I have lots of good ideas, but how can i continue them after i start?

so, i get tons and tons of ideas for books. I wanna write most of them, but whenever i start, a few pages in a get bored, and start another one. the longest start i wrote was only 3-4 thousand words.(After i'd cut a lot) but that lasted 2 days. so, does anyone have any ways or tips on how to continue on with a good story? thank*-*
I have lots of good ideas, but how can i continue them after i start?
i feel the same way a lot of times......just try to think about your story non-stop and write whatever you day-dream about!
I have lots of good ideas, but how can i continue them after i start?
I know what you mean. I do the same thing. It just gets boring writing the beginning. What you need to do is write your ideas themselves as you get them. Don't try to write a whole story yet, just do the fun parts. It's more fun when you write the parts you want to write instead of attempting the entire thing in order.
Reply:Outlining really helps! Once you have an idea, put pen to paper and write down the major plot points and turns that you want to see happen in your story. It'll give you a road map of sorts to follow, and perhaps even give you incentive to continue on with it.





In the end, it takes will power not to quit, and dedication to continue on and actually finish. It's difficult, but it can certainly be done! You just have to believe in your story and yourself.
Reply:Maybe perhaps, and I hope you don't get offended, you should try to just write short stories rather than books. I've been stuck before and just wrote a short story....by doing that I was able to add more and more to it to make the book.





It is great that you are getting your ideas down on paper, but try to get the beginning, middle, end mapped out in a shorter length story, to relieve your boredom issue, and then you can always go back to it or optionally try to sell it as a short.
Reply:Active voice


As much as possible avoid using passives in your sentences. I tend to write and talk passively because I thought it would make me sound more intelligent, which is quite delusional (but my ADD justifies the case).





“Liezl squashed his neck.” “His neck has been squashed by Liezl.”





Which of the two is easier to comprehend? Of course the first sentence. Notice that with the active voice, the subject (Liezl) is performing the action given by the verb (squashed). With the passive voice, the subject receives the action.











Thesaurus


Have you ever read a nice blog or book and wanted to use it on your own blog or thesis? That you’re tempted to copy+paste the whole paragraph or page, claiming it your own, without telling your readers where the hell you got that? Why? To appear like a smarty pants?


Solution: De-clutter the sentence structure and use a handy-dandy thesaurus to find related words in replacement of some verbs, adverbs, nouns and adjectives.





For example:





Operation Kagandahan accused Liezl of multiple felonies such as serial killer smile, illegal possession of charm and DUI (Dang Ur Irresistible).





Rephrased:





Operation Kagandahan charged Liezl for committing several crimes such as illegal possession of charm, serial killer smile and DUI (Dang Ur Irresistible).





I used ‘charged’ instead of ‘accused’ (though the word “accuse” is worth with more than twenty synonymous terms) and switched from “of multiple felonies” to “for committing several crimes”. The rest were slightly changed. And yes, plagiarism is a no-no.











Be Au’ naturale.


Write like you’re talking to a human. If you’re a web page designer, editing an HTML or a Java-script/CSS code by typing “OK I want this background to appear candy green and make those little tiny buttons below the homepage all white with a soda on the side” is an absolute nonsense. There is no way you can persuade your editing program, or whatever that is you’re using, to generate a proper layout with a “blahblahblah code”.





Same with writing. Use an appropriate human “code” to humans, not some stiff and abstract language that only Shakespeare and 2-1B (starwars humanoid) could understand. BTW, Shakespeare is an android.











Eliminate Redundancy.


No-brainer. All my english/writing teachers had taught me omitting redundant words for years but I’m naturally a stubborn chick, thank you very much.





Redundant: I am now stabbing the cult doll at this moment.


Better: I am now stabbing the cult doll.





Redundant: The neck of the guy that Liezl has squashed must need to rely on neck braces.


Better: The neck of the guy that Liezl has squashed needs to rely on neck braces.











Spelling and P.unc;tuations?!*


These two can make or break your flow, no matter how brilliant your writing is. Today, almost every blogs has its own spell checker, therefore I don’t have to elaborate more. With punctuations? Well it’s not so painful to use our common sense occasionally. Thus, if you’re not blogging, what era are you from? Stone age?











Read More.


Reading can teach us a lot of lessons especially about life. But whenever I read, I habitually analyze what vocabulary words and techniques were used, examine logical arguments, and the impact of the author/writer’s words personally.





I know I sound nerdy or uncool for typical 18-year-old party girls. But remember, those books we love to read got published not only to be read. I swear I-wanna-be-a-famous-writer-but-i-hate-re... type of attitude will get you nowhere.











Keep a Journal.


Based on experience, it is unnecessary for me to tell people who are passionate about writing to maintain a journal/diary. In fact, it’s a little bit insulting to ask (again, from my experience). I don’t give a damn if you record journal entries in a notebook, on Wordpress/Blogger.com or on your bedroom ceiling/wall. Writing your personal history, may it be rants or random thoughts, is priceless. It bares your soul, definitely therapeutic, gives you new insights, inspires other people, helps you see how much you’ve improved or what is more to develop about your writing skills…I could go on and on.





But to devout writers, it only means Heaven (yay, so cheesy!).











Revise, revise and more revision.


The word “revision” reminds me a lot of my high school senior days where 1/4 and 1/2 index cards were the biggest deals. We would sell our souls for a blank index card. Written on those note cards were very very very important footnotes, citations and other references beneficial to our thesis that Ma’am Cathy unremorsefuly ripped and trashed. Imagine our class’s anger…the grave scent of National Library…the 30+ hand-written note cards…and they had to do it all over again (”they” because I wasn’t included in the rippin’ n’ trashin’ session). And she called it “revision”. Wow, talk about wrong term.





Before any revisions take place, you have to proofread your work first. Print your manuscript or whatever you wrote and use a red pen to mark the problem areas. Then type it again, this time with the errors gone. Re-read it and see if you still could reduce junks. Print it again, revise and edit. Rinse, wash, repeat.











Kill the drama.


One reason that I dislike reading personal journals of strangers, online or not, is the lack of substance. I’m talking about public blogs or even an unrestricted scratch pad. I fully understand a heart of a writer and how strong their emotions are, but if your blog is almost universal or at least with an accessible URL link, stop flowering your entries with rants, emo-ness and talk about yourself and your life all the time. Do ‘em privately.





Why not share something worthwhile? Like a video that helps a new mom how to change a baby’s diaper, a super cool book that motivates you to stop whining about doing laundry, a friend’s experience with crazy Xenu worshippers (tom cruise’s slaves) or how odd that Hilary Clinton and Paris Hilton’s surnames rhyme.





Have humor, be clear, give logical and helpful informations.











Don’t write to impress.


Writing is not for ego trippin’ individuals. Same with any other professions out there, unless you’re a hardcore hip hop or rockstar who is “legit” enought to boast about yo’ blings, cribs, chicks and rides a lot.





Stay true to your heart. Passion means love. Don’t say you’re passionate about writing if you do it simply to show off or if you think you are better than anyone else you know. I see Hydrocephalus in action.





Rooms for improvement are infinite. Learning does not stop and the word contentment is non-existent.





Good Luck!
Reply:That's where I'm at too! I write them all down in a couple notebooks and whenever I get bored I either: add more to an old story, or write a new one. I'm trying (and failing) to write shorter stories now. I seem to have a bigger plot to end in a few pages =(. And I never know how to get it from the beginning, to middle, to end without moving stuff too fast or making it boring.
Reply:Before you actually start writing, map out the direction the story is going to take. What will happen at the climax? How will it end? Fill in any other details you've thought of, and start writing only after the plan is as complete as you can make it. This way you're simply putting the flesh on a skeleton that's already there.
Reply:For starters, write all your ideas down in a notebook. Some ideas take years to mature. Years down the road you will be working on some story and it will have a hole in its plot and then you go through your notebook and--wham!--there it is, already scribbled down. That's what happened with my current novel. I had many ideas that were kicking around in my head as separate stories, and then all at once I realized that they were connected.





Another thing I really recommend is a program called Dramatica (no, they do not pay me to say this!). It asks you a lot of questions about your story that forces you to develop all areas of its plot. You can download a trial version that works except for saving or printing the results, even if you don't buy it, running through the questions will better develop your plot in your mind.





Kurt Vonnegut had an interesting way of dealing with this problem. He wrote about an author named Kilgore Trout and he would describe the stories that Trout had written. It always felt to me like these were stories Vonnegut had thought of but could never get a novel out of. Since the ideas were too good to let die he just gave them to his character Trout so he could describe it as if it had been written. Brilliant!

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