What’s one piece of advice you wish you could give yourself for writing it?
The answer to number one is two fold: As a kid, watching M*A*S*H and TOS Star Trek reruns with my folks, I wrote in my head lots of stories set in those worlds, creating my own OCs. At the time I thought this was something I shouldn't tell others about, that I was odd. I always wanted to contrive a way for my three childhood idols, Spock, Hawkeye Pierce, and Father Mulcahy, to meet. Never managed that, but there are bits of John Patrick Mulcahy in my SNW OC, Father Francis Finn.
Fast forward a few years (not admitting to how many.) The first fanfic I ever wrote down was the prologue for my Post Discovery/Pre SNW piece titled Eidolon. And I do plan on finishing that story. :)
For the second question, the advice I would give myself two and a half years ago is: Be Brave! Post it! I almost didn't.
Oo, the very first story was a fanfiction that I wrote to my friend I think. It was the most horrendous cliche story you can ever imagine, but she liked it, so I guess it was a win after all. :D
But, now if I think about it, if we count the things we needed to write in school, then my first one was a short story that I needed to write in the style of one of my favorite author's. We needed to create a so-called alter ego and get a memory from our past we didn't like. Then we needed to write a scenario about it, where the things we didn't like went well or the things we weren't brave enough to do, we did eventually. I really loved that project, it was therapeutic on some level.
We all start out somewhere. I, by far, am not a published writer, but I have certainly grown in terms of my writing. We all start somewhere, so I figured I’d share a few of my first stories that I recall, and then I’ll explain my current one that I am working on writing and will hopefully get published.
I’ve been writing since Elementary school. I’m going to be a Sophomore in high school (I’m fifteen and in my tenth year of school for everyone not in the American school stuff), so I’ve been writing for a while. And while my writing is not perfect, and m spelling is certainly not something to blab about (I’ve already had ten spelling mistakes since I started writing this) and my grammar would certainly make even a fifth grader cringe at points, I feel as if I have grown in terms of solid storyline.
Writing does not have to be perfect, so long as you can convey the story you want to.
My very first story...well, I’m going to be frank. It was not an original story. Yes, it had original-ish characters, but it certainly was not a story I made up completely on it’s own. No, my first story, back when I was in...second grade? Third? One of those, was a fanfiction. You heard me- a fan fiction.
I usually, nowadays, shy away from both reading and writing fanfiction, mainly because I’m worried I’ll ruin my favorite characters or I’ll get extremely angry at the author for making one character not written in the way I always imagine them. However, the fanfiction story I made was not written down.
Back in the day, we always played with toys. I don’t know if any of you young-ins on the site who lied about your age would recall this, but before IPads and IPhones were given to second graders, we would have Barbie's and homemade clothes and we’d create these worlds. Now, I did not make this story up with Barbie’s and other dolls, it stemmed from a dream I had.
When I was young, I had an obsession with a book series known as the Secrets of Droon. Never heard of them? It was essentially (from what I recall, it’s been years) about three kids who would travel to an alternate world (or was it just two...) and they fought evil and yada yada. Anyways, one night, I was watching this TV show known as the Backyardigans. Super obscure. No one ever watched it. I was a young hipster, obviously. Anyways, there was this one episode where Tasha was a superhero (they all were, duh) and she had this snapping ability. Then Uniqua (?) could control insects. Tyron had bubbles, and I think Austin had storm powers, or was that Pablo? I don’t recall exactly, but anyways.
One night, after watching that episode, I went to sleep and dreamed up a world where the MCs of the Secrets of Droon were sent to another alternate world, and there were three superheroes with abilities and then there was another one who everyone thought was evil or something, and I just rolled with it. I remember sitting in my room and just saying the words in the story, and I built upon the world. I had created a story.
My next story was in third grade. It was about a wizard girl with a gnome as a housekeeper/butler/.wise guardian/sarcastic shit and a human boy. The boy wandered into the woods, met the two other characters and they went on this epic adventure. I had made it up for a Halloween writing assignment, and I never turned it in so I don’t know what grade I got on it. It topped a whole eleven pages with size twenty-four font. I was so proud.
The next series that really became something I wanted to write was inspired by Wizards of Waverly place. It was about a wizard named Paige (yes, I made myself the hot main character because I was an egotistical nine year old) who was British (who knew that’d haunt me throughout my high school years?) and moved into town with her father to her Uncle’s house. Her cousin, Mason? I think that was his name...anyways, he was a werewolf and so was his dad. Her father gave up being a werewolf to be with her human mother or something.
Anyways, it was really well thought out and in fifth grade I wrote a very short version of it and because when I was third grade I had a crush on this kid in my class named Josh, I named the love-interest after him and in fifth grade he was in my class and we had to share our stories my friends all laughed at me because they thought I had a crush on him and they weren’t completely wrong but I didn’t have a crush anymore so technically they were wrong. That was long winded and not at all correct grammar.
Anyhow, the next story line I came up was about fairies, and it is way too stupid and complicated to even write it out, but I still have copies of it (I printed them all the time) so if you want me to type them up into a post I will do it. Anyways, that series was a complete flop as well.
In seventh grade, I began to think up this one series with more mystical creatures. I am actually thinking of writing this one out, but here’s the gist of it:
Erick, the son of the Elven leader, is a hybrid of Elf and Magic User (wizard, essentially). His mother was supposed to be the Queen, but she bailed after learning she didn’t want to be it. During the war, their house was bombed and she died. Cut to nine years later, and Erick has to go on this epic journey with other Hybrids like himself to stop Drea, his aunt. Anyways, it is really epic but it doesn’t sound epic because I’m cutting it short. Sorry.
Anyways, in middle school we had IPads because we were just that cool, and I’d type this story up on it.
Now we get to the motherlode of stories. This story is the one I want to publish. Here’s the basic summary:
Maxwell River is a sixteen year old high school boy living in Manhattan. He’s popular, attractive, sarcastic, and wanted. He’s got a best friend, Maria, and a rival, Chris.
Things change though when Max learns he can control water.
New doors are open to him. Not only is he the fifth of his kind, but he also has to fight off demons from taking over the world.
With the shapeshifting Killian Gold, the flaming Asher Burn, the freezing Jasmine Frost, and the earth crushing Piper Stone, Max is set. But when your power is wonky and stronger than everyone else’s, things can get hairy. Especially when the leader of the Demons is none other than Chris, his rival form high school, and his second command is his old crush, Hannah.
Things are only getting more complicated for Max, and there is no sign of it getting easier.
Yeah, not the most descriptive, but I don’t want to ruin the book. Anyways, I’ve been planning this series since the beginning of eighth grade, and my has it grown. In all honesty I never expected to be able to plan out six main series books, two spin-offs, and a second trilogy that details the lives of another group related to the main group.
My point of this long post is to tell you that even if your writing is bad, it takes time to plan out a good story. Not everyone can think up one on the spot. All my story ideas grew from time thinking of them. I’ve spent more hours of my life planning how to stop Max from being with the woman he loves than actually writing the story.
So long as you have a good idea and different main plots for each book, than you can write it. And it’s not gonna be perfect the first time around. It will take you ages to get it to the way you want it to be.
Trust me, if I had kept the original storyline, than Max would be superhero who would watch people make out in alleys. Not exactly stellar material.
Anyways, your story may not seem perfect now, but even have a base idea is good enough. I was able to build a story around a dude with water powers who fought of demons. If I can do that, than you can make your story amazing.
By the way, if you ever need help building your story, I can help. You can always message me or ask me for help. I will do my best.
Highjacking this tag game from @ashen-crest because there's several people I'd love to hear from in response to this particular tag game!
Rules
What’s the first thing you ever remember writing
What’s one piece of advice you wish you could give yourself for writing it
Tagging
@faelanvance @afoolandathief @sleepyowlwrites @minamoroz @athena-anna-rose and anyone else who wants to take part, and share! But please tag me, I love author's origin stories! ;-) <3
As for me...
The first story I ever remember writing was for my English classs in primary school. It was my final year, so I'd have been about 10, and I wrote a story called "Rosie the Rabbit Goes on an Adventure".
It was about my pet rabbit, Rosie, breaking out of her hutch (which she was quite prone to do) and, of course, going on an adventure. I don't remember where she went. Probably through mum's vegetable patch, since everything else in the premise was based in reality, but it was the first time a teacher was willing to put one of my stories up on the class board, even though it was longer than two A4 pages in length (the usual limit).
I think it ended up being four A4 pages, but Mrs Hargrave put it up anyway and that was very vindicating for me :D
The one piece of advice I wish I could have given myself while writing it was probably to take a little more care with the actual plot. By that point I was very used to my stories not getting put up on the class display board, so I wasn't putting a whole lot of effort into it.
Or possibly to ask for a copy. I never got that story back once it come down from the board, so it's lost to time. Thinking about it, that might be a good thing!
What’s the first thing you ever remember writing? & What’s one piece of advice you wish you could give yourself for writing it?
Wow. Not sure I can remember that far back, actually. I’ll go with something from grade school just to be safe (basically I have always written, since I could hold a pencil). My third grade English teacher held a contest for short stories, and for some reason I was compelled to enter. I think because the prize was chocolate or something (lol) so I sat down and wrote about a flying horse who got lost one day, in a storm cloud. She was very scared and so alone and she missed her family! So she set off trying to find them and on the way she met a raccoon and a bear and a house cat (named Dimples, I believe). She was a very brave flying horse and fought off thunder and lightening and garbage trucks. Anyway, long story short, my teacher picked mine as the winner and I swear my mom still has it somewhere, lol, in a box full of memories. I’m fairly sure I ate the chocolate, though.
Hmmm. Not sure what young me would have really listened to back then. I know if I were to talk to my teenager self I would tell her to write, write, write and post, post, post everything and anything. I was into poetry by then and while I did my fair share of submitting stuff, I withheld a lot stuff too. I think I would just tell my younger self not to be afraid to share her work or to worry too much about what other people thought. Oh, and I would also tell my teenage self not to put poems into the lockers of the boys I fancied. That is never a good decision. (Sorry, Scott N, wherever you are. You handled my insane crush with grace and decorum - a gentleman among the pimple set)
I want to know what YOUR first story was too. Can you answer your own question?
So embarrassing, but yeah. I was in 7th grade and I wrote a like 15k fluffy love story that was super cringe. It was just childhood friends to lovers. But, as silly as it was, it was how I started writing. Sometimes I go back and read it (I keep a printed copy) and smile, because I can see all the areas I’ve grown. 💕
