There's been some great threads about the writing process and what dynamic you enjoy writing about in this new group, but I was wondering if existing authors here had any advice they would be willing to share with new or aspiring WAM authors?

I was going to suggest keeping your first writing effort short and not trying to write the great WAM saga/novel in one go but based upon the AI thread maybe I should change that to don't use AI

Instead I'm going with: try to find your own voice and tell the story you would want to read. I know that's a bit cliched but I think its' important.

Find someone you can trust to read your early drafts and help you when you get stuck.

I think a lot of us probably don't have that person when it comes to our WAM fiction. But I also hope that some of the people in this group would be willing to volunteer their services to new (or even experienced) writers who feel like they could use a partner.

Echo both the sentiments above - write what you like (yourself), that way it's most likely to come across in your voice, and get feedback from people you trust (or whose work you've read and enjoyed). I've happily proof read or provided feedback to many authors if they've asked.

Getting started is the best first step and just write what interests you. As you say, it doesn't have to be big and likely will be easier to start small.

Honestly don't even worry about being too original. Gunge votes, escalating food fights, losing a bet.

This genre has the benefit of having existing gameshows that you can use as a template. If you have an idea for a gameshow, great develop that but if you're more interested in gunging a set character, then use an existing gameshow as your basis. If you like the setting of the gameshow but don't want to write the full episode, don't and skip to the end.

The rest can all come in later work if you ever want to. For most of us, it will just be a hobby so make sure to keep it fun

A good question. Years back, there was an interesting BBC Scotland interview with Irvine Welsh and JK Rowling. Not a lot of obvious links between Harry Potter and Trainspotting, but they agreed on the point that all any writer can tell you about their process is a story about what worked for them.

As others have said above, have a go if idea appeals, and just have fun with it, however you work it or approach it. It won't pay off the mortgage but it might tease a way a few of those long winter evenings and my only personal regret is that I didn't start years ago...

I've got two that are kind of similar. Firstly, don't let perfect be the enemy of good. You can always edit.

Secondly, just write. Write something, anything. Figure the rest out later.

Yay for the new forum!!

I've been asked this one a lot, and there's three points I always come back to, whatever genre you're writing in:

1) Write constantly. Write about your day or the weather or make up a story about a person you see from your car or anything. Don't think of it as a formal exercise, just write, as much as you can. It really is like exercise, the more you do, the easier it gets.

2) Write what you enjoy. Even with very experienced and established writers it can be easy to see when they are just not into a setup. Don't worry if a thosand people have written gameshow gungetanks before, if it's what you like writing about, then write about it. Imagine that you yourself will be reading the story ten years from now having forgotten about it. Would you enjoy it? If so, chances are other people will too.

3) Listen out for dialogue. When I was younger I used to eally struggle writing dialogue, I was all about the plot. Then I started just listening to how people actually spoke - in coffee shops, on the train, anywhere, and you soon learn that people are hilariously random in what they say. One overheard conversation can give you enough fuel for an entire story.


Best
Gemma

Great thread and great advice here! My own tips:

1) Don't take anyone else's advice as gospel.

I've heard a lot of writers say "Just finish the story, if it's shit you can go back and edit it." Personally, I don't want to edit a shit story! So I write slowly and edit as I go along. Works for me. Once it's finished, I'm mostly cleaning up verb tenses.

2) Don't be afraid to write for yourself

If you like Wam fiction, it's OK (and even great fun) to just get typing for your own pleasure. I did that for years. You might well find that you want to make those stories better, just to make yourself hornier. You can improve without external feedback!

3) Dialogue/Distinction >>> Description

If you're wanting to publish stories, and turn other people on, then you've got to engage an audience that has read 700 descriptions of gunge tanks. But a gunge tank is still a great thing. Just make it unique, or make the scene really good and sexy (with dialogue!)

4) Characters >>> Gunge

That should be self-explanatory. Nothing turns me off from a Wamfic faster than a setup of "here's a tall blonde, here's a short brunette, they're in two gunge tanks." Who are they? How are they feeling? And why are most of the girls in Wamfic white? We may never know.

5) Things Left Unsaid

This is my personal favourite tip. Write a scene that's obviously going to end with someone covered in tons of gunge, but without using the word "gunge". Tease it, play around it, rub it in to the poor sap in the chair. Use... ellipses. You might find it's fun.

Advice for new authors:

1. Only take criticism from people whom you'd also take advice.
2. Get the draft done. The draft's job it to exist: that's it. It doesn't have to be good; it just has to exist. But, sometimes they're good! Just write it.
3. THEN edit and revise the draft into shape. Some people can write and edit at the same time; that takes practice with editing and some skills.
4. Some people are character-first writers, others are plot-first. Some are structure-based and some are "pantsers", or seat-of-the-pants writing. Any is fine, pick the ones you feel the best about.
5. Use the tool that makes you happy. Word? Great. Google Docs? Awesome. Pencil and paper? Woohoo.
6. Write what YOU like.
7. Use whitespace! Spaces between paragraphs. Between dialogue. Make it easy on the eyes of your reader!

Absolutely this! It also has the added benefit of making your story look longer.

For me, the starting point is an urge - an itch to scratch. A scenario that is deeply gratifying comes to mind. After that, some characters that will provide the agency are devised. With these raw ingredients, it's then a question of time and being in the zone. I would get nowhere with a blank sheet. The UMD is an ideas generator. Someone will post something that sparks a reaction. Or I'll see something in another context that just works.

Something that almost caught me out when I came to post my stories on the UMD is how some things don't copy through from a Word document to a forum post. Things like italics, ellipses, long dashes and some special characters get dropped off. Just to make it trickier, they'll often appear as normal in the 'Your Message' field when you're compiling your post, but then if you publish it you'll find that they've been left out of the final text.

You can mostly get around this by using Find/Replace in Word to add html tags around italics (though it seems as though UMD will only recognise 'i' for the italics tag, not 'em'), replace long dashes with short ones, replace single-character ellipses with three individual dots, that kind of thing. I usually copy my story file and name it 'xxx-web version' so that I don't mess up the originals.

One other tip: It may be obvious, but remember to back up your work!