Hello - I'm a new member, although I have been reading some of the messages previously and found some of the information very good.

I just decided to try my hand a creative writing. At present I have the idea for a series of 4 short stories, 1 short story and a novel - all fiction based.

I have written one short story which people said was "an interesting tale" "enjoyable". One comment I had back was that my punctuation was appalling - which I can accept as I have never tried to write a conversation before!

I am busy at the moment doing research for my novel and I must say the research forum of Write Words was particularly useful.

I think I am at the point of starting my novel now. I have written my characters background information and written a timeline of events.

The things that are holding me back from starting the novel are:

1. How will I know if my punctuation is correct - are there any materials available to give me a quick lesson.

2. I am struggling to make one of the subjects in the book sound authentic and it's a tricky subject about computers and how things work. I have tried researching it and I have read various books to try and reason this out.

I suspect that I should plunge in and get the novel written. Has anyone else had a similar experience of not being able to resolve certain facts in their plot before starting the novel and how was it resolved.

Hi Beverly and welcome to WriteWords

1. How will I know if my punctuation is correct - are there any materials available to give me a quick lesson.

For conventions - such as how to punctuate dialogue - pick up a recently punlished novel and copy what they do.

For general purposes try The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White - it's quite a small book, and has it's limitations when prose gets a bit more descriptive, but is good for simple sentence structure.


- NaomiM

<Added>

2. I am struggling to make one of the subjects in the book sound authentic and it's a tricky subject about computers and how things work. I have tried researching it and I have read various books to try and reason this out.

Terry Pratchett once said he started out doing loads of research on Ancient Egypt before writing his novel Pyramids, until he realized the reader would have to read the same research books simply to understand it.
Basically research is fine, but then throw the books away and just used the stuff you can remember, because that filters out the information which would be too far above the readers head, or is far to boring to write in any detail.
But that's just my opinion.

Hi Beverley - welcome to WriteWords.
I'd say - just wade on in and begin your novel,and when you get to the bits that need research, do it then. The thing is to get a first draft down so that you have something to work with, and so that you know what your novel's really about. Then in second draft you can refine it and revise it as necessary.
You can always join one of the groups here and upload work, and ask particularly for help with punctuation.
Susiex

Hi thanks so much for the advice - it has been invaluable and it has made me realise that if I make my characters realistic, the computer stuff will work itself out.

I believe (procrastination kicking in here) I have another couple of weeks finalising my research and then I am going to make a start. I feel so excited about making the story come alive.

Thanks

Good luck with it!
Susiex

Hi Beverley, and welcome to WriteWords

Just wanted to second everyone else - I'd suggest getting writing first, and worrying about punctuation later when you've got the story down. Apart from anything else, punctuation is about getting your prose to say what you want it to say, and it's easier to do that once you do know what you want to say!

When you do get to that stage, there are two issues with punctuation. The easy one is about the conventions of correct punctuation: how you punctuate dialogue, what you do with lists and clauses within a sentence, how to avoid comma splices and so on. I've had the Penguin Guide to Punctuation recommended to me: I haven't looked at it yet but Penguin's other reference books are usually very good, so I'm sure that would be.

The subtler issue is about learning how to use punctuation so that it helps your sentences to say what you want them to, how you want them to. That is about understanding convention - because that's where your readers will be starting - but also about understanding what effect each punctuation mark has. Reading aloud really helps, because you can often hear the shape and sense of a sentence that way when, if this stuff doesn't come naturally, you can't really see it on the page.

And, to be honest, I wouldn't recommend Strunk and White because it's American, (unless you are American, of course - can't tell from your profile, so am going by your style!) and their conventions in both punctuation and grammar (which of course are closely related) are much more different from ours than you'd imagine. I have regular tussles with my US copy-editor about commas. The hard-core English stuff about punctuation, capitalisation and so on can also be found in New Hart's Rules, which is published by OUP and is the bible for publishers and typesetters.

As to research, it is necessary and sometimes inspiring - how often have you come across something by accident which you weren't looking for, but is absolutely brilliant. But you need to leave it behind. Graham Swift says 'Bugger Research', as Naomi says, Terry Pratchett implies the same, and Rose Tremain only spent two weeks in Denmark to research the whole of Music and Silence. To get your research to be part of the fabric of the novel as completely as all the elements you already knew and didn't have to find out, you need to absorb it yourself, before you start putting it on the page, and then write it as naturally as you would all those things you already know. That's not to say that you have to become a computer expert, but that you need to use the facts and ideas you've discovered as lightly as you would, say, the geography of your home town which you're using for the novel, or details about clothes, or the train journey from Stockport to Manchester which you did every day as a child. The gold standard for using research material is just this: which bits would you put in if you knew this stuff naturally, and where and how? Everything else must be left out, even if it cost you three days in a library. Obviously if it's an unfamiliar subject you need to make sure that the details which are crucial to the plot get sneaked in, but on the whole you may well find you need much less information than you thought you did.

You may also find, as Naomi and SusieAngela also suggest, that you don't need to have all your research marshalled before you start. FWIW, and I think many other writers are like this too, I only do the basic research that I need to make sure my plot will work, then I write the first draft, collecitng a long, long list of things to find out, and incorporate them into the second. That way I know what I need, and often I find gems I didn't know I was looking for along the way and rejig things in the second and third drafts.

Emma