Editing Hating your own work.

TheOneWho

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When you read over your work, either during editing or rewriting. How do you not hate what you write? When I edit what I wrote, I tend to hate what I wrote. Which results in me losing lots of motivation to write some more. How do I learn to love my own work?
 

EternalSunset0

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When you read over your work, either during editing or rewriting. How do you not hate what you write? When I edit what I wrote, I tend to hate what I wrote. Which results in me losing lots of motivation to write some more. How do I learn to love my own work?
By knowing yourself better and writing only what you know you'll really love.

Although to be fair, I did end up feeling disappointed at times (which has led to a couple of rewrites before publishing) but I never considered writing an arc or a character that I know I'll eventually dislike. I guess that comes with knowing and understanding yourself better.
 

LunaSoltaer

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K5Rakitan often posts a quote picture about your instinct being killer, and your disappointment stemming from your skill not matching it yet, and the secret ingredient being perseverance. I imagine this quote will be of use to you.

Disappointment is sadly a part of the writing cycle. Mitigating it is very much a part of knowing yourself better, but there are techniques you can employ to make the experience not as painful too. If you have the social capacity for one, a beta reader does wonders. My host does some editing work for a webnovel about magic wizard hackers.

The real trick is powering through it, and knowing your audience if you care about that.
 

Temple

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Learn to laugh at your work. I have a couple of really old webnovels written 5-6 years ago that I dropped. My writing skills from back then compared to now have (hopefully) improved. I do plan to rewrite those old works of mine. And when I read them, I just laugh at my old writing then strive to make it better.

If you're rewriting a current work, just don't think of it as your own work. Write a bunch first (as in a couple of months worth of writing) and then come back to rewrite/edit. I personally can't remember the stuff I wrote from a month back, so it kinda feels like a new story to me even though I'm the one who wrote it. It is easier to rewrite/edit the work of other people, so it kind of works this way here. Just think of it as your past-self and present-self as different people. So, your present-self will go, "Oh well, I guess I have to rewrite this shit my past self made. It's funny shit though."
 

Cipiteca396

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When you read over your work, either during editing or rewriting. How do you not hate what you write? When I edit what I wrote, I tend to hate what I wrote. Which results in me losing lots of motivation to write some more. How do I learn to love my own work?
To love your own work? Just keep the parts of it you love in your head. Whenever you think of a word that better describes it, you can always go back and fix the physical translation of it.
If you have the social capacity for one, a beta reader does wonders.
Having a nice, (knowledgeable) but strict person to read your story can help, since you can trust them when they say it's not as bad as you think it is. Or when they tell you how you can fix it. Tutorials like the one @OokamiKasumi posted this morning are also helpful, if only as advice.
K5Rakitan often posts a quote picture about your instinct being killer,
@K5Rakitan.

This works both ways, by the way. A lot of people (on SH at least) get their motivation to write by reading a ton of trashy novels and thinking, "I could do it better." If you're having a bout with self-loathing, take a week off to read some bottom of the barrel trending stuff.
 

OokamiKasumi

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First of all...

badFic02.jpg


Then keep this in mind:

Idea_draft.jpg


NONE of us ever gets our story the way we actually want it.
-- Not even after the 11th revision and the editor's final approval.

There is No Such Thing as perfection.

So, learn from your previous work, and Revise! Revise! Revise!
 

K5Rakitan

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K5Rakitan often posts a quote picture about your instinct being killer, and your disappointment stemming from your skill not matching it yet, and the secret ingredient being perseverance. I imagine this quote will be of use to you.

Disappointment is sadly a part of the writing cycle. Mitigating it is very much a part of knowing yourself better, but there are techniques you can employ to make the experience not as painful too. If you have the social capacity for one, a beta reader does wonders. My host does some editing work for a webnovel about magic wizard hackers.

The real trick is powering through it, and knowing your audience if you care about that.

Ah! You mean this one?
Carlo.jpg
 

Pujimaki

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I don't hate my works, but I still lose motivation. :blob_cookie:

So keep it up man, just write what you want.
 

TotallyHuman

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I just type what I write and never look back. If it was good enough for me during the time I was writing it, it will also be good for someone else
 

BlackKnightX

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When you read over your work, either during editing or rewriting. How do you not hate what you write? When I edit what I wrote, I tend to hate what I wrote. Which results in me losing lots of motivation to write some more. How do I learn to love my own work?
It’s just the matter of your skill level and self-esteem. Think about it: you wanna draw something, something beautifull. You have a clear image in your mind or even a physical reference. But, when you finish drawing, you become so disappointed that it doesn’t look like what you’ve imagined or referenced at all. So you hate it.

Though, on the other hand: if you have a high self-esteem, you might realize that your skill is not there yet, but you know that if you keep going, you’ll improve eventually. It’s just one way ticket to greatness with thorns and inferno along the way. But you won’t hate yourself or your work for it.

So, I think you just feel let down that your story is not as good as you‘ve imagined it would. Your skill is not quite there, yet. That’s why you hated it.

Or maybe it’s because you’re subconsciously comparing your work to the other great works. The works that comes from writers who’ve been practicing their crafts for years.

So, it’s not a big deal if you don’t like what you’ve written. It’s normal if you wanna compare your work to the other good works. You just have to recognize that it’s just part of the process.

Every single skills are learned with failures upon failures until you eventually come to a point with little to no failure at all. So, if you hate your work right now, it’s fine. You know what to do: just keep going, soldier!
 

SakeVision

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It’s just the matter of your skill level and self-esteem. Think about it: you wanna draw something, something beautifull. You have a clear image in your mind or even a physical reference. But, when you finish drawing, you become so disappointed that it doesn’t look like what you’ve imagined or referenced at all. So you hate it.

In my case, I hate what I wanted to draw in the first place.
I hate not just my skills, far from it...but the characters, and plot, and the world, and everything.

And it happens every time. Even if I start writing a likable story, a few days, weeks, or at most months later I end up despising it, hating it, holding it in low esteem, and cringing at it- which makes it difficult for me to continue writing it.

Imagine trying to paint a beautiful flower and then realize halfway through you hate flowers.
Or finishing it, and then looking back at it with hate, and taking every compliment people give to your painting with disbelief.
 

ElijahRyne

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When you read over your work, either during editing or rewriting. How do you not hate what you write? When I edit what I wrote, I tend to hate what I wrote. Which results in me losing lots of motivation to write some more. How do I learn to love my own work?
Mine is less of a hate and more of a disappointment. Whenever I reread a past chapter, I edit and reformat it. Even if it didn’t really need it. Mostly because the image/scenario in my mind changed, and I want to ‘fix’ it. As for motivation… it’s not like I spend all my time editing and re-editing the 2-3 lines I have created for the next chapter or anything. Hmph!
 

Nane

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What I usually feel is not hate, more like cringe and disappointment.
But even an amateur story is better than no story, soo... Keep on writing! At least you can't go worse than how you write now :blob_highfive: As they say, 'Only way is up!'.
 

Lloyd

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I actually like my work a lot as I finish the editing. Sometimes at the start I hate certain parts of it, but by the end it gets all smoothed over thanks to excellent criticism from my editors and beta readers.
 

BlackKnightX

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In my case, I hate what I wanted to draw in the first place.
I hate not just my skills, far from it...but the characters, and plot, and the world, and everything.

And it happens every time. Even if I start writing a likable story, a few days, weeks, or at most months later I end up despising it, hating it, holding it in low esteem, and cringing at it- which makes it difficult for me to continue writing it.

Imagine trying to paint a beautiful flower and then realize halfway through you hate flowers.
Or finishing it, and then looking back at it with hate, and taking every compliment people give to your painting with disbelief.
I‘m the same, actually. I get bored with things easily. Though, on the brighter side, it makes me experience a lot of new different things, which is good for me.

Life is an adventure, and I move fast, once come to a destination, the next one will start budding in my mind right away. And that right there is when I know, I have to move on.
 

Wyatt_Wriots

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I think it's required as a writer to hate your own writing and to suffer from imposter syndrome.

I literally had my editor send me a message yesterday unprompted saying how much she loves my story, and the first thing I thought was that she is paid to like my story and that it's actually terrible, which is why she said something at all. It's a toxic thing living inside the mind of an artist.
 

Bronzeapollo

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I hate my writing, but I use it as fuel to be better and to constantly be improving my style and genre. My own professor stated, '...Your line saying this inadequate is complete bullshit.' My editor messaging constantly over the last year asking for more story chapters. I can't find the same love for the stories, but my distaste for my stories makes me read more stories; it prompts me to forever be looking back at pieces and never settle for the words left on the page. But learning by failure and insecurity is not for everyone, so let's move on to how else to improve and move past this insecurity.

Take the most popular trend in Webnovels and copy it, ignoring what you believe to be "good writing" but instead focusing on cliche writing. It will be annoying but do it anyway, it will help in the long run. Because after a while it will be easier, and by the nature of it writing cliches are pretty simple once you are well versed in them.

You will eventually find your style in these cliches and the story will gradually drift away from the initial trend of cliches. If you are looking for a good example of this look up a manga called the climber. The first arc is high school anime, while the future ones are dark psychological. I believe this to be a good emulation to follow that can help learn to deal with insecurities with writing because you are now actively choosing the poor writing versus constantly seeking this insanely in-depth plot that readers may not catch onto.
 

Cipiteca396

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Take the most popular trend and copy it
This is surprisingly reasonable, in a way. But please, don't post it... Just leave it in a folder somewhere. Or post it under a pseudonym if you want to troll people, I guess.
 
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