Ever tried to write a full-length book?

Archbob

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I am trying to write one right now and I'm on page 5(double spaced, font size 12). its pretty hard making up a tale. I'm calling it "The tale of honor"

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Can you post a page of it?

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Writing a novel is a serious undertaking. I've written several short stories and other essays in my college carrier, but trying to write a full sized novel is completely different. If you can't write a short story in an interesting way, you might as well kiss your sweet ass goodbye trying to write a novel. Novels are the pinnacle of literary talent, and if you don't have writing talent or skill...stick a fork in ya; you're done.

But if you've got it, go for it. It might be the one thing in your life you end up being proud of.

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I have written a cupol of novels in my life, with different quality and subjekt. My latest got MVG. The highest grade (like A+ or so). I don't know wath I mean with novel but I say a story 2-10 pages. But I would not try something as hard as writwing a book! But good look to you.

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Here is the first chapter(its short since its just a intro chapter).

Chapter one: The Apocalypse


Near the middle of the 21st century, the world had fallen into chaos and crime and civil disorder was rampant. There were no longer nations, only small factions competing for individual interest and power. These factions ravaged the land, killed the
civilians, and ultimately destroyed the governments that they had once rallied under. The civilians, left with no other choice, had to organize into bands for self protection. In time human greed corrupted even the best people and all the bands in the world became nothing but small rival military factions with unquenchable thirsts for wealth and power. Even in these bands, loyalties between different families and even between individuals within the same family gradually deteriorated giving way to individual greed and corruption. Family members slaughtered each other ruthlessly in hopes of obtaining more wealth and power for themselves. Through constant warfare, the lands were ravaged , the waters poisoned, he forest burnt, and the air polluted with toxic vapors. The Earth could no longer withstand this and bellowed out in pain.
This call disturbed God, who had not been keeping track of how things were going on earth for past 3000 years because he thought that humans would eventually reach a higher understanding, now looked distressingly upon his devastated garden of eden. God immediately decided to take action in hopes of saving his creation by sending down beams of holy light in an attempt to purify the earth. But the aura of darkness on Earth that had been set there but generations of wicked and ruthless humans slaughtering
each other for individual glory was immensely strong. The beams of golden light sent by God sent could not get through this aura and dissipated without having any effect. Seeing this, God decided for more direct intervention. He sent heavenly Archangels to try to convince the people of earth to change their misguided ways. The people of Earth were now so blinded by vengeance and hate that they failed to recognize the holy envoys but seeing them glow with golden light, thought that the Archangels must have some kind of priceless gemstone with them that might give whoever owned them enormous wealth and overwhelming power. So when the Archangels tried to preach to the humans, the humans came up and slaughtered them trying to grab the treasure. When the people discovered that there was no treasure, they grumbled at the waste of time and left. When God saw this, he knew the situation was desperate and that the only possible way to save the world
was if he himself came down to earth and made himself known to the people. So God
assumed mortal form and came down to earth to turn the people away from the ways of
dishonor. When he told everyone he was god, everyone laughed and tried to kill them. He,
then flew on a cloud to prove that he was indeed telling the truth. But the humans didn’t care, they just shot up into the air.
Greatly saddened by this, god went back up to heaven to think of more plans that
could possibly save his creation. After thinking for a while, he realized that humans had lost all sense of honor and had to be destroyed. God shouted at the people of earth “You dishonorable wretches! Prepare to meet your doom!” He then threw casted a giant fireball and earth and blew it the smithereens. Distressed by the failure of his 1st creation project, he was nonetheless determined to Succeed in creating a truly honorable and intelligent race of beings. This time around, however, he decided to be more careful with what he created them with.




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Fallen I have one word WOW
Admittedly books dealing with GOD have little appeal to me, but that Introductory section has quite a nice feel to it

I've attempted but I alway get tired and stop around 10 to 20 pages (size 12 single spaced normal paper), I rather read novels than write 'em.

I've read enough novels to leave that sort of thing to the ascetics, the beasts, the crazies, the dreary, the eccentric, the freudian, and the geniuses.

I could go on but I haven't that much
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Originally posted by Håkan Eriksson:
I have written a cupol of novels in my life, with different quality and subjekt. My latest got MVG. The highest grade (like A+ or so). I don't know wath I mean with novel but I say a story 2-10 pages. But I would not try something as hard as writwing a book! But good look to you.


By Novel I mean an intricately detailed story in excess of 100 pages. I've never read a novel that was less than 110 pages (Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness) and some are thousands of pages long. I would class a paper written in the range of 5-20 pages as a short story or essay and papers shorter than that critiques, summaries, or short fiction (like Virginia Wolfe's Old Miss Grey(?} one page long).

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Actually, God plays a minor role in the story. He just decides to drop in every once in a while.

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When I was in college I undertook the writing of a novel. I think I got about 120 pages done. That was about half-way through my intended plot. I gave up because it sucked. I'm not a good fiction writer. I now write non-fiction stuff. Essays and the like.
Writing fiction is both a gift and a discipline, you need both to get it done well. There's a lot of crap out there on bookshelves, and a lot of good stuff that never gets published. All I can say is more power to ya!
 
I read mainly science fiction and fantasy, so I have a knick for these things. I also enjoy historical ear novels.

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Though I disagree with BlueMonday when he regards novels as the "pinnacle of literary talent", it is nonetheless a serious undertaking.

The stages in writing a novel have been well laid out elsewhere by more experienced people than me. But I would suggest that you need an outline plot before you write a single word AND a well thought out set of characters with some depth to them AND at least one character which readers can identify with - again all before you start. These two things - characters and plot - are the essential foundation pillars: without them a novel will go nowhere.

From your introduction, I wouldn't want to read further. That's partly personal bias, but partly because there's little which whets the appetite and <u>compels</u> me to read on. To me it reads like it's an excuse for the author to vent their personal opinion about something rather than being an informative teaser about what is to come. This is kind of confirmed when you say "I'm on page 5(double spaced, font size 12). its pretty hard making up a tale." which suggests that the reason you've written what you done so far is nothing to do with a plot you already have in mind.

My suggestion would be to read a wide variety of novels yourself before you begin. Read a variety of styles (e.g. historical, thriller, comedy, sci-fi) and make sure you read quality authors not trash. As you read them, note how they establish and develop the characters and note how they unfurl the plot. Then you might think about starting your own. But that's just my opinion.
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Originally posted by stormerne:
From your introduction, I wouldn't want to read further.

I'm afraid I have to agree with Stormerne--which is not to say I want to discourage you from writing. Just the opposite in fact. But you need to look at what you've written very critically and compare it with any SF/fantasy novel you've read. Compare characters (where are yours??), setting (the Earth? Rather big isn't it?), the plot (instead of telling the reader everything that happens, the author--if he/she was at all skilled--would have tried to place you in the POV of one--or at most a couple-- of the main characters and showed you the sequence of events.)

Your 'story' reads more like a synopsis of a story than a story. Why don't you start by taking what you have here, chopping it up into 20 chapters, like "1:World in Chaos," "2:The Rise of the Factions," "20:God's Second Try," etc and writing them in smaller pieces?

Imagine an interesting character and plop him down in the middle of the action in page one. Describe what he sees and feels, how he reacts to the situation, and so on. (Tip: The more interesting--i.e. life-like--you make the character, the easier--and more fun--it will be to imagine his/her reactions to the world you create.)

And of course, there are lots of books out there on how to write a novel: read one!

Anyway, good luck.

PS: Stormerne, I also agree with your doubts on whether the novel is the pinnacle of literature. I remember a quote (whose I can't recall) that went something like: "A short-story writer is a failed poet, and a novelist is a failed short-story writer."
 
I tried to write a novelle, but didn't get further than chapter 3. Actually I tried in 2 times. One is about a German tank guy in Russia, the other about an American pilot of the Yorktown in the Pacific.

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Good suggestions Mr. Bond. I hope Fallen Angel Lord will take our comments in the spirit of encouragement in which they were meant.

Your postscript refers to American writer William Faulkner who once said in an interview: "I'm a failed poet. Maybe every novelist wants to write poetry first, finds he can't and then tries the short story which is the most demanding form after poetry. And failing at that, only then does he take up novel writing."

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I've read many, many books.

Actually it isn't a personal bias on the matter of god. I actually don't view god in that way. Its just the set-up for my book. God doesn't play much of a role in the book.

When I started I didn't plan to write much on the fall of humanity. The book is all about what happened and the fighting in a era during the second creation.

I've always like books of destruction and wars.

Although my favorite book of all is "The Lord of the Rings", I cannot compare to tolkien in my writing ability.

I really enjoy book such as "cats cradle" and loved "war of the worlds". However, I am a novice, not a veteran like vonnegut and Wells. I'll get better as I write more.

This is not meant to be a sci-fi or fantasy novel. Half the book is going to be military tactics and the other half will be a quest. Of course in the end everything will be destroyed again like I have been planned from the begginning.
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[This message has been edited by Fallen Angel Lord (edited August 09, 2001).]
 
Originally posted by willemvanoranje:
I tried to write a novelle, but didn't get further than chapter 3. Actually I tried in 2 times. One is about a German tank guy in Russia, the other about an American pilot of the Yorktown in the Pacific.


Haha, military novels! You know what the best military novel is? Catch-22.
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Have you ever read it?
 
The Naked and the Dead is pretty dman good too, but Catch 22 is great. It is for a specific time in your life I think, as I appreciated it more when I was younger. In fact I reckon that Catch 22 is ideal for when you get too old for On the Road, which is definitely for the mid to late teenager but seems a little bit rubbish to me now.

I also think that this will put me in a minority, especially with all the fans coming out of the woodwork with the release of the film of Fellowship of the Ring, but the Lord of the Rings is massively overrated. The Hobbit is a far superior book, it is much tighter and less rambling and Bilbo is a much better character than the bland Frodo. I think Tolkien saw the Ring trilogy as a grand project, and, as they so often do, a good writer loses a lot when working on this kind of vanity project.

Fortunately for all concerned, I have no plans to inflict my prose style on an undeserving world in anything longer than some posts here. There is enough bad fiction around already without my adding to the unread volumes in the charity shops.

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Hmm... I'll read your story soon.
Might as well say that I am up to 35,000 words and have finished a book... I am going to have to revise it enough to get to at least 50,000 words, however for it to be published because 35K is only 120 pages in a paperback and 72 in a hardback.

It is a spy spoof... I cannot say much more for fear someone here will rip off my idea
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I rather like writing. My first go at my novel yielded over 60,000 words. Then i decieded to write stuff before that so started again and so far have written another 70,000. I look foreward to the time i join the two parts together.

It's a fantasy novel for those who are curious.

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