I have played and tried to GM games since I was in elementary school, beginning with games like Shadowrun, Earthdawn, and Champions. Recently, I've gotten dack into gaming with a variety of other games (newer Shadowrun and Earthdawn, plus TOON! and Outbreak:Undead).
I've found examples of actual play and advice on how to actually GM a game in games to be lacking. I can only help but feel I am not alone as someone who isn't already a LITERAL dungeon MASTER.
I fully realize that there are an unlimited number of GM styles, personalities, etc.
I do not think I am a very good GM though. No one else wants to be the GM, and few care enough to learn the complex rules that I often have to assist with and explain AS WE PLAY. Being left with the responsibility is quite overwhelming unless I create dynamic encounters or make it all up on the spot. I'm often left having no idea what to do.
Examples of Why I Think I Need Help
This question isn't about these examples so please don't dig into them in the answers – they're here to explain the basic things that leave me feeling like I don't know how to proceed as a GM.
I've read preparation is important, but last time I tried to make a story, the players immediately killed the primary character (a friendly person.) within about 2 minutes of starting the game. While I realize now that I let the dice take control over the story, it was rather difficult to continue a story that relied on this friendly character, with the players making enemies with the character's faction. It is still discouraging when my only other attempt at a prepared story ended with the players wanting to go in a complete opposite direction of where I planned. Both times, the hours of work I put into it were completely wasted, leaving me as ignorant as I always was before.
My group often wants to play Shadowrun, Earthdawn, or L5R- but I feel as though I am a horrible GM. The last time we played Shadowrun, I was bored out of my mind as we rolled hundreds of dice to do an obvious straight-forward "kick down the door" mission.
If I make security as I believe it should or as the forum threads describe their security or a few example missions I can scrounge up (examples of stories, not actual gameplay), my players literally feel completely hopeless as to how to achieve their mission without total failure.
One time when I was a teenager, I had players blow up at me saying "We have no idea what would work. You're telling us that our character's experience or the ally operative says that would get us killed, but what else can we do?" Since there are no examples of what players can do – I am left with the same feeling as the players. As an adult, I've had a similar occurrence where a player said to me, "I don't know what to do. I don't think we can even begin this mission." I had to make something up and just go with it, creating an NPC group (that fit in with the story) that goes in before the players to do something stupid so they don't have to. Mainly because I ALSO didn't know how to accomplish the mission, so I acted as the players would using my NPC group. Extremely boring and IMO a failed dungeon run.
I've had successful stories, but I've had more boring encounters than successful ones. Seeing as how roleplaying takes endless hours to complete a story, I do not see benefit in an activity that wastes more time than is enjoyable.
How Do You Learn To GM?
Where are the resources? Books, blogs, gameplay examples? Am I missing them?
How did YOU learn to be a good GM? Or do you feel as bad at this as I do, even when it's a successful, fun encounter?
Best Answer
How To Learn To GM
There are a variety of resources nowadays that can help you accomplish this. There are also many existing questions on this site about GMing that will point you to more content than you can ever consume.
Watch
In your question, you mention wanting to see more examples of real play. There's a number of ways to do so.
Actual Play Resources
Some games also have better advice sections than others - see What role-playing games have good gamemaster advice sections?
Play
In the end though just watching is not the most effective approach to learning. Watching games is less useful experience than actually being in one. Have you considered playing in those games before running them to learn from other GMs? It's reasonably easy to find other gaming groups, you don't have to abandon yours to play in another. Where can I find other RPG players?
Go to RPG conventions, find games at gaming stores, play on forums or G+ (see also Finding online RPG players for a play-by-chat RPG Campaign?) - just get more experience. The GM was often called the "judge" in the old days, and in the legal world you need to spend a lot of time being a lawyer before you make a good judge. You need to spend some time playing to become a good GM. If you can't think how the players will proceed in a given situation, you need more play time.
Read
There are many books on GMing - see What is the single most influential book every GM should read?
Also try watching/reading relevant genre media. "I don't get how to put together a story" should get its first-order correction by consuming some of that genre and looking at the stories.
Learn
A lot of the problem you seem to be experiencing is pure storytelling. Try How do I get better at narrating/storytelling as a GM? and As a GM, how can I create and role-play diverse NPCs better? Read up on the specific aspects of GMing you feel you're not good at, there's plenty here. Try questions tagged with the gm-techniques tag. Feel free and ask questions here as well about specific aspects of GMing.
There are also a large, large number of RPG forums out there in the world, for every game and type of gaming. If you don't understand something someone posts, you can easily reply and ask.
Do
aka How I Learned To GM
We didn't have these newfangled Interwebs when I was a kid. I GMed almost before I ever played. I did play in a very informal game of D&D in a car on the way to Scout camp, no dice, PvP, everyone had artifact weapons. But other than that, I started out as a GM. I bought a sci-fi RPG (Star Frontiers) without knowing anything about it (I had bought and played a little TSR chit game, Star Force, and was looking for other fun stuff from the same company). None of my friends were interested in GMing and I was in a small Texas town that didn't have conventions or whatnot - life was less mobile and connected back then. So I just read the game books and then ran games for my friends. And I kept running them, and learned from my mistakes and corrected. I read comics and science fiction avidly, so characters and plots weren't that hard to devise. Beyond that, I just learned the way you learn to do anything through practice, whether it's a sport, writing, a musical instrument... How-to's and YouTube videos are cute jumpstarters nowadays, but "Do, and learn from doing" has yet to be eclipsed in being the primary way to actually become good at something.
Fear of "making a mistake" is the dumbest and most paralyzing instinct you can have in life. In a video game you're going to die a couple times off the bat; in baseball you're going to swing and miss a lot before you hit; in baking you're gonna burn some cookies. But you learn through those mistakes. It's fine to do a little reading up ahead of time but the only way to become good, really, is get your butt in gear and do it.