Story Writing Help

[Fabala]

Suffering some writer's block? Can't come up with a character's name, or even title? Starting to wonder if your plot makes sense? Please post any and all queries here, and hopefully members will have some suggestions for you. Obviously I can't guarantee we'll have the answer, but it's worth a shot. Questions about specific details of an anime should be directed to that anime's forum. This is directed towards more general writing hangups.


Linked in the What's Going On (http://www.animeforum.com/showthread.php?t=74702) thread. Please check back there for other threads that may aid you with your trouble.

[clowangel]

Yeah, I admit I'm suffering from writer's block..for one story in particular. I overcame writer's block for another and this one had to bite me. ><; I've never actually posted a story here other than my entry for the 'Rebirth' contest, so you won't find it here.

It's a Naruto fanfiction titled "Bridal Deception" (Pairing: NarutoNejiNaruto), and it's posted on fanfiction.net. I had some ideas written down on a document file, but something went wrong with my PC, and I had to reformat my drive since I couldn't even login. And for the life of me, I can't remember what I wrote in it. *sigh* So now, I'm seriously stuck. I'd feel terrible if I dropped the story since its been pretty popular for being only three chapters long with over 80 reviews. I also remember liking the plot a lot.

What I have so far is:

- Neji gets called to meet his uncle only to have the old man tell him he's to marry Hinata, his own cousin. He freaks out, says he's in a relationship when he isn't, and basically runs out of the house. Hinata's already dating Kiba anyway.

- Is in a pinch now, looks for someone to act as his partner. Naruto ends up taking the part.

- Naruto and Neji go to meet Hiashi and end up getting into a bit of an argument. Naruto storms out of the room in a fit of anger.


*cough* General ideas will even do. ^^ Anything to get my brain to jump start. If anyone's actually read it and have ideas for ANYTHING they'd like to see happen in it, that'd be cool too! Even if it's completely unrelated to Naruto and Neji. I'd ask my friends for ideas but none of them write. T_T;

[Yugure's Goddess]

Wow... very old topic I'm reviving, it seems, but I've been wanting some help, recently.

Ok so, I have this problem with coming up with really great ideas and not getting past the "hey this is a great idea" stage. I have a story that I started ages ago, haven't finished. I've been thinking recently that I want to start over from scratch. I mean I wrote the original first chapter like 4 years ago and I really think that I can improve upon it.

So, I went back and looked through the chapter and came up with a lot of stuff that I wanted to do.

In the chapter I have a lot of different items that I was going to personify or give symbolic descriptions and meaning to. For instance:


The Moon is a painter
The forest is a sea and when the wind blows i will describe it as though the moon were controlling the tide, keeping with the idea that the moon is a painter
the clouds that soon form are dancers/musicians
The rain, thunder and wind of the storm that follows are instruments played by the musicians in a kind of orchestral accompaniment to the action that takes place in the chapter
The mountain (setting of chapter 1 is on the side of a mountain) is like a person that breathes and reacts to whatever happens on it and it is described and controlled in connection with the happenings of the forest and everything of this nature


I am also trying to get together items or ideas or personas or animals that I want to compare each person to, in such a way that I might substitute the name of the item/animal for theirs, kind of like a pronoun or a second name.

See, I have all of these really cool ideas that are getting me all amped up about starting over and writing. My only problem is doing it. I have the ideas and the plot and the meanings and how everything will interact, like I have a picture of it all in my head as a kind of monstrous blob of scenes and imagery and lines and phrases I want to use, but I just have this really frustrating difficulty with organizing it nicely and actually getting it written. I'm just kind of like pawing at the ground like a horse in a stable at this point.

I will say that I have tried working with an outline, and in general, it doesn't do much to help me. I really have to force myself and when I put together an outline, there's so far into it that I go where it just seems unnatural and becomes a mess of notes and ideas. After that point it just becomes like a dumping place for my mess of thoughts, which is good to an extent, as well, I suppose, but the actual outline never really seems to get done properly. It's hard to explain. In general, it tends to just frustrate me more.

I would really love it if some one could give me a hand with this or offer some advice. It could be that I just need some one to bounce ideas off of or something to this effect. Maybe I just need some one to tell me "Just do it! DO EEEET, NAO! or I will hates yous 4-ever, yo." Somtimes I need that...

Any help would be appreciated, though, and I thank you for your consideration. ^_^

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