The following text was composed using chunks of posts from the following good people on the official SI forums: Terk, glamdring, Peacemaker7.
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The styles
There are different styles to work with, such as diary style, newspaper reports, narrator style and even bits of commentary or conversational interludes thrown in. Some people do just their match results and a one-paragraph write-up of them, while at the other end you have people who try to evoke every ounce of emotion a real match endures. Some people do very detailed stories, and oh there happens to be some football in it, while other people do nothing but the football.
Your style
Pick what's going to interest you to keep writing it; don't bite off more than you can chew, by which I mean, don't set yourself an extremely high standard if you're not likely to follow it with equal. For a story to have any life, its got to entertain the author first. So, make sure you write in a style that you are totally comfortable with and enjoy. If you try to get too ambitious with a style you aren't that comfortable with you'll probably lose interest in it yourself too soon.
Beyond that, if its well written, it'll find an audience, and don't worry so much if the audience is different from another writer's; people enjoy reading different styles as long as the story is well written.
One of the best pieces of advice anyone can give, particularly to a newer writer is, do not be afraid to fail. So you start your story, write it a couple of days and then think oh crap, this is not working as I expected. Don't worry, but also if you are battering along with a story and you feel it's really getting tedious to write, don't force it. No-one will think any less of you for walking away from something that isn't working out.
The mechanics
Write in Word, Wordpad, or Notebook, not in the little pop-up "post" window on the website. Then cut-and-paste in when you're ready to post. (That lets you spellcheck, edit, save, etc, and prevents accidental "oops posted before I was ready" mistakes).
Don't "postflood" - if you drop 20 pages worth of posts one after the other, its going to be intimidating and offputting to new readers. Post a bit, leave a cliffhanger or two, and engage your readers that way.
Get ahead - goes hand in hand with that. If you play-and-write a bit ahead of your posting, it gives you a couple advantages. One, you'll have days where you don't feel like writing or playing, and you'll have some material saved to post then. Two, you can "foreshadow" events yet to come. Three, you may observe that something which happened a week or two earlier was more important than you thought it would be at the time.
Rules and a call for improvement
Punctuation and grammar IS important.
Many people have come on here and posted something totally unintelligible, for example "i woz maniging arsenil wot, we wun 2-0 + we wus gud 2".
Whilst that may be accepted in other forums these days, it is not accepted in here. For a start, no-one is going to take the time to read such bull crap anyway.
Always remember to capitalize 'I' this is one of the most annoying thing some lazy writers do, and there is not excuse for it.
Remember paragraphs... and the spacebar. So many new writers come along in their enthusiasm and post a huge long post which could be the greatest piece of writing ever, but it's all one huge chunk of text and is very painful to read.
Listen to people who offer advice and don't go taking the huff. We actually want new writers on here, but stop and think for a moment, why are you writing here?
Writing is primarily for your own enjoyment, but we also write for others to read. If no-one else reads what you write, it is a bit depressing. So if people offer advice, it is because they are trying to help and listening to that advice will go a long way to ensuring that people DO read what you write and post nice comments like, wow this is really good mate, welcome back mate (for the millionth bloody time), we love you mate!
And thats another thing. Take time to actually read other people's stories and take time to offer them praise - and advice - where appropriate. However, do not just post KUTGW in random stories in the hope that people will read yours. Reading other people's stuff is a good way to learn, and can sometimes inspire us to new ideas.
--
The styles
There are different styles to work with, such as diary style, newspaper reports, narrator style and even bits of commentary or conversational interludes thrown in. Some people do just their match results and a one-paragraph write-up of them, while at the other end you have people who try to evoke every ounce of emotion a real match endures. Some people do very detailed stories, and oh there happens to be some football in it, while other people do nothing but the football.
Your style
Pick what's going to interest you to keep writing it; don't bite off more than you can chew, by which I mean, don't set yourself an extremely high standard if you're not likely to follow it with equal. For a story to have any life, its got to entertain the author first. So, make sure you write in a style that you are totally comfortable with and enjoy. If you try to get too ambitious with a style you aren't that comfortable with you'll probably lose interest in it yourself too soon.
Beyond that, if its well written, it'll find an audience, and don't worry so much if the audience is different from another writer's; people enjoy reading different styles as long as the story is well written.
One of the best pieces of advice anyone can give, particularly to a newer writer is, do not be afraid to fail. So you start your story, write it a couple of days and then think oh crap, this is not working as I expected. Don't worry, but also if you are battering along with a story and you feel it's really getting tedious to write, don't force it. No-one will think any less of you for walking away from something that isn't working out.
The mechanics
Write in Word, Wordpad, or Notebook, not in the little pop-up "post" window on the website. Then cut-and-paste in when you're ready to post. (That lets you spellcheck, edit, save, etc, and prevents accidental "oops posted before I was ready" mistakes).
Don't "postflood" - if you drop 20 pages worth of posts one after the other, its going to be intimidating and offputting to new readers. Post a bit, leave a cliffhanger or two, and engage your readers that way.
Get ahead - goes hand in hand with that. If you play-and-write a bit ahead of your posting, it gives you a couple advantages. One, you'll have days where you don't feel like writing or playing, and you'll have some material saved to post then. Two, you can "foreshadow" events yet to come. Three, you may observe that something which happened a week or two earlier was more important than you thought it would be at the time.
Rules and a call for improvement
Punctuation and grammar IS important.
Many people have come on here and posted something totally unintelligible, for example "i woz maniging arsenil wot, we wun 2-0 + we wus gud 2".
Whilst that may be accepted in other forums these days, it is not accepted in here. For a start, no-one is going to take the time to read such bull crap anyway.
Always remember to capitalize 'I' this is one of the most annoying thing some lazy writers do, and there is not excuse for it.
Remember paragraphs... and the spacebar. So many new writers come along in their enthusiasm and post a huge long post which could be the greatest piece of writing ever, but it's all one huge chunk of text and is very painful to read.
Listen to people who offer advice and don't go taking the huff. We actually want new writers on here, but stop and think for a moment, why are you writing here?
Writing is primarily for your own enjoyment, but we also write for others to read. If no-one else reads what you write, it is a bit depressing. So if people offer advice, it is because they are trying to help and listening to that advice will go a long way to ensuring that people DO read what you write and post nice comments like, wow this is really good mate, welcome back mate (for the millionth bloody time), we love you mate!
And thats another thing. Take time to actually read other people's stories and take time to offer them praise - and advice - where appropriate. However, do not just post KUTGW in random stories in the hope that people will read yours. Reading other people's stuff is a good way to learn, and can sometimes inspire us to new ideas.
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