Writing Discouragement in Writing

[Deleted member 54065]

Recently, I've been seeing posts or comments from fellow authors about their stories of discouragement in their writing journey. Well, I had my share of it, too...and I'd like to tell others how I get by with writing, even though this hobby of mine is full of scary twists and tragic failures.

First off, for those who don't know me/new to ScribbleHub, I'm Hans Trondheim. Honestly, I'm notorious for posting my work before in this site, and then taking it down when it receives a rating lower than 4 stars. Well, I still posted again, though I removed it the third and final time because of more personal (and safety) reasons. A friend of mine (who knows the reason for my final removal) reuploaded it again on his account here with my consent, so I can't erase it.

But yes, I'm an author with 14 books/volumes of three different stories behind him, and three more in the works. No, to be clear, I'm not bragging about those. I'm just showing how much I accomplished even though I'm being bombarded with discouragements, both online and offline.

So how do I get through my 'downs'? First off, I set a goal for myself. Before I sat down and got into serious writing, I told myself, "I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to tell stories." That stuck in my head up to now. So, I will be a writer, and I will tell stories.

Second, I learned to accept that I'm not going to be 'blockbuster'-level popular. I admit, when I first uploaded my story in RoyalRoad, I was cocky. Then, I got slapped by reality that I'm just another amateur. Did that discourage me? Yes. Did I stop writing for some time? Yes. Did I tell myself I'll never write again? Yes. But what am I doing here right now? Well, the answer goes back to the first point I said: I will be a writer, and I will tell stories. I don't care if my work will be popular anymore. Yes, the desire to be popular is there, but my priority nowadays is to tell a good story that will be liked by readers who will invest their time in my work (and not the superficial ones who nitpick all the time).

Third, the ratings. The most discouraging stuff in online writing. Once you received a low score, self-doubt crashes to you like a tsunami. How did I get past that? The answer is, I don't give a damn anymore. Like I always tell my brother (and my beta reader too), "my story is uploaded there; read it or not, it's not my problem". Did the low ratings affect me? Yes. Did I doubt myself whenever I receive that? Even if I don't, I still doubt my skills as a writer. But then, I always put my best efforts in crafting my narratives. Self-criticism is helpful. I often ask myself, if I'm in the shoes of this certain character, is my action logical? Is my action reasonable?

The results are obvious:

Spoiler: Feedback Sample

Fourth, if ever I received a comment, I always determine whether the feedback is useful to improve my work or not. See, I'm a planner, and I already know what will happen in my story's ending even before I wrote the very first chapter of my first volume. As such, comments criticizing my work can be divided into two: useful, and nonsense. The useful ones--though at times, it's mixed with ad hominems--can be an advantage if an author sees through the negative words and correct himself/herself. The nonsense ones (especially those from the nitpickers), I just throw them in the proverbial garbage bin.

Take a look at my example of a useful criticism (from a reader who invested a lot in my story):

Spoiler: Examples

Now let's take a look at a useless comment/review.

Spoiler: Example

Or, if ever I can reply to that nitpicker, I defend my story. See, I believe writing a story is like writing a thesis. All the statements you made, the data you give, should be and would be defended against those who would question it. If you can defend the actions of your characters and the chain of events, I believe you're doing your story right.

Fifth, no one's reading your work? Probably a low reader count, but it's never zero. Best solution here is to be consistent with your updates, or, if you can't write on time, inform your readers about the delay. Too much delay with no news from the author would give them the impression that you already dropped your work, and it won't help your reputation in the long run. Doubting my words? Just look into my case. I keep on deleting my work that some of my readers here in SH got tired of my sh*t.

Sixth, take a look at the site where you upload your work as well. Most sites have an inclination towards a certain genre, like LitRPG in RoyalRoad, Gender Bender and Smut here in ScribbleHub (or as when I first came here, maybe it already changed?), Weaboo stuff in HoneyFeed, and Alpha males in Wattpad. Uploading to a site based on the genre of your work will help you increase your appreciative audience, and may help you get the feedback you need.

Seventh, and the most important part, have fun in what you do. You may have the best writing skills, and the greatest talent, but if you don't enjoy your work/hobby, then it's all for naught. This may be a recurring advice, but it actually helps in giving you that motivation whenever some asshat decides to ruin your day by showering you with complaints about your work (and trust me, they'd find a problem you don't even anticipated). This is also my reason why I refused some writing contracts; let me write what I want to write.

So, those are my techniques in shielding myself from totally quitting writing. Yes, I still get discouraged, but again, my love for my craft remains, and that's what matters.

If you have suggestions too, you can reply to this thread, for the benefit of those authors doubting themselves.

 

[MisterSyafiq]

Thanks for sharing your experience bro...
I find the answer of many of my personal problems there

 

[RainingSky]

Well I take it as in, if someone made the effort to tell me or give me any sign of how bad they found it, then they must have read it and if they have not left at the first chapter then obviously it must have been good enough for them to read the 'trash' in their eyes to the very end and actually invest their time into writing something negative.

That might just be useless optimism but nevertheless it keeps me from being discouraged.

 

[Deleted member 54065]

Thanks for sharing your experience bro...
I find the answer of many of my personal problems there

Glad to have helped you with your struggle. Keep on writing and improving your work.

Well I take it as in, if someone made the effort to tell me or give me any sign of how bad they found it, then they must have read it and if they have not left at the first chapter then obviously it must have been good enough for them to read the 'trash' in their eyes to the very end and actually invest their time into writing something negative.

That might just be useless optimism but nevertheless it keeps me from being discouraged.

Or some would read it because they want to feel superior, not that they invested in the work.

I know a lot of authors who do this.

 

[RainingSky]

Or some would read it because they want to feel superior, not that they invested in the work.

I know a lot of authors who do this.

Maybe, but I simply don't think about that and stay positive.

 

[Deleted member 54065]

Maybe, but I simply don't think about that and stay positive.

Yeah, that's one way to keep motivated.

 

[RavenRunes]

Good to read, that. I have no reviews, and low view count. One loyal reader who keeps me going. I often wonder what I'm doing wrong but then... I'm not in it for likes. I just want to tell that story.

 

[Anon2024]

The ratings often don't make much sense.
Harsh reviews are only good when asked for.
Just because one reader doesn't enjoy your work doesn't mean most others won't.

I took mine off of SH due to the ratings and put it on a site that doesn't have reader ratings, once I finish writing it I'll put it back.
For the most part, I don't like people rating a story that's supposed to go maybe to 1,000 chapters only after reading 30 of them.
Once it's done, then I'll bring it back and upload it en masse.

That way motivation to write won't be affected and the story will be complete rather than discontinued due to ratings.

 

[LilRora]

Definitely agree with you here, almost everything that should be said was said, and most of it is exactly what I do myself.

What I'd like to add is that getting to the point where your writing is satysfying is... a really long journey. I started publishing my first story around the end of March. I got rather positive responses and maybe not much readers, though actually more than I expected, but enough to know that people appreciate my story. That in turn encouraged me to publish my second one, which actually got onto trending page a while ago.

But that first story I ever published was was far from the first I have written, in fact, I seriously started writing during summer break last year, so nearly a year ago, and my first lame attempts were even earlier, as far as seven years ago. My first ten or so stories I haven't published were objectively so bad I'd be honestly ashamed to publish them now, but each was better than previous, because with constant trying, reading more amazing works, and more experience with writing myself, I was able to improve immensely.

I had a few long breaks in between when I either got bored, hopeless, unmotivated, but something always kept me coming back to writing, starting new stories, trying new ideas. Hell, it was actually finding stories on Scribble Hub that got me to write my newest story, because before that I had gotten fed up with too many things I wanted to fix in my previous one and had dropeed writing for a long while.

I'm pretty damn sure I had around 250k words written in total before I got brave enough to publish my first story I pushed past ~30k words.

The point of what I'm babbling about here is that there's no way to get any kind of instant success in something like writing. I might have 800 readers in the story I'm writing now, it might be just the second story I'm publishing, but in fact I needed many months and setbacks to get to this point, and I'm pretty sure even that is rather short time for a writer. Just like with anything else, you won't be good instantly, and even the best authors were beginners at some point.

Only constant improvement over a long time can make you a good writer, and only having fun while writing can make this time enjoyable. So actually having fun with writing is what you've got to focus on first, not reviews, readers, views, quality of your work, or anything else. An authour unhappy about their story would never write a good novel.

Thanks for a chance to get all this off my mind.

 

[Reyezwriting]

Royalroad is for hardcore explicit sex? They rejected my lgbt smut half a year ago.

 

[Erylm]

If you are writing, you are writing for a reason; be that just creating a story or something more serious. In the end, you still need to write something.

Even writing without an audience is still better than stopping with writing altogether because of the sometimes rather painful feedback. Feedback still is the fastest way to improve though, as it provides a far more unbiased outlook on the story than yours and is often in a way more honest with their opinion. In time you will get better, it will just take a hell of a lot longer were you to go private.

But that often ends up being the problem, time. You end up putting so much time and effort into it that any criticism that manages to get to you seems deadset on wanting to strangle whatever will to write you have. It makes you doubt yourself, your story and your skill as an author. Now, doubt isn't inherently bad, it makes you question and criticize your work... but it also devalues the time you spent as the final result gets shit on within your own mind. (I dare not say how many accounts with dropped stories I have rotting someplace on the internet.)

So how do you deal with that? Short answer: the doubt will never fully go away.

Slightly longer answer: There are certain philosophies which provide a manner of looking at the world that may or may not help lessen the impact or shorten the duration; optimistic nihilism, stoicism(which isn't as simple as just not caring which many people seem to think), you get my point. Things like this I call 'contextualising'. You change the way you look at the world and thus alter your perceived values stemming from it. (Think narcism, they value themselves extremely high and thus everything around them decreases in value and thus dampen the emotional impact.)

Then you have the what I call 'distancing' tactic. Which I think is the hardest. Essentially you focus so hard on your mistakes and on fixing them, that it becomes less of an embarrassment you're trying to hide and more of a puzzle you got to figure out.

Other than that, with enough time these criticisms and arisen doubts will hold less and less meaning as you make fewer and fewer mistakes and get used to taking criticism(that of your own(doubt) and others).

So it all comes back to the start, if you want to write for some reason, you gotta write at least something.

 

[CupcakeNinja]

Royalroad is for hardcore explicit sex? They rejected my lgbt smut half a year ago.

resubmit it disguised as straight cis white male smut but make the chapter content lgbt

 

[Deleted member 54065]

For the most part, I don't like people rating a story that's supposed to go maybe to 1,000 chapters only after reading 30 of them.

Makes me remember that one time I received a comment saying, "Nice. Almost all of the characters have been introduced." somewhere around the fourth chapter of my story's third volume.

10 volumes later, and several more characters added...I wonder what that guy is thinking

Once it's done, then I'll bring it back and upload it en masse.

We almost got the same techniques in writing, though mine would be finishing the volume/book first, before uploading once every weekend (since my chapters are long @ 4k-4.5k words).

 

[K5Rakitan]

Third, the ratings. The most discouraging stuff in online writing. Once you received a low score, self-doubt crashes to you like a tsunami.

I feel that way when I get a five-star rating, but I calm myself down by saying to myself that some people simply don't read instructions.

 

[Deleted member 54065]

I feel that way when I get a five-star rating, but I calm myself down by saying to myself that some people simply don't read instructions.

Surprisingly, a lot of aspiring authors nowadays don't bother to read instructions before saying/posting something. A good example is here, on Scribblehub, where new authors disregard the disclaimer about possible hours of delay for their works to show up in the front page when uploading new stories. Then they'd make a thread about it here in the forum.

 

[Reyezwriting]

resubmit it disguised as straight cis white male smut but make the chapter content lgbt

Looool!
I don't know if the lgbt content was the problem in the first place. A non-american (like me) would think that the english-speaking audience want as much lgbt content as possible, just by looking at what hollywood has been producing and what twiter loves so much. /s.

But whatever. Not a battle I'd die for. I'm no activist.

But seriously, what's up with that half a star review. Didn't he check the story's tags? What was he expecting? He sounded as if he was angry at himself for wasting his time reading something he knew would not like becuase it doesn't have gruesome or explicit stuff, but wanted to give it a try anyway.

 

[Deleted member 54065]

But seriously, what's up with that half a star review. Didn't he check the story's tags? What was he expecting? He sounded as if he was angry at himself for wasting his time reading something he knew would not like becuase it doesn't have gruesome or explicit stuff, but wanted to give it a try anyway.

Prolly some guy who thinks he's cool by being edgy and angry all the time, but is a lame excuse for a human being in real life.

I asked RR to remove his review back then, which was granted. But I ultimately decided to remove my work in RR anyway.

I received a lot of reviews I consider 'too stupid', like that one time a reader gave me a low rating saying he couldn't take the 'bullying' in my novel because he was bullied once.

Like dude, I understand your sentiments (was also bullied from elementary to 3rd year high school), but this is a goddamn fiction. Can't your head separate it from reality?

So to spare myself from dealing with idiots, I deleted my work. I know my story needs a lot of improvement, but the denizens of RR are something of a whole new level of crazy. Had a long period of peace of mind since then.

 

[TheEldritchGod]

I don the armor of contempt.
Not one shred of my self esteem is dependent on the opinion of others. I had that beaten out of me long ago.

I listen to all comments, determine if they know what they are talking about, then act based on if their perspective is valid. What is its value to me and my writing?