What is your Writing Obsession?

K5Rakitan

Level 34 👪 💍 Pronouns: she/whore ♀
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I love to write in prose and metaphysical story./QUOTE]
I think you would love Hanarejima's stories:

I take a more wish fulfillment approach, personally. I'm generally happy with life and my lovers, but it would be even better if Seto and Mokuba Kaiba were real. Aside from a few changes in names and other details, my OCs are generally people in my life.
 

Moonpearl

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Humanoid non-human characters that are biologically and mentally very different from humans and don't have an obsession with becoming human.
I like to explore the challenges they face and how they view the world. I also like to explore their struggles to be understood, and the various moral questions that normally arise as a result of conflict with human perspectives.

Narratives that "break". A little hard to describe, but... Basically stories that suddenly stop and challenge everything that was set up as the norm previously? Whether by plot twist, by simple revelation/re-examination, or broken expectations.
Examples include:
  • Fairytales that are written in the traditional fairytale fashion until, right at the very end, they come to a disturbingly realistic conclusion and just stop humouring the format
  • Stories where OP characters that everyone accepts will always win become victims of serious crimes via drugging, making characters realise that they failed to protect them because of their assumptions
  • Stories where resurrection is easy and common in a setting where the characters seem to have happy lives despite encountering various dangers, until a normal person comes in and is horrified by how conditioned they all are to accept death and torture (in a psychological horror sort of way, I mean)
I also like adding little parallels and Easter Eggs that attentive readers might be able to pick up on. (But if they don't, it gives me satisfaction anyway.)
 

AliceShiki

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Like ashes, like dust, my mind drifted across the wind of imagination. Into the wonderland of creativity, I traversed the depth of Cliff Hanger, the vast void of Hiatus, and the mysterious land of Foreshadowing.

Anyway, that's an example of my 'obsession'. I love to write in prose and metaphysical story. I like to stylize my story towards romanticism, I think. I don't like redundant words, but I also counteractively like long prose that flowed like soft rain on a sunny day. I also am very, very obsessed with Two Words Structure. I just made that name up; it's basically describing things with merely two words, and tried to encompass everything within that two words, but also retained the mysteriousness of the story before the readers could read it.

There are more, but I figure you are already bored by my long-winded post, so I'll come back later. For now: What is your Writing Obsession?
I'm not sure if it's what you're looking for, but I have 2 stories in my head that have been in my mind since forever and I just can't find a good way to write them... I keep trying to change some details of the premise to see if I can make it work, but I'm just never happy enough with it to give the story a shot... And it frustrates me to no end! *flips table*

I'm really obssessed with those two... Like, geez! Find a way to write them already, me! >.<

For each of them I think I already went through 5 different drafts of the first chapter and I ended up scrapping them all... >.>
Feeling compelled to write tragedy is just the worst. I know in my heart that I could get so many more readers if I wasn’t inclined to pull the rug out from under the main character and them after sinking more than a hundred chapters into the MC.

But there’s just something so special about having an *awesome* literary goal in mind, and providing the readers with plenty of opportunities to anticipate just what kind of tragedy I’m writing. This comes at a personal cost however, for I’m so excited for the *huge* reveals that giving away little things here and there as spoilers has zero effect on me. I’m as excited about my own work as the most super fan-reader that’s ever lived 😭

My husband had to laugh at me when I started squealing with heartfelt adoration for a character I wrote, he said “it’s like you’re watching it happen in front of you!” I’m my own fan, and that’s not necessarily good for the work 😅 It’s a personality thing surely, I laugh at my own jokes too... and they are bad 😭

My obsession with writing is my obsession with ‘the classics’: I leave so many unnecessary artifacts in my writing that the grammar checker endlessly asks ‘would you like to remove the unnecessary word you’ve added?’

My obsession with them is bad enough that I’m currently writing something which sounds like it was written by multiple 19th century authors, then dragged hundreds of years into a post-apocalyptic future. At least, I dearly *hope* that is what it reads like 😰
I can totally relate to the squealing at my own character part! While I write the story, it's like the characters themselves come to life! \(^^)/

And then I'm like, so happy for what they're doing, about their growth and stuff! It's so great!!! :blob_aww:
 

Vaerama

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I can totally relate to the squealing at my own character part! While I write the story, it's like the characters themselves come to life! \(^^)/

And then I'm like, so happy for what they're doing, about their growth and stuff! It's so great!!! :blob_aww:
It's lovely to experience happiness and sweetness vicariously though my characters.... but then I also have to feel at least a part of what I'm making my characters feel... and some of that stuff is just screwed up, fam TT____TT

Well, at least nobody will come to my work saying 'but the emotional depth just isn't there!' or 'author does not understand what 'emotional impact' means.' They may need to take a sympathy-puke break, but at least they'll know it's real! ^__^
 

weakwithwords

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Most of the fairytales I read as a child have very sobering endings for at least one of the relevant characters. Just the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty has a morbid conclusion.

Some somewhat depressing stories have second chance mcs declaring "I will protect him/her this time around" only to fail anyway despite their careful effort and preparedness. Seems like evil tends to escalate its viciousness during extra round lives.

fridge horror: in a certain anime with the database database wow wow song, they eventually discover that resurrection actually has a price. Almost similar concept in Sword of Truth.
 

Moonpearl

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Most of the fairytales I read as a child have very sobering endings for at least one of the relevant characters. Just the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty has a morbid conclusion.

Some somewhat depressing stories have second chance mcs declaring "I will protect him/her this time around" only to fail anyway despite their careful effort and preparedness. Seems like evil tends to escalate its viciousness during extra round lives.

fridge horror: in a certain anime with the database database wow wow song, they eventually discover that resurrection actually has a price. Almost similar concept in Sword of Truth.

Is this aimed at me? :blob_melt:


Edit after confirmation that it is:

Not sure if you're trying to recommend me reading material or say something about my writing, but those are different to what I'm describing~!

My broken narratives aren't just about being morbid and sad. Sometimes the characters recover and go on being happy, but the assumptions surrounding the story from that point on have to change.

I studied fairytales pretty extensively for a class at university and, while some of them have pretty miserable endings, those are still presented in a way that's consistent with their narrative frame.

Likewise, although it's typical for second novels to succeed at their mission, the reader is still aware of the possibility for failure, even if it's unlikely. In my example, that character's well-being wasn't the focus at all.
The fact that he was so OP that he could fix pretty much any situation with strength and seemed to laugh in the face of being affected by something done to him, even when people tried to give him a taste of his own medicine, made him a pretty comical badass character. Nobody, not even the living God who's supposed to be looking after the world, is keeping an eye on him because nobody seems to need to. Readers can also be assured that he'll always be fine.
But just because he's a "tough guy" doesn't mean that he can't be a victim. So the characters have a rude awakening to the fact that even a guy like that can be traumatised and that it was pretty messed up to depend on him so completely, and they have to reconsider their entire worldview. The readers also can't assume that he'll always be alright and fix all the problems after that.

Well, even that doesn't explain it completely... It's not just about what's done, but the context in which it happens and the way it's carried out.
Whenever I'm planning or writing this stuff, I always picture a nice, smooth symphony just stopping and switching to white noise in an instant, for some reason.

Of course, pulling it off properly is a separate challenge.
 
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hory-portier

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Sometimes when starting a new chapter I get a semi-random obsession.
If chapter starts with MC waking up then I might write in a philosophical way for a few paragraphs about dreams before even explaining that somebody is sleeping right now.
I do so in a logical way that it should be hard to disagree sometimes manipulating reader into starting to think deeper about this seemingly innocent topic but at the end I connect it in a quite expected plot twist to the actual story making it some sort of invocation for the chapter.

Since it's a novel and not forum message then I can let my philosophical fantasy go wild and tbe readers will still have to read it XD and if I'm good enough they might end up liking it as I did when I found this style of writing in Terry Pratchett's books.

I seriously need to write more so I will feel confident enough to release my story and show what I'm talking about...
 

weakwithwords

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@Moonpearl, lull your readers with the norm then shock them with an abrupt change?

Why does it feel like I'm shortchanging your informative and substantial text?

However, silence would be cold instead of golden and the preemptive Like is not enough to show my appreciation. So there. Thanks.

@hory-portier, I miss Terry Pratchett.
 

Moonpearl

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@Moonpearl, lull your readers with the norm then shock them with an abrupt change?

Why does it feel like I'm shortchanging your informative and substantial text?

However, silence would be cold instead of golden and the preemptive Like is not enough to show my appreciation. So there. Thanks.

Basically that, yup~!
 

AliceShiki

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It's lovely to experience happiness and sweetness vicariously though my characters.... but then I also have to feel at least a part of what I'm making my characters feel... and some of that stuff is just screwed up, fam TT____TT

Well, at least nobody will come to my work saying 'but the emotional depth just isn't there!' or 'author does not understand what 'emotional impact' means.' They may need to take a sympathy-puke break, but at least they'll know it's real! ^__^
Aaaaaaah, I get what you're talking about...

Back when I was playing my first online Roleplay, my character was such a huge self-insert, and I made her go through so many messed up things... T.T (well, I was in a really troubled time in my life, so her hardships were reflecting mine in a way)

But then I got better, but my poor character was still in a slump... I was so hard to get into the depressive mentality needed to continue moving on with her that I just dropped the roleplay entirely because I didn't want to enter her character anymore! >.<

It's really nice to bleed in well with our characters, but it's hard to make them go through troubled times if we bleed in too much... orz
 

Vaerama

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It's really nice to bleed in well with our characters, but it's hard to make them go through troubled times if we bleed in too much... orz
/Vaerama looks ahead at chapters 19, 20, and 21.

Yeah, no: I would never do something like that. I’d have to be sick in the mind and twisted in the head before I brought myself to empathize with such a deep despair... 😰

But I’m glad you’re well past and through such a depressive state 💜 ^__^ A character in my work was originally a near 1-1 with myself, and naturally they were the protagonist... but now they’re not much like myself anymore, and they’re slotted in as my ‘ultimate villain’, where they mostly serve as a mirror to the MC (who is also next-to-nothing like me).

People are so much more than mere characters, and I guess I’m pretty obsessed with bridging that gap through writing. ^__^
 

AliceShiki

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/Vaerama looks ahead at chapters 19, 20, and 21.

Yeah, no: I would never do something like that. I’d have to be sick in the mind and twisted in the head before I brought myself to empathize with such a deep despair... 😰

But I’m glad you’re well past and through such a depressive state 💜 ^__^ A character in my work was originally a near 1-1 with myself, and naturally they were the protagonist... but now they’re not much like myself anymore, and they’re slotted in as my ‘ultimate villain’, where they mostly serve as a mirror to the MC (who is also next-to-nothing like me).

People are so much more than mere characters, and I guess I’m pretty obsessed with bridging that gap through writing. ^__^
Well, younger me wasn't exactly a smart person! XD

And yeah! It's nice to notice that as we grow and as our characters grow, we end up diverging paths even if it starts as a self-insert, as going through different experiences and meeting different people shapes us up in very different ways~
 

Yiphen

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My writing obsession is to have a novel with characters as realistic as possible, placed in incredibly fantastical situations. One example would probably be the little nuances of their speech and character. Although the novels I've read where people have these incredibly smooth conversations, it feels a bit unnatural when no one pauses to think. The last thing I want would be bleaching all the character out of my, well, characters, like the really bad reincarnation stories do.

Also another small, possibly irrelevant writing obsession I have is to be good at writing.
 

Yeahitsme

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For me, and I don't even know if this can be one, I like writing yuri, yay, yuri is love yuri is justice..😂😂 and you should know that I don't really like reading romance, I've read way too few romantic novels, but I like "and love to think that I'm good at" writing romance, especially one with angst

Till now I've tried writing 'boyxgirl' 'girlxgirl' and 'boyxboy' and even though I only released a few girlxgirl novels, I think I may release the others some day~~
 

D4isuke

Depressed Pervert who loves writing good smut.
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I like writing obsession in a manga-style way where I enjoy creating a hentai doujin in a text format although it's kinda hard to imagine for a "cultured readers" to feel the same as generic hentai doujin since they only preferred on visual format, but I'll do my best to write a best "hentai" story that aren't generic enough to consider, comparing to common hentai stories.

Or I can possibly add more relevant genres to it and mixed it together with proper execution.
 
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