Writing?

It’s time to go indy all around.

Hey everyone I’ve been wanting to get into writing for the longest time because storytelling is just so fascinating to me. I want to say the issues are three things in particular. The primary issue with starting is just starting. I’ve always been able to keep up a decent pace at creating once I’ve gotten started. It’s just that, as I said, getting started is the “boulder in the road.”

The secondary issue is the fact that my mastery of the English language as far as writing/typing is pretty poor, to be blunt. However, I have an extensive vocabulary. I mean, I usually know how to convey my meaning but when I talk and/or text I’ll use filler words such as “like”, “um”, & “uh” a lot as I’m sure most people do. But I like to think that it’s just because they’re so common in everyday interactions but when it comes to actually getting to business I’d like to believe I can refrain from doing so since I know that filler words don’t add anything, hence why they’re filler words. But to reiterate I’ve never been able to get a grasp on all the little nuanced rules of the written English word, which is why I say my mastery is poor.

Finally, the tertiary issue is originality. I know I shouldn’t worry about it too much because originality is difficult because a writer’s influence will invariably come into play. For instance, George Lucas taking inspiration for Obi-Wan Kenobi from the character Makabe Rokurōta in Akira Kurosawa’s “The Hidden Fortress.” Obi-Wan is one of the greatest characters ever created but the LAST thing I want, as I’m sure other writers as well, is to be thought of as incapable of creating something original solely because our characters, worlds, weapons, vehicles, etc. have the noticeable tinge of being influenced by something else. If avoidable, however unlikely it may be, I’d prefer not to have someone be able to look at my work(if I ever do get a story out there for the world to see) & see obvious “oh this is just like…” or “I can see character x’s traits/appearance in character y.”

Also, for any of y’all out there that may be interested there’s a YouTube channel called Hello Future Me that has brought to conscious my love of storytelling & has a series of videos & a book called “On Writing & World Building.”

I will admit for a long time, I too was hung up on the idea of “originality” and being concerned with “stealing ideas” or “plagiarism” as it gets ground into your head quite a bit while in academia and writing essays ect. Yet, an epiphany sort of took place while watching the show Magicians, which I know is based off of a book series. Anyway, if you have never seen the show/books, it basically uses two ideas for its setting. The first is a “school for magic users” in this case college age students e.g. Harry Potter. Then there is the second element that adds in “another world that Humans can travel too via a portal” and that “four humans” were the “kings and queens” of this world. So here we have basically the Narnia books being used as the basis for this other land. Now, there is differences that the author starts to introduce to each of these of course.

Yet, the basic setting/idea of each is so obvious it’s not even funny, and this got published. So I stopped worrying so much about originality. Also it’s impossible to have read every book under the sun or watch every show, to know how “original” your work really is in the grand schemed of things. Some one someplace around the globe maybe writing the same idea you have, or it may have been written but you are not aware of it at the time. I can honestly admit that this concept even got me discouraged when I read an idea I had for something and encountered it another’s work I all of sudden felt I had to scrap the idea because I didn’t want to be accused of stealing another’s work. I watched back in the 90s and 2000s Terry Goodkind deal with these accusations from Jordan fans, that he stole from Jordan, despite both being published by the same publisher. All I will say is don’t worry about this too much and do your best to be creative and create good character’s, plot, and central theme for your work to based around.

More and more voices are speaking up in this thread. This is great.

Think it would be a great idea in the future for us to continue these conversations and grow this sub community to similar collection of voices like that of Comicsgate. Many of us have already expressed the same ideals as Comicsgate: create good, non agenda driven entertainment and serve the customers. Don’t insult the customer and don’t gate keep just because personal ideologies differ, because ideology and agenda have no place in escapism.

Those who actively are part of Comicsgate support and help each other out in the indy world, and I know from time to time people ask if there is an equivalent  for novels/books. I do not believe there is, and I think as we all start coming together more it would be beneficial if we all banded together in a similar fashion to help promote and push products.

And yes, as I stated earlier I’m giving the mainstream agent route one more chance, but I’ve given myself a time limit of the Fall, With three chapters left to go on my current rewrite, that window will be opening for me very soon, give or take a couple of weeks as m pre-readers do the jobs I’ve asked of them. But I have a feeling going the indy route will be my ultimate path to get attention for my IPs, which means by the Fall I will likely start my own youtube channel and start building a base. Then by the start of next year possibly start up with an indie go go campaign if I feel I have enough support.

my point is, I think it would be beneficial if we all considered using the Comicsgate format to help each other out to not only help each other, but create a consumer base to promote and sell our products.

Agree. the reality is that even most fresh and unconventional ideas are inspired by other things. That’s the nature of how our psychology works. We are synthesizers. So don’t originality to much. Focus on what make you excited to write.

Aye, that I can, and will.  One day damn it, one day.

I wrote a short story for the now defunct Ray Gun Revival online magazine once, made a whole 5 bucks. Went back and re read it the other day and cringed a lot, it was very much an amature affair.  Haven’t written much of late, but a friend of mine is a science fiction author and thinks I have talent, so I am encouraged a bit. I’m afraid of posting stuff because I’ve already had a story idea stolen, it never went anywhere, but it happened, so I’m in “twice shy” mode as far as posting.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by chris_mead1.

I enjoy writing, love creating original stuff and fan fiction, in fact I have an Instagram account with over 300 posts dedicated to composing original storylines from mostly movies. Check it out here https://www.instagram.com/storylayoutdotcom/