Dan Brown Books.

[Iroscato]

See above. The problem is that there is one nonfic in production,one in the last stage of CE, and one half done, and before that is all completed I can't even touch this though I'd love to, or editor will go to kill mode...

I read and edited my comment. Any advice for a wonnabe writer?

Speaking as another wannabe writer, I found this to be somewhat helpful, as well as amusing: http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-tips-punch...k-in-face/
Apart from that, the best thing you can do is write, and write, and write again. Splash half-formed ideas and vague concepts onto the page. Write scenes in your head to see how they look on paper. Maybe do some world-building with character bios and backgrounds, to better flesh out the the universe of your story. It can be relaxing and fun to do, and every time you write, you get a little better and find it a little easier.

[Alex K]

For my thriller I so far have 15 pages of character bio and psych profile and 20 pages of manuscript. The character bio is incredibly important. It renders writing some things almost automatic that would otherwise be arduous and forced: it provides motivation, material, it allows you to have a character behave consistently and to hint at things consistently that are only later fully revealed if at all. For example, a female lead of mine is a trans woman, but it will not be a big deal, will probably never be stated explicitely, maybe hinted at towards the end. But it will let her have certain fears and will render some relationships more complicated.

[Clueless Morgan]

There seem to be a lot of aspiring writers on af.org... I wonder if this is a wide spread thing no one ever talks about (that everyone wants to be a writer), or whether it's specific to our forum?

[Iroscato]

I think it's a widespread thing. Everyone has a story to tell, and everyone is at varying stages of realising it. I, an 8th-level Mage of Procrastination, have been working on my own for nearly 5 years and its completion is still years off. But it does help to keep practising and re-writing. I'm currently on the 5th version, and I consider it to be the best-realised yet

[Ravenshire]

There seem to be a lot of aspiring writers on af.org... I wonder if this is a wide spread thing no one ever talks about (that everyone wants to be a writer), or whether it's specific to our forum?

I think it's widespread among people with some intelligence.

[Alex K]

Maybe telling stories is in our genes... It seems to be an important element of tribal life.

[Alex K]

What fanfic do you do if I may ask?

None that have ever been finished.  

---

The primary fandoms of my pitiful, unpublished career as a fanfic writer were X-Files and Harry Potter, and I'm currently still sufficiently pissed off about events of The Walk Dead season 5 that I've plotted out an alternative story line for some characters.  We'll see whether Fear the Walking Dead and TWD season 6 cure me of taking the next step in the process.  The fandom I'm surprised with myself for not wanting to write fanfic for has been Game of Thrones.

The one thing that fanfiction has taught me, though, is that I'd probably make a way better editor than a writer.  I rarely make it past the plotting/outlining phase to the actually writing scenes phase.

---

Now that you mention X-Files, I have a completely different question - so there is this industry standard for TV series where you have a myth ark and a client/monster/planet of the week, in anything from Star Trek, Castle, Burn Notice etc...

My question is: am I the only one who finds myth ark as it is usually done annoying and awkward and heavy handed and enjoys the remaining episodes/ story lines much more?

[Clueless Morgan]

Now that you mention X-Files, I have a completely different question - so there is this industry standard for TV series where you have a myth ark and a client/monster/planet of the week, in anything from Star Trek, Castle, Burn Notice etc...

My question is: am I the only one who finds myth ark as it is usually done annoying and awkward and heavy handed and enjoys the remaining episodes/ story lines much more?

No. My favorite episodes of XF were the Monster of the Week episodes, not the mytharc ones. The mytharc got really convoluted really fast on XFs.

It's also my understanding that XFs wasn't originally envisioned as even having a mytharc element to it at all; it was seen as a straight up MOTW show. Then Gillian Anderson went and got herself pregnant in the first season and needed a hiatus from the show to have the kid and, thus, the mytharc on XFs was created...

[Alex K]

Apart from the thriller there's a steampunk adventure stuck in my head that wants out... Steampunk anyone?

[Lemonvariable72]

There seem to be a lot of aspiring writers on af.org... I wonder if this is a wide spread thing no one ever talks about (that everyone wants to be a writer), or whether it's specific to our forum?

I think it's a forum thing. After all on a forum we rely on the written word to convey everything. Naturally aspiring writers gravitate towards that. Also most of the best writing is done by people that are atheist or specifically ignoring the influence of their religion. What's more is that if you look at a list of the most influential authors many are open atheists like George rr Martin or hp Lovecraft.