I sometimes forget about sentences, but it doesn't make me immune to bitches pming me with lines like "ooo how could you not fix this grammar mistake don't you care about your work you must not" just fuck off bitch, I'm producing a chapter a day, ain't have time for pointless revisions
Wait, you don’t reread your story at all at least one time? That’s hardcore!
For me, when I write, I just focus on telling a story, on the movement and momentum. Things seem to flow really well when I do that and it also shut down my lovely inner-critic.
Though, I would reread my work at least one time and revise and edit. I’m a newbie writer, so I really care about the flow of the story. If some line makes me stumble, I’ll edit it.
Of course, that doesn’t stop me from leaving some little mistakes for the readers to point out~
Have you ever heard the miniskirt theory? Not the one in stocks. The one about writing. You haven't. Allow me to tell you.
The miniskirt theory is about how you should write. Like a miniskirt you keep your writing short enough to make things interesting but long enough to cover the essentials.
Damn, that’s very interesting. It’s kinda similar to the iceberg theory, but miniskirt sounds better!
Also—you are a man of culture, eh~?
You must first learn the rules - then you can learn how to break them.
Also, take all writing advice with a heavy dose of salt. Many authors don't know what they're doing either and will just say whatever to assure themselves that they do and that they're very smart.
So, considering how many newcomer authors write weak story openings using wake-up routines, the advice "don't open a story with a wake-up/morning routine scene - start it in the action" is fair as a soft "rule".
It encourages less confident writers to try other things and learn how to craft a more relevant and gripping opening.
But anyone who insists you can NEVER write wake-up openings and they're all drivel is a complete idiot, and very possibly an awful writer themselves.
Another good bit of advice I received is that writing is mostly editing, and that anything can be edited - therefore, there's no need to be afraid of a bad first draft.
The published books we're used to have undergone extensive editing and rewriting, often by multiple people. Their first drafts didn't look like that either.
So comparing your drafts to them and beating yourself up about it is as pointless as comparing your fresh-out-of-bed self to a celebrity on the red carpet.
I heard that one too. Though, I’m a rebellious at heart, so my first chapter fvcking start with the wake-up scene!
And I also agree with editing. I like to write in a wild abandon and then edit the
flow afterward. It makes me finishing my work really fast. Though, what slow me down is procrastination~
"Writing is not an art, it's a craft."
A lot of early writers wait for their inspiration, for the moment everything clicks into place and flows. But 95% of writing ist just hard work. Learning the rules, learning story structure and tropes, writing as blue collar job without any artsy creativity.
And in turn, this is something you can train and work on...
Totally agree with you on learning the craft. Before I finally found the confidence to start writing for real, I spent a shit tons of times learning about storytelling theories.
But you know what? When it’s time for me to write for real, all of that don’t matter one bit. The theories and knowledges out there are 98% overcomplicated bullshits.
From my experience, the actual writing is the best way to learn and writing is not complicated at all. The more you write and be aware of the feedback, the faster and easier you’ll learn what actually ticks.
Well, it does work for me at least~
You better write it someday instead of talking about it
-my friend
The best advice ever! Your friend’s a genius!
There's not one lesson out there that have truly shaped my writing experience but I can tell you this: people here give more advice than they actually apply to their stories. Every second you spend telling people how to write here is a second wasted not writing yourself. No one here knows how to write. They only know how to reassure themselves that they can, indeed, write.
So my advice to you is this: write. You fucks spend way too much time talking about writing and not actually doing it.
In other news, I am also a hypocrite.
I’m totally agree with you, having experience all that for a lot of times and all.
Well for one, It happened when I started leaning English.
English is not my first language, but I wanna learn it since it‘s an international language, and reading in English sounds much better than in my language.
So when I started learning English, I just abandoned everything and cut myself out of the outside world completely. I just spent my time absorbing the language.
What I found out later was that, I spend a lot of times in that process browsing through advice after advice on the internet, mostly to reassure myself and I was aware and appreciate that.
I think reading advice to reassure you is great
in moderation. I think we all know that we do the right thing already, but sometime you start to doubt whether you’re wanting your time. You start to feel a sense of fear creep into you, then you go looking for some advice to reassure you.
I think instead of criticizing it, these advices deserve to be appreciated more.
And also, fellow procrastinator, eh? Nice to meet you, my friend~
Take your time and write at your own pace.
That's the advice that works best for me, I guess.
Nice~
bull-fucking-shit. only 25% of it is really hard work. the rest of them consist of 60% failure, 10% actually learning how to write, 3% inspiration gracing you with its rare presence, and 2% of discernible success. every word you put in is worthless shit. they're about as inspiring to the world as someone's grandmother's ashes. somehow, your efforts just seem like massive wastes to you, and you either give up on the spot or keep on putting in the work, because you've invested too much to waste the rest of the tasteless broth. if it compels you, you'd try to learn to improve your craft. you take in the advice of the success stories and apply to yours, only to come to the realization that you're treading on grounds constructed for someone born in a very different circumstance. even if you find yourself in the same starting line, you'd just be another lesser copy. a poor imitation. every once in a while, you'll get that spark that outshines reality. you put your pen down and you construct your magnum opus up to that point. you go to sleep, wake up, and, like a dreadful one night stand, realized what a horrible mistake you've done. like a neglected condom packet, you've written over your draft, and this is the shit you have now.
it is then when you realize you've barely written over 10k words that month. with only that word count, you've managed to outdo all your previous failure and made a concentrated piece of shit so dense that it holds a higher file size than your previous digital skidmarks.
but it's effort, right? you put in the work already. it must be worth something. you try to tell yourself that. you drag yourself to bite your lips and edit the piece, reading and cringing through all the shit prose and headache-inducing dialogue and make it at least presentable. you've thrown golden flakes onto a steaming pile of dog shit but hey, there's golden flakes, at least, right?
you put it out to the world.
then, like a blue moon, you get a notification. you found out about it tomorrow morning. a red number sitting atop the bell. you sighed, expecting more comments of yellow assholes biting cookies.
it's a review.
he likes your shit. he thinks the story is great and finds the characters interesting. he thinks that the dialogue, though spoken like Broadway, was conveyed in an infinitely entertaining way. he praised the world-building and claimed it to be up on the top 5 worlds he read in his library of webnovels.
that guy is a mere 1% from the 2% of the site's readerbase willing to drop more than a comment or a Favourite. among the hundreds and thousands of visitors, he found your story, liked it, loved it, and found himself enthusiastic about it enough to give his praises and thoughts about your work. of all the writers and works he could've purveyed, he chose yours, and spent no less than a paragraph gushing his heart out about it.
i live for that 2%.
Damn, that’s pretty wise.
Would’ve sound like Yoda if you type the sentence in reverse, though.
All these seem like a rambling of a drunk old man.
It’s too long, too impactful, too shitty, and too wise.
It‘s a very great wake-up call with shitty analogies and metaphors sprinkle here and there.
But I love it.
It sounds like a rambling of a drunk old man.
A
wise drunk old man~
Ah, you like Bukowski? Here I thought you were a clown.
Well, the most widespread advice that you will find is "Write what you like/love"
This is a line uttered by the majority of aspiring authors. Given that the overwhelming majority of aspiring authors fail at the craft, I have come to the realisation that it is really awful advice. It is mostly used as a cope mechanism by people unable to accept failure (we live in the attomic age, the age of participation awards.)
So instead, I have my own line of advice; Write something that people want to read, then craft it into something you can enjoy.
Seems like you like Buk too, eh~? Here I thought you were a clown.
Well, whatever you do just remember this; BIM BIM BIM.
"First draft = Second draft - 10%." - Stephen King
"Write the best story that you can and write it as straight as you can." - Ernest Hemmingway
"The least words necessary to bring something to life. That is writing." - Unknown
In other words, throw out the superfluous dross and learn to kill your darlings. Nurture the golden gooses, whatever they may be.
I love this. Well, mostly because I’m too lazy to write such beautiful prose. So, plain, short, simple, concise prose works best for me.
Also; “If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.” — Albert Einstein
The best advice i can give is...
"Don't write just because you can, write because you must."
It means don't do a half baked story just because it's cool to write or because you are bored and don't have anything else to do.
In other word, treat it like a job, right?
I half agree with what you said. For me, it’s 30% polish it and 70% burst of inspiration. It always was and it always will be.
Nice advice, though~
