Any advice on getting a first draft down on paper?

I should say first of all, i have no experience in writing other than what i've done in school and i mostly read books but for the past year i've been entertaining thought's of writing a book. So far i have managed to come up with a fantastic work of speculative fiction having read every book on writing and character development i can get my hands on. but it's all in my head and everytime i try to make a first draft i dont know how to start. so any tips, tricks or exercises that would help put a brilliant story on paper without it losing the magic that seems to bring to life the books i read?Any advice on getting a first draft down on paper?
I have the same problem.





The things that have helped me in the past are:





* Never mind chronology - go straight in to the part that most interests you.





* Write notes, lists, poems, family trees, etc, about the characters or events in your story that you're most interested in at that moment.





If this isn't happening, a good idea is to write about something else. The more you practise writing seemingly pointless things, the easier it is to write the things that are important to you. Some ideas:





* Free writing. Go to any book or magazine, open it at random and write the first line you see on a piece of paper. Once you've got that down, you keep writing, as fast as you can, and try to speed up even more at least two times until you've filled the page. The only rule is that you can't think about what you're writing. After you've finished, look through the (what should be) complete rubbish you've just written, and underline something you think is original (even if it's nonsense).


Although this has nothing to do with writing your story, it'll get you writing without taking it too seriously (taking it too seriously is a big problem), and it'll also get you being really creative in the way you are when you dream - you might just surprise yourself.





* Speaking of dreams, try meditating until you're in a trance, and write about whatever comes to you.





* If all of these seem like too much hard work (which happens to me sometimes) it's probably because you're not really ready to write it yet, even though you think you are. In this case, if you can, throw yourself into writing it anyway (not really caring and fully intending to throw it away afterwards) and see how far you get. Remember, the biggest problem is caring too much about it. An old trick is to imagine you're dead, in the sense of having left this world and being coldly objective about everything in it, and write from that point of view.





Good luck with it:)





P.S. I'd hazard a guess that your main problem is not having found the right 'voice' for it yet. Some of the methods I mentioned above should help you find this.Any advice on getting a first draft down on paper?
A quick tip- but why not try writing a small section form the mid-piece of your text? That way, you can gain a sense of how you need to carry the plot's stength through the potentially dull bridging sections, and gain a sense for style in general.
buy a small notebook and write it.


then get a bigger book and rewrite it


then do this 4 or 5 times, each time building charaacter and depth into your scenes... each time your re read it it become more tangible, who did what, how did they respond, what was teh room like... blah blah blah.





and if you do it on a PC, for heavens sake BACK IT UP... use your online mailbox, so if your hardrive eats itself, its retrievable...





one favourde method is to use index cards to map your scenes and interactions... then after youve got it down in shorthand as it were, you go back to card one, and wwrite it up, following the cards....





either way good luck... your next question ought to be; where on earth can i find an agent... coz im still looking. thats the problem with speculative fiction...its even worse if its basically heretical, and no one wants you to tell a different version of an accepted truth, (however flawed it is) the speculative fiction is often too close to the truth for comfort...
I know. You can't be just sitting there doing the neutron dance. Remember the first time you dived in a pool---from the high board? I'll bet you said something similar to this: So what if I belly flop. So what if it smarts. And you did it. All of a sudden you were hanging air. Impact. whoosh. glurg. And you swam when you surfaced. And you reached the shore and got out. And you were alive.


Write a defiant first line--such as:'; Listen people; you don't know everything. '; And then proceed to tell them what you want them to know. Be daring. Be bold. You can work the subtleties in later. Do it ---before you chicken out.
Enthusiasm. First impulse writing. Just go for it. Do not hesitate and just crash forward. Write it just the way I am writing this to you without reflecting for a moment what is coming next I am writing to you right now first impulse stuff right off the top of my head because I write stuff all the time and you can see how very easy this all is all you need right now is to attach a subject matter and you have the magnum opus of which you have been hinting and trying and speaking! One of those things one of those bells that now and then rings just one of those things turn off all this thinking you are doing and just write what you know! You hardly need credentials just begin like I did a few minutes ago speaking with you gertrude stein writes like this and i think the music of j.s. bach was composed in this same way because of the incredibly articulate constructions of his progressions but who cares are you beginning to get the general idea and you can sprinkle in punctuation and stuff later and if you get all balled up and can't function go grab yourself a tape deck and just say it into the machine and then type it up which is what a dear friend of mine did to the tune of four ninety minute tapes and a short book on his service in World War II as an infantryman true story too it really happened this way. It is this easy can you believe it? if you just let yourself go as I continue to do with you right here right now something else kicks in some people call it your muse or muses and all of sudden the whole narrative (story line) is on automatic pilot and your book takes flight and the story in your head is what your fingers are writing down here where you are reading i hope this has been somewhat helpful to you in stopping all the analysis and just writing and i hope you have a creative and productive week next. best to you, chris.
Well, Adam. It's not that hard to write your first draft. First of all, don't think about grammars or anything like that. Write down whatever is on your mind. Whenever the ideas spark, write in down. Go back to it later and make changes as desired. Let me know if you need more help. You know, I myself written a book before :)
Write what you know.
All the answers were so amazing that I had to keep a copy on my 'answered questions'. So thanks to all for your generosity in passing on your experience and info.
Dude! All stories or books or novels are started (and ended) with a sweet outline! Go old school on this one and start breaking out the roman numerials!





I. Create Subect





II. Assign Characters





III. Conflicts





IV. Resolved Conflicts





V. Tie Up Loose Ends





VI. Put a Bow On It! You're Done!
Perhaps you could put up a storyboard so that you can see how the story develops.





A few years ago their was a T.V documentary on how 'Skinner' (of Skinner and Badiel fame) went about writing his first book, along with all the resulting trials and tribulations he had. Hope it helps!
I think all good books have one major thing in common. Organization. Good authors take you on a carfully mapped out tour from point A to Z with out you realizing it. They know where they want you to end up. Personally I would first set out a simple outline of the plot, and then go back as things come to me, inserting notes into the outline. The important thing is to get your ideas down and organized before you forget/lose them. Then go back and look it over. Look for where you have holes in your story, or incogruencies and fill them in or straighten them out. Also if during this process you get inspiration for a great chapter, paragraph, sentence, character, etc type it out and that way you have it to look over with the rest of your outline. Eventually sentences replace phrases in your outline and hopefully an organized inspiration can come to you. Good Luck!
Just write down some ideas, make a chart, and then write down a paragraph or two. Then when you have an idea, a good, long, strong idea. Get another fresh peice of notebook paper and write an essay on your topic. Afterwards, you edit and see where you make errors and where you could make things better. Then, share your essay with a family member or a friend, after sharing with about 5 people, and all of them saying that it is just great, you can write down your final draft. After your final draft, publish it, and type it on the computer on Microsoft Word. Make sure you do your best. You would then, have the perfect essay.
First off all try to write down the main ideas. next work your way from there. Try not to start on the begining of your work but after. Why you are writing your work put parts of the biggining in place. I'm not sure if i'm making sense. lol
Take some of your ideas and put them down in bulletin style, little things like character and locations main points of the story. then think of how you want it to begin. then form there just take it a little at a time as you come up with ideas. also get your friends to help because two minds are better than one and three are great.


it may take a lot of time but in the end it's worth it.