help you focus your efforts as a writer the first tip for today don't worry about being prepared enough qualified enough or skilled enough in order to become a writer you don't need any special English degree you don't need any special writing software you don't need anyone's approval anyone's permission if you want to write just write just jump right in and keep in mind that the only things that you need in order to write are something to write with and it can be a pen and paper it could be an open Word document whatever it is something to write with and the confidence to write tip number two is to find a burning idea and you probably already have one of these it's probably been bouncing around in your head for a few days or a few years and what it is it's an idea that makes you want to write it makes you want to sit down in front of a computer or a notebook and get that idea down on paper so that it can be out there in the world at some point and the thing is you're probably afraid to write it down because you're afraid you can't live up to your own expectations or you you're afraid that it's just going to outright suck and here's the thing it's going to suck your earliest stories will always suck and that that's for every writer out there you have to start by writing bad stories and that brings us to tip number three which is to make as many mistakes as you possibly can it might sound weird because it's embarrassing to make mistakes we hate screwing up in front of other people we hate putting something together and being told that it sucks but here's the thing the fastest way to grow and develop as a writer is to make as many mistakes as possible because when you make mistakes when you write bad stories you start to recognize why your stories aren't working and when you recognize this then you are able to address the issues that you have for instance if you're strong struggling with setting and your setting is really Bland then once you recognize that when you sit down and you read a story that from one of your favorite authors you start to pay attention to how they pull off setting and how they make setting work and then you can apply that to your own work and the one other thing I'd recommend as you start writing stories maybe write a few bad stories and you you start writing one that that's a little better maybe something that you're you're feeling pretty confident about take it to a writing group maybe you can join an online writing group maybe you find one through a Facebook group or through Reddit you find you know different creative writing groups and then you share your work with other people and then they give you feedback and they're going to tell you your story sucks but that's okay because again it's going to help you grow and all those mistakes you make will help you grow in the long run tip number four write what you like and this is so important you don't want to force yourself to write a story that you're not passionate about and unfortunately a lot of writers do this a lot of writers they want to write a a nasty Horror Story or a clever sci-fi story or a steamy romance and instead of doing those things they write something that's set in contempt temporary times that's just very plain and boring they feel like the only thing they're qualified right is just the the plain everyday thing that takes place in their everyday lives and that's just not the thing if you're writing fiction have fun with it explore ideas Go in all kinds of crazy directions and remember that if you're not passionate about the story that you're writing your audience definitely will not be tip number five is to start small and build toward your goal a lot of people who want to write they never actually start because they're so intimidated by writing this Epic Novel or this three-part movie trilogy or this ongoing comic book series and they're they're just so intimidated by the big ultimate goal that they're they failed to take the small steps toward it because you can eventually achieve that Big Goal but you have to start small you have to start by recognizing what makes a good sentence or recognizing how to build a scene and once you can build the scene that's how you start building smaller stories and then once you get comfortable with smaller stories you can build into the bigger ones but I think one of the key things that you really want to be aware of is scene structure and I did a video on this in the past I'll link it up here but scene structure there basically are two different types of scenes you have action scenes and you have reaction scenes and an action scene is a goal-oriented scene and it's goal conflict disaster and basically you have a character who wants something and that's their goal and it while they're pursuing their goal they face conflict they face obstacles things that stop them from getting their goal and as they're facing off against those obstacles eventually things end in disaster something goes wrong and that leads us to a reaction scene where the character has an emotional reaction then they face a dilemma and then they have to make a decision they have that emotional reaction they're reacting to that disaster then the Dilemma is what do we do next how do we go about solving our problem what's our next move and then finally they make a decision to pursue a new goal and then the process repeats itself goal conflict disaster and so on and so on tip number six try out different writing prompts and exercises and these are great because they will get you out of your comfort zone they'll have you experiment with new ideas and you might even come up with some original ideas from these prompts that you can use in future stories and basically all you have to do to find these just go to Google type in fiction writing prompts and you'll get a bunch of different options then just select a prompt and start writing write for a paragraph right for a page whatever it is it's a low stakes sort of thing so if it doesn't work out you just scrap the idea move on to a new one and maybe you do eventually get something cool from one of these writing prompts that you can use and you can build a story out of and then as far as writing exercises go one of the best exercises out there is something called covering and I've talked about it in a previous video basically what covering is take one of your favorite books open it up to a random page read that random page three times try to memorize it as best you can then shut the book open up a notebook and try to write that page from memory as best you can it doesn't have to be perfect but just try and get a feel for how your Heroes write and and this is something that you can really use to develop your sentence structure your word choice how you portray characters how you portray situations there's a lot you can learn from covering so definitely check it out and I'll link that video in the description below and tip number seven is to get into the habit of writing every single day and this includes days where you're not in the mood to write days when you hate writing days when you doubt yourself as a writer days when you feel that writing is a complete waste of time I don't care what the excuse is but you have to write every single day and I realize that yes people have obligations you have other things that need to get done but you should have at least five minutes or 10 minutes to write every single day and it also helps if you can give yourself a word count goal maybe you want to write at least 100 words every single day or at least 500 or at least a thousand or whatever it is but it's important to build this habit because there will be days when you have more time to write maybe you have a free hour or free two hours or whatever it is and on those days when you have free time you'll be tempted not to write because writing is tough it's very brutal and and it's a challenge but if you get into the habit of writing every single day you'll sit down on those days when you have more free time and you'll hit your your regular quota your regular 500 Words and then you'll go beyond it you'll fill that free time you'll be able to explore different story ideas and eventually write the stories that you want to write and one last thing I want to leave you with is that people who want to write are not writers but people who sit down every single day and actually write they are writers and if you want to become a writer you need to write so I hope this helps question of the day when do you plan to start writing let us know in the comments section below thank you for watching if you want to support the Channel please pick up a copy of either one of my books bad parts is great if you like small town horror it's about people trading away their sick and injured body parts in order to get healthy again and then entry wounds is great if you like Thrillers it's about a guy who picks up a Haunted Gun and he cannot put it down until he kills six people with it also be sure to check out my other videos like share and subscribe and as always remember to keep on writing

Channel: Writer Brandon McNulty

Views: 52,159

Keywords: Writing, Writing advice, Writing Tips, Fiction, Creative Writing, How to write a book, How to write a novel, novel, book, start writing, start writing a book, start writing a story, start writing fiction, how to, how to start writing, beginners, how to start writing fiction, new writers, mistakes new writers make, writing prompts, writing your first book, writing your first novel, where to start writing, writing advice for beginners, writing tips for beginners, start, newbie, help

Id: fSTYyrZklnQ

Length: 8min 1sec (481 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 22 2023