"Which leads me to ask if there are any good tricks for coming up with said names."
I'd try flipping through a phone book (one from a distant city is probably better, as the person won't turn out to be a friend of a friend's neighbor) and picking a random name. If you want, you can mix and match... as in pick a good last name, and then look for a good first name to go along with it.
"I've got pages and pages of journal entries, and am able to go off on almost any subject no problem. Shit just flows. Trying to write an actual story seems like trying to appease some really slow moving beast trying to coax it down the fork in the road I want it to go. Right now all I'm doing is putting down alot of mental snippets of what went down, alot of random thoughts. That's pretty much how the story exsists in my head right now."
If you have alot of material, you may already have half of the process done and not even know it. All that's needed is for those thoughts and ideas to be shaped and molded into something coherent and readable. And don't try to cut out any "randomness" just because you think a story has to be clear cut and linear... I happen to prefer an author who goes off on tangents and breaks from the story to tell thoughts, opinions, annecdotes, long complex metaphors, flashbacks, predictons, random useless thoughts... so long as the material is interesting, the chaos itself will keep the reader glued to the page.
"Also how long does writing a novel usually take... on average how long would say a 200 page work take...?"
It really all depends. Some people write very slowly, others crank out tens of pages a day. Some revise for months, others revise very little. You shouldn't worry about that sort of thing. You'll know when it's finished.
"...how long does someone usually write per day?"
I'd recomend just writing as much as possible. Until your fingers bleed, if that's what it takes. Don't worry about the finished product... just pour your guts out onto the page... when you have hundreds of pages of scribbled notes and drawings and doodles and transcribed conversations and bits and peices of narrative, then you can begin editing that into something that makes sense. If you concentrate on what it's going to look like when it's finished, you'll censor yourself, which is very bad.
Just some more tips:
- show don't tell... it's the only way to keep the reader from falling asleep on you
- avoid cliches as if they meant certain death... if it reminds you of some other work, scrap it
- start with a great opening, so the reader will want to keep reading, and end with a great conclusion, so that they won't hate you and instead recomend it to their friends
- be inspired by everything, be open to everything around you and realize that your ideas will come from your surroundings... everything you hear and see
- buy the book "Writer's Idea Book" I don't usually make product plugs, but honestly, this is one of the best purchases I've ever made... it has incalculable value to any writer of any medium
- if you find yourself short of material for a full length novel... consider making it a novella, 50-100 pages.
- don't overplan... you will lose the sponteneity and make your writing as dry as a news reel
- don't force yourself to stick to the exact truth... no one cares whether your story happened exactly as you're telling it, so don't be afraid to take creative liberties
- if you're having trouble deciding which style/with which character/in which setting/with which theme in which to write a certain part, try writing it several times with many different styles/characters/settings/themes and see which one you like the best
I'll probably think of some more later, but that should do for now.
Also for some other good books, check out "Crafting Scenes" which gives some really good ideas. "Fiction First Aid" is written by the same guy and is supposed to be great although I've never read it. as an unexperienced writer, you'd be wise to check it out to see what common mistakes to avoid. |
