Anyone written a book?

[GiveTheDogACarrot]

I’m working less hours now and have always dreamt of writing a book. I have so many ideas but when it comes to it, I just can’t seem to do it!

Has anyone done it? How did you start?? Did you write a plan? Write character profiles etc? Or just write “chapter 1” and start it flowing ...

I have a dream. I want to be a writer.

There is an OU Futurelearn 'Start Writing Fiction' course for free online if you want to try it. Lasts 8 weeks.

Oh yes! Sounds great, thank you ☺️ I’ll have a look

I write books for a living.

There are (imo) two types of writers.

You have the pulpy writers who write fast and just want to tell decent and entertaining stories.

Then you have the more literary writers who write slowly and want their writing to mean something.

Neither is "better" and both have their pools of readers.

I think the first step is deciding what kind of writer you want to be, really, because that will guide what you do next?

I’ve just joined that OU course. Thank you so much for telling me about it.

@SnydeValley

I’m probably in the first category. I’m assuming the second category is your Stephen Kings etc?

Stephen King is a bit of a funny one but I'd say he's more of a pulpy writer. He writes without an outline, and he writes one draft which are both common amongst pulpy writers. But on the other hand his word count is on the lower end at 2,000 a day.

So I am guessing it's genre fiction you would like to write?

In which case the absolute best thing to do would be to read a lot in your chose genre. Read the reviews of the popular books, good and bad, and try to get an idea of what readers like / dislike and what the popular tropes are.

All genre fiction and pulpy stories are built on tropes. They're your foundation.

You start with a story idea, you think up some characters tailored to your story idea, and you throw in some tropes. Then you start writing and have fun and see where you end up.

It can be a good idea to start familiarising yourself with common story structures. Most people who grow up in the western world already have a pretty good idea of what this is, because we've been consuming stories for as long as we can remember. But it's good to go over it and have some lightbulb moments and understand how it all comes together.

I recommend joining the group 20booksto50k on facebook. It's for the business side of publishing more than the craft side but it's a great group with a HUGE amount of free resources and learning units.

OP did you ever write your book?

I'm excited to know now too! Where are you @GiveTheDogACarrot ? Are you famous now?

I did laugh at Stephen King being categorised as a literary writer who writes slowly and want his writing to mean something 😂

Not being superior, literary tombs are too heavy for me, I prefer the pulpy stuff.