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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/30080
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/30080
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

This is somewhat a matter of opinion and personal preferences. So for me, I would not write short stories. If you want practice, write scenes. Then leave them alone for about a week (do not look at them). This is enough time for most people to forget all but an outline of what they wrote. Then try to read them as a reader. Once you have read the scene, immediately start figuring out what you think is wrong with it. What is unclear? What is confusing? Where did you go wrong?

If you think **_nothing_** is wrong with your first draft, chances are you should not be a writer; every commercially successful writer I have ever heard talk about it (or read what they say about it) thinks their first draft needs work. Stephen King rewrites five or six times. I have rewritten passages more than thirty times.

But don't be discouraged by this; it is training for what you will need to do.

A book is recursive: It has a beginning, middle and end. Each chapter has a beginning, middle and end. Each scene has a beginning, middle and end. Even the sub-parts of a scene, like a conversation, have a beginning, middle and end!

Write scenes for practice. Plan to throw them away or put them aside, they probably cannot be used in the actual book, but it will help you to learn writing. Write a dozen of them, planning to throw them away.

**_THEN_** start thinking about your characters, drawing on your scenes. Who is the hero of this story? Who do you like writing about in your scenes?

You need a WHY for this hero, what do they want, so much they would be willing to sacrifice almost anything (or straight-up anything, including their own life) to get it? (e.g. a woman saving her child, a boy avenging his parents, a slave escaping slavery.)

Depending on how you like to write, you do not need the whole story in your head. Stephen King comes up with such situations and just starts writing, he gets so attuned to each character he has each of them do what they **must** do, and figures the story must resolve itself somehow. He says his stories come from developing characters readers will like, and then "putting them in the cooker" to see what happens next.

To me, what you need is Act I: The setup, the introduction of characters (including the hero and villain or the hero's big ass problem if there is no villain), and the setting and rules: For example you can't introduce magic in Act II (the middle) or Act III (the resolution of the big ass problem), you can't suddenly make your hero a consummate marksman or martial artist or able to speak Chinese if that was not introduced in the setup.

Write a scene. Put is aside, write another. Repeat. come back in a week and figure out what is wrong with it, how it could be better. Rewrite it, put it aside, repeat a few times, until you think you are on par with a pro. All while planning to push it all aside when you begin the novel. Still, this will help to acquaint you with your characters, both the ones you have in mind and the ones you discover are needed while writing these scenes.

Writers learn to write by writing and rewriting and rewriting again. Plus you must have the ability to criticize your own writing (at least after letting it fade somewhat from memory).

You can start with your first work intended for publication being a novel. But I wouldn't start writing a novel until you have some experience writing at least **scenes** that can span several pages. Practice that first.

**Added due to commentary:**

There is some question about whether I really mean to write something with the intention of discarding it. **_Yes,_** I really mean that. I said _"they probably cannot be used in the actual book,"_ but I'd go further: They won't be used in the actual book, or screenplay or whatever.

The way I write, I probably write three pages for every page in the final work. I am used to that. Do the math: A 250 page books means I wrote 750 pages and threw away 500. Now if I know stepping into this mud I am going to throw away 500 pages, **_why not do some of that intentionally, to save time?_**

Here is an example. I have a female character in mind; Annie. (I may rename her later, at first I tend to give my characters names starting with A,B,C...). Annie is a 28 year old private pilot, single and unattached. She learned to fly in the Marines, doing six years. She's flown in combat, she's been shot down and ejected, parachuting into the border of enemy territory. She escaped to friendly territory, but shot and killed three male enemy combatants in pursuit, one she shot in the head while wrestling for a gun. From her aircraft, Annie has bombed and killed dozens of people; probably of all ages and genders and more than she can know. Annie remains Marine fit; she works out religiously wherever she is, and continues her fight training two days a week if not away on work. She is average in looks, not a stunner or even close to a model, but attractive in the way that strong and healthy looks sexy. She is a heterosexual.

She isn't suffering from PTSD. She's a patriot but a political cynic, and thinks lives are being wasted. She doesn't hate the Marines. They got her through college, taught her to fly in the worst possible conditions, they made her who she is.

Now the big question (for me) is: Why? How did Annie get to be THIS Annie? When did she know she would join the Marines in war time? When did she first know she wanted to be a pilot? Who inspired her? What are the parents like that produced a girl like this?

As an author, I want this Annie to fall in love. Will it be her first time? It is very rare for a 28 year old to be a virgin; I don't see Annie as one. What was her first consummated romance like? Did she plan to lose her virginity, or was that an impulsive act? What was her partner like? What was Annie like in high school?

I am not a fan of deep back stories; they bore me. But pivotal scenes do not, and writing some of those pivotal scenes in Annie's early life, before she was a Marine, even though I do NOT want them in this book, can help me see who she is, if my sketch needs to be revised, and can even help me find the next character: The man with whom she will fall in love. Perhaps like the father she admires, or the boyfriend she had in high school. Perhaps Annie the Warrior falls in love with Bryce the architect that has never been in as much as a fist fight. I don't know what turns her on, but I can find out by looking for those pivotal life scenes and trying to write them, and discovering the core qualities of a young girl that will become Annie the Warrior, and Annie In Love.

To me the point isn't to include these scenes in the book, they are fragments without a plot and outside the plot I want to write, about an adult Annie. I don't like flashbacks, either. So I'll put them aside. The point is to write a novel that could be a screenplay that is good enough to sell. **_Not_** to write a novel fast, not to write a novel from start to finish without a mistake, not to make sure every word I write gets sold. The goal is not efficiency, the goal is good coherent writing people can believe. The spirit of what I write will end up informing my treatment of the Adult Annie. In that sense the time and effort and pages are not wasted at all, I built a "real" girl and we meet her **_in the middle of her story_** without fumbling around.

Original score: 4