Any writers here ?

I like writing. I write in different ways like stories and plays as well as songs and poems.

Thankyou.

I just came across this article, and I thought it was a pretty good fit for this conversation. I thought it reflected some of our thought processes well, and I think it could be a good help to aspiring writers.

https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/3-ways-doctor-who-can-help-you-become-a-fantastic-writer/

I can relate to so much in that article. I can relate to reshaping my thought process through imagination, and I can relate to getting out of the box by getting into my own little box, and certainly to stretching things out in my mind to what others find amazing and unthinkable. And based on my interactions with people here, I don't think I'm the only one that would say that.

I have exactly the opposite problem. I tend to go too far in trying to keep characters alive. That's something I'm having to work on, so if the possibility exists, I try to determine what drives the story best. For example, my Time Lord character gained a human companion in an orphaned teenage girl that he more or less adopted after saving the kids in the orphanage from an evil ghost, and then a couple of stories later, I decided to add another companion to mix things up and to give Ashleigh a friend. I chose to make it an alien companion, so they ended up with a young woman from a race of blue-skinned, three-foot tall amphibious race. They're extremely primitive, and so, even though Vesso had recently reached adulthood, she was still under her parents' authority (who were the chiefs), because she hadn't married (or mated in their terminology). Well, I came to the conclusion that her parents had to die because 1) it allowed an excuse for Vesso to join the TARDIS, as I'd originally planned, and 2) it allowed them to sacrifice themselves to save their tribe, giving them the ultimate noble ending. I really hated doing it, but the story required it.

I'd think the opposite would apply too. If you have a tendency to kill everyone off, don't allow it to happen unless the story requires it.

Thanks for that. I really like your creative process, it's a great way of building up characters from nothing. I completely agree though about the characters standing on their own feet. I personally love developing characters and then seeing them grow and evolve over time. Most of mine end up dead though which is something I'm trying to work on hehe. Most of my characters do things I would never do. I have one character who is very much like me but she also dies.

I'll throw one more thing out there about the group conversations. That's not something I normally do. It's only for situations where the characters are particularly close, like those twins, and would therefore choose to do it that way themselves, or for situations where the characters are in a situation together and are working together because of that. Overall, I think it's best to let them stand on their own, using the group technique as a special tool. That's simply because my number one rule for handling my characters is to have them be themselves. It might be coming out of my mind, but it's not me making the decisions -- it's them. I've had a lot of characters make a lot of decisions that I wouldn't make.

I do my writing in Microsoft Word as well. I've experimented with a few different writing softwares but that one is the best I think. I think it's so awesome how you did your questions with your characters through Word, it's a really good idea and a great way to develop and get to know your characters. One thing I love doing is developing my characters, like getting a feel for them and who they are. I'll try your method of questioning and see how it works for me. I'm sure it'll be amazing.

I've never done group talking yet to be honest but that's definitely something I'll do at some point. I've got to go careful because there's always family with me and if they hear me talking to myself they'll take me to a mental hospital! I think that's really cool how you like the twins to be together.

My feeling is that if it helps your writing and it doesn't hurt anyone else, go for it. When I started doing it, I'd start a Mircosoft Word document, start typing my questions, followed by typing their answers, and even that felt weird at first. When I realized it did help the writing, I stopped caring as much, and eventually went farther with it by actually talking to them. Now, granted, I'm careful who I tell that to since a lot of people don't understand it, and I come across as being weird enough as it is, but in the right place, it's a great strategy. For me, writing is almost entirely about the characters themselves. Get to know them, whatever you have to do. Don't worry if you feel a little crazy about it. For me, that got a lot better over time.

One other thing I'll throw in about it. Sometimes, it helps to talk to them in groups. For example, I had brother-sister twin characters who were also best friends. For the most part, if you saw one of them, you'd see both of them, because they liked doing things together. So, if I needed information from one of them, I'd talk to both of them, because they were going to heavily influence each other.

I like that, how you make out that you've just met them. I've done that as well, it helps to grow and learn work or as them. A lot of my problem is that I sometimes fixate on the characters and almost play as them which can be awkward, but it does help with my writing which is good. I'm glad talking to them is something you can feel comfortable in doing. I've always felt crazy when talking to or as them.

You should, I think you'll find it an effective way of writing. It's always helped me loads. I write fantasy stories about magic and monsters and creatures. I'm working on a book series at the moment.

I've done some similar things before. I've pretended that I had just met them for the first time and asked them questions to get to know them, and I've had times I was stuck in a story and would get to myself and talk to them about the situation they were in to figure out how they would handle it, which then got me going again. It's surprisingly effective if you know the character well enough. It's a catch-22 sort of thing where they're in your head and you're in theirs. I've never tried verbally answering for them, but I can see how it might make it even more effective. I never worried about sounding weird talking to them though. Getting off to yourself solves that. I'd often do it while I was driving somewhere.

Actually, I really like your idea of speaking out loud the characters, I might try that myself. What sort of stories are you doing? 

I love to write, and the fact that I've always had an extremely vivid imagination has helped with that. I write a lot of fiction, and I make mine character driven. I develop the characters and start writing with them until they start to develop their own personalities. After that, I put myself into their heads, use that to determine what they would do in that situation, and as such, they tend to more or less write the stories themselves.

Would love to be one.

Thanks for the advice, was really helpful and I'll try the mock interviews. Doing it online sounds like a good idea. Normally I just speak out loud pretending to be the characters but that makes me look and sound odd.

 Congratulations on having two books published. That's very impressive. You must be a very talented person.

 I teach creative writing in a university. I had two books published with Routledge. My advice would be to build up characters by doing mock interviews with them (there are lots of templates for this online) and then put your characters through the mill, pile on the pressure and put them through things. Plot and story tends to arise out the way your characters react to problems.

You sound like you know what you want to write, so follow that. If you are 100% your own voice then people will want to read it. 

One thing we can do in this community is see that the ASD way of setting the world (of the is a collective way) makes great stories. Its a bonus that we have this condition, I reckon. Any other creative people agree? 

I like to write. I wrote fantasy stories a while back but now I mostly write journals about my day and experiences. It helps with the anxiety as well which is helpful.

For me right now it's all about the software! 

My partner is currently kindly editing the manuscript of a book I wrote to go with a set of cards I designed. That was after not getting on with any of the software you can use to self-publish. Ditto for a series of short stories I would like to work on.

I don't know how I would get the MS printed independently without a POD software. I used to use Bookify on blurb.com for my art catalogues but Blurb have discontinued Bookify because it used Adobe flash. And Bookwright!!!!!!! is an absolute nightmare!

With Lulu you are even more on your own. Creative Space has a downloadable software but my laptop only has 32 not 64 bit so I can't use that and I was struggling with the software online. Abandoned ship. In any case, I would probably have to include plates of the artwork to make it something that would sell. 

My PC is 64 bit but that has given up the ghost and has an obselete OS anyway. But it might be worth getting it seen to if Create Spaceviscas idiot proof as Bookify. 

Any other hints on how to work on these coundrums would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks so much.  That's really interesting.  Did you go down the Hybrid-publisher route?

I’ve always liked the idea of self publishing and setting up my own little ‘publishers’ to give unknown authors (mostly in non-fiction) a chance to get a book published. I like the idea of giving really niche topics a space too. It’s actually an ambition of mine to create this model - it’s small scale but I have ideas how to make it work.