Some advice on writing?

Long post ahead, hope it's worthwhile! =D

Originally Posted by Philia

I really suck at proper grammar usage. I um... admit that spoken english is NOT my first language. However, I learned how to speak maybe when I was 5 or 7? But sign language was my first language

Sign language? Well, you could start by writing a little autobiography cause that's really interesting! Are you deaf? (I may have missed a post where you explained all this, if so I'm sorry for bringing it up where it's off-topic.)

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Anyway... I'm not sure how do you go about writing a fantasy story.

It's not easy to write a fantasy story, or any other kind of story. Fantasy has some unique features that makes it (in my opinion) the hardest genre to write in a convincing fashion. No other genre asks so much of the reader, so you have to be a great storyteller to keep people going. On the upside, you don't have to research (except for inside your own mind).

Once you've thought of a story, the best technique to put it on paper is:
1) Know what your story is about;
1a) Write a short outline of the story. You should be able to say in one or two sentences what your story is about.
1b) Determine the setting, theme and motifs of your story. Write these things down, and put them somewhere where you can look at them anytime.

2) Write descriptions of the main characters and places that are important. I would say that in your head, you should be able to explain everything that happens in your story in a consistent fashion.

3) Write ROUGH drafts of the first chapter, and the last chapter. This is a technique I learned from writing research papers, but it really works for everything. Why write those first? Because they're the hardest. Once you wrote those, the rest is a lot easier, and you need to do the hardest stuff first because you will lose drive about halfway through, no matter how long or short the story is. (When writing the first chapter, don't worry about the first sentence, it'll change anyway.)

4) Make sure you have an editor. I don't care how good you think you are, no author should ever write without an editor. I'd write about this more but it's probably subject for another topic--but it's IMPORTANT, so I'm mentioning it.

It's not necessarily the method that you will be using once you're more used to writing, but it's definitely a good method.

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Should I go all out and have someone throw me some crit or just do a short one to show an idea?

I'd certainly recommend starting with short stories, despite being a very hard format to do properly. The reason I would start with short stories is it'll give you an idea of whether you have a knack for storytelling, and whether you enjoy doing it. If you start with a long story and find out you just don't like writing, you will have wasted your time with nothing to show for it.

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And finally, should I read books to improve my grammar usage? This is what I'm actually afraid of, I do not want books to give me an impression of a particular style that they use in writing.

Every writer has their own style, and conversely every writer is influenced by other writers. But you cannot muffle away your own style by definition. It can be molded and shaped by other authors, but you will always retain your own style. That's the beauty of art.

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I'm pretty darn sure that nearly most writers have their own style in writing besides the story concept. I'm sure its important... is it?

Yes, absolutely. Every writer has their own style (whether they like it or not) and that's why you can tell Hobb isn't Tolkien, and Douglas Adams isn't Terry Pratchett, regardless of content.

Usually, there is only one writer that really grabs you. For me, it's George R. R. Martin. As far as pure lingual skill goes, he is the best I've ever seen, and he puts the effort in to make his stories that much more exciting to read. But what other people have said is right--read different authors and find out what you like and what you don't like from a writing-technical point of view. Just reading is good, but you can also try to find things that you dislike in writing and analyze them.

Jam it back in, in the dark.