BlackKnightX
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It’s both for me.To get a little background, you may skim through these two Reddit sites: here and here.
As a newish writer, I can’t help obsessing over statistics. I check ScribbleHub every hour to see if my novel has gained readers. It’s become an annoying habit that literally gives me headaches. I’m starting to wonder if this is going to be worth it or not.
Then I found out you should write for yourself. Well, I was aware of this advice before I dedicated myself to ScribbleHub, but when I got to the actual experience, that advice became more emphasized. They say you shouldn’t care about the audience. You shouldn’t write for attention; you should write what you want to read. The statistics should be off-limits to your hobby.
I wonder: is that a defense mechanism?
Writing for yourself seems like a great idea. Whenever I hear that phrase, I feel some sense of freedom. Like I don’t have to keep on checking if my popularity has increased. But I realize that it’s also a way to avoid thinking negative thoughts, by simply ignoring what readers say or think about your story. Denying your unpopularity, if you will. You don’t want to be influenced by their squabbles. To not feel unhealthily envious or resentful is to become selfish.
But either way, I decided to become blind. I decided to post my chapters blindly (unless I get grammar mistakes, of course). I shouldn’t write with too much awareness. It just cripples me, and it just spoils the fun of writing. I’ll try my best that whenever I post a new chapter, I should close ScribbleHub at an instant and never check it again for the day. I can only check it when I’m going to publish a new chapter. That’s going to be my goal from now on.
What’s your take on this? Are you a writer who writes for himself/herself, or a writer who writes for others?
Or both?
“Write for yourself” is actually a pretty good advise as it brings me back to why I start writing in the first place.
For me, it all started with the reading first. English is not my first language so I wanted to practice by reading something.
First, I started to find something to read, but what should it be? Fiction, or nonfiction?
It didn’t take me long to decide which one to choose. I love anime since I was young so the answer was obvious.
I’d start with the light novels.
I still remember vividly the moment I finished that anime and realized that the season two hasn’t come out yet. So the only solution for me was obvious. I went and look for the light novel version of that anime.
At that moment in time, my English wasn’t perfect and I only knew the basics words used in a simple conversation. I think you can imagine what a horrible idea it was to dive into the novel without the solid language comprehension.
But—what I found out surprised me.
At first, I didn’t really understand what I was reading but I kept going anyway. I ignored all the words I didn’t understand and just skimmed through it. The only thing I did care about was to visualize the scene in my head like watching an anime.
And boy was I right to do that. I could actually read and finish the novel! That was the first time in my life that I finished a book other than mangas.
After that discovery, I became addicted to reading light novels. The more I dove into the world of fiction, the harder it was to get out. I became totally absorbed that I even forgot the basic needs in real life. I ignored everyone and everything and just focus on the new wonderful world I‘d just discovered.
But then, a problem hit me.
While I enjoyed being in the world of fiction, there was one thing that irritated me to no end—
The character.
That’s right, it was the character in the Japanese light novels. If you’re like me and have also read a lot of Japanese light novels, then you’ll surely understand what I’m talking about.
Most Japanese light novel’s protagonists are such annoying little wimps! And the girls are no different either.
It makes no sense why the mc who‘s so freakin op has to abide by the rules and bows down to the woman who‘s not even honest with herself(tsundere).
It was so frustrating to see the mc acted like a dog and tried to lick everybody shoes whenever he can, or sometime just being a hypocrite and acted like a goody-two-shoes.
I was annoyed by the characters, but I kept pushing on as I didn’t know what to read next other than the light novels.
Then came my breaking point. I decided to give up and tried to find what I was looking for—
A novels with strong and badass mc.
Then I found Chinese novels. It was good at first, but then everything went downhill pretty quickly as my immersion was lost by the absurd dialogues.
Every single characters speak like a Chunibyo!
Not that I don’t like it, but too much is just overwhelming. And what irritated me even more was the jade beauty character who looked like a goddess incarnation but acted like a bitch with no common sense.
I guess you could imagine what it would be like after that. It didn‘t take me long to give up on Chinese novels and moved on.
Then after that, I discovered the web novels that were written by English speakers (like on this site) and was blown away by the relatable things I’d found in here—
Most of the authors and even readers on this site were also met with the similar fate like I did!
We are the fellow survivors! My comrades!
That moment still brought me to tears whenever I start to reminisce about it (overly exaggerated).
I felt like I’d just discovered a secret treasure vault at that moment. Everything was like a radiant gold to me!
So as you may have guess by now, I started to dig in every novels I found interesting, and it was a very good experience to say the least.
Though, that is if you don’t count some novels with a Japanese-esque characters that are like a ghost that still follows and haunts me everywhere I go. Even on this site *sob* *sob*
I decided that I‘d had enough with such annoying characters.
Some other novel were all good aside from some certain aspects that just didn’t click with me. I couldn’t seem to find the novels that I one-hundred-percent enjoy.
It was at that moment that I realized. “Fine then. If this is how it’s gonna be, then I’ll write something myself! I’ll create my own universe and be the absolute supreme god who rules over everything!”
Thus began my journey as a writer. I’m quite a spontaneous person but I’m not an idiot, so before I started writing I needed to find some informations first.
Then, I studied everything’s about the writing and storytelling theories I could find on the internets, and read a ton of on-writing books on Amazon.
It took me a long times to learn all that, and It was until not long ago that I finally found the confidence to actually start writing my own story.
It was the very first novel in my life that I’ve written by myself!
It was fun and exhilarating, and what I got in return was also nice. I got readers that were looking forward for more chapter every time I posted, and also some good advices they gave me along the way.
It was a very nice experience even though there was sometime that I felt tired of my story and became burnt out. But I just took a break and then started writing again.
So if you ask me whether “Write for yourself“ is a good advice or not then I have to answer with “yes, absolutely.”
It‘s the incentive that got me to start writing my story in the first place. But—that‘s not the only thing you need.
Well, first of all, let me ask you this—What is your goal in writing? Do you write just to express yourself and have fun, or do you write to get a lot of readers?
There’s nothing wrong with either of the choices, but you have to be honest with yourself and answer this question.
If you only write just for fun, then go ahead and do so. But if you want to get the readers, then you have to learn the craft and how to do it.
You have to learn how to hook the readers into your story and never let them go. You have to learn what ticks.
Believe it or not, despite doing a tons of research about this, I still got a lot to learn. And what I found out recently was that actually writing is the best way to learn what works and what not.
So that’s it. Begin by asking this question.
“What’s your goal in writing?”
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