Writing Help

[ObsidianRanger]

Wow.... this thread is completely different to all the others in this Section.... all well.... sorry people if you don't like help thread.

Well pretty much, long story short, I am going to be entering a writing competition and don't have any ideas (as usual). My last resource has been to ask my friends here on a Pokemon site.... Yes, i have no life...

Anyways, i can enter up to 3 pieces of writing which may be Poetry, a Story, a Short Story, or a Script. I am mainly going to be doing Short Stories.
My preferred genres are mainly action fighting ones and fantasy where people use swords and such. I can also write decent horrorish stuff, crime, mystery and adventure, but all my adventure stuff is also action.

So yea, need some help for general ideas, which don’t include Pokemon!

So thanks for anyones help if they can give me some ideas because I’ve already posted on facebook and none of my friends there can give me help either….

Hopefully this ain’t too noobish…... and please don't spam and flame me.... I don't deserve it that much...

 

[assassinfred]

One thing you could go for is a sort of alternate reality where the Nazis won WWII, and they have ruled the world since then (the year would still be 2010). Only, a group of people are sick of Nazi rule and start a revolution to overthrow them or something, that could be a cool action one.

 

[ObsidianRanger]

Thanks assassinfred, kinda similar to my brothers idea of Nazi Mods, but this is the first good and serious idea I've gotten from anyone. If anyone else has an idea as good as this one i might be on my way to writing these things.... although I've got until September to writing them so plenty of time :)

Hopefully i get another good post

 

[Fatecrashers]

A day in the life of a group of naval mercenaries who combat the Somalian pirates that plague the Gulf of Aden. Could be very action-packed, plus it's topical.

 

[ObsidianRanger]

Omg. Screw my friends at school, smogon can actually think of ideas. I'm probably gonna start writing one tomorrow, and one of the previous two post will probably end up being one of my final pieces.

Hey, Fatecrashers, i just realised you're from Nz too. Good on ya, Christchurch ftw.

 

[Exarius]

Instead of popping an idea (fuck, I need them myself), I'll give you a suggestion.

Pick a book or a game that you enjoyed. Preferably 2-3. Take the basic gist of their stories, and mash them into one. Then start putting your own twists and stuff there. In the end, you'll have your own story with nods to things you enjoyed yourself. I did this last semester for a writing project in my Finnish class, and the result was, if I may say so, quite good.

Just, do yourself a favor and have ample of time for this. I planned for this over a month before I started to write it. And also, pick something that have at least similar style. If you mash Winnie the Pooh with Terminator And Alice in Wonderland, the result will be horrible.

Or so awesome that you will blow minds all over the place.

Edit: Remember, if this doesn't work for you, then don't force it. And you will need quite a lot of own imagination, otherwise it will look like you just copied down a story and changed a few things around. This is, after all, only a method to find some inspiration on what to write about.

 

[Fatecrashers]

Ooh ooh! A robotic bear from the future travels back to Victorian England to look for honey because in the future all bees have been wiped out due to overuse of pesticides. What the bear didn't count on was that he calibrated the time-space vectors wrong and ends up falling down the rabbit hole. There he meets Alice, who forms a bond of trust with the robot bear and together they traverse through Wonderland, eventually overthrowing the tyranny of the Red Queen.

 

[TheAmazingFlygon]

Poetry is the best; you can literally write about whatever or be really vague. For short stories, the mystery-horror ones are usually pretty good.

 

[cantab]

I'd suggest the following to help:

Pick an author you like the writing style of. Never mind if the content is different to that style. Read work by that author, a LOT. When you come to write your own stuff, you'll naturally write similarly to that author's style.

 

[Chateau]

I don't have any flat-out ideas for you, but I'd like to suggest something about the genre you decide to enter into this contest. In general, and this is purely opinion, works with detailed fight scenes or gore will be looked down on as meaningless unless you have really well written characters and the violence iself has a purpose you can define yourself, other than to be exciting. Personally I like to read a good action scene, but that's just my perception of "literary criticism" I've seen of such writing.

If you can manage to write an action story that you don't think will be seen as a cheap thrill then go for it, and good luck.

 

[TheMantyke]

Not sure if this will help, but from personal writing experience, my favorite method of creative writing is to just constantly type and let the words flow out of you. You could write the same thing over and over again so long as you keep writing and something will come to you and you'll have something you really like on your hands (and you can get rid of all the garbage during the revision process). The point is to just. keep. writing. I find it easiest to write like this when you type with the monitor off so you can't look back and get rid of anything.

Ooh ooh! A robotic bear from the future travels back to Victorian England to look for honey because in the future all bees have been wiped out due to overuse of pesticides.

Besides the Alice in Wonderland portion, this is one of the best ideas for a story I've ever heard.