I can't knock this. I wrote a couple books back in the 90's and 2000's that were terrible. But now I can go back over the plot outlines and make them really stand out. Banging out stuff will make you more dynamic. You kind of feel yourself begin to see things differently and build up paragraphs in a better way after awhile.
You may jump away from really bad plots that seemed ok at the time. I think the first stories I ever wrote were about a guy who finds a dragon egg. Yeah, I know. But this is like the entry level for this kind of stuff. You have to write a little Dragonlance before you write Martin, a little Lloyd Alexander before you write Leiber.
You learn to fill in the holes, add richness, and be more dynamic and find your own voice eventually. You learn what the difference is between the straight roads and the less trodden paths.
I suggest something like a chase novel like Lord of the Rings book 1 to start out. You will learn a great deal about fantasy writing that way. Eye of the World also would work, or a Belgriad rip-off. A Koontz style book might be good if you are writing horror. Write a plot device story for science fiction, such as I robot or Minority Report. I think it would be cool to write a story about Filch trying to kill Harry Potter with an old shotgun, but he keeps having his attempts thwarted by the stuff that happens in the books.
Last edited by SecretSquirrel (2011-10-19 20:53:02)
