Which part of the writing process do you struggle with or fear the most?

  • Thread starter Deleted member 45782
  • Start date

Which part of the writing process do you struggle with or fear the most?

  • Grammar/Writing Structure

    Votes: 15 24.2%
  • Story Plotline Development

    Votes: 19 30.6%
  • Character Development

    Votes: 12 19.4%
  • Beginning to write

    Votes: 14 22.6%
  • Continued writing

    Votes: 29 46.8%
  • Knowing where to end the writing

    Votes: 9 14.5%
  • Getting Writing Ideas

    Votes: 8 12.9%
  • Research for your writing

    Votes: 10 16.1%
  • Writing hot topics or complex issues

    Votes: 12 19.4%
  • How your writing is perceived by others (feedback)

    Votes: 10 16.1%
  • Getting noticed for your writing

    Votes: 9 14.5%
  • Writing Mood/Motivation

    Votes: 21 33.9%
  • Timing to write

    Votes: 13 21.0%
  • I am Distracted

    Votes: 18 29.0%
  • Floating in Outer Space...

    Votes: 11 17.7%
  • Not Info Dumping

    Votes: 11 17.7%

  • Total voters
    62
  • Poll closed .

PurpleCatGirl

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for me it's finding / catching / holding the spark. or thats what i call it at least. on the poll i put it as 'mood / motivation'. but like, when i get the spark the words flow like water & the story writes itself. characters come to me fully formed with their own names & i get to know them while writing the same way readers get to know them by reading. characters surprise (and sometimes annoy) me with their decisions, but the story just happens. sometimes i can't even stop it if i try.

but when i dont have that spark, nothing happens. there's no words & no energy & i'm completely disconnected with writing. can't even edit or anything. feels like being adrift at sea, no port, no destination, no drive. worst thign is i dont know how to find the spark it jsut comes & goes as it pleases.
 

JayDirex

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Comparison also gets me. You guys ever read (or watch a film/play) with exceptional writing and just feel like damn, how come my stuff doesn't hit like that.

:s_smile:

Ah well. keep writing.
for me it's finding / catching / holding the spark. or thats what i call it at least. on the poll i put it as 'mood / motivation'. but like, when i get the spark the words flow like water & the story writes itself. characters come to me fully formed with their own names & i get to know them while writing the same way readers get to know them by reading. characters surprise (and sometimes annoy) me with their decisions, but the story just happens. sometimes i can't even stop it if i try.

but when i dont have that spark, nothing happens. there's no words & no energy & i'm completely disconnected with writing. can't even edit or anything. feels like being adrift at sea, no port, no destination, no drive. worst thign is i dont know how to find the spark it jsut comes & goes as it pleases.
PurpleCatGirl- I think most of us are this way. But hear me out. When you go online, those "advice givers" always go on about "the habit of writing, and you got to force it" because they're fkn idiots writing everyday without thinking how the story should flow-_- (but not complete idiots)...some of what they are saying is true. HEAR ME OUT.

the truth I figured out is that you have to have your own way of "habiting." Forcing myself to write everyday is NOT happening. but, the habit of trying to do something, anything, with your story (every day, every other day, don't burn out). Be it thinking of a scene, writing notes for a scene. or in my case, getting into a FULL ON ARGUMENT WITH MYSELF and reprimanding myself about my life choices in a roundabout way of either intimidating, or guilting myself into doing SOmething, anything, with the story...

and it has worked.

I've written a ton of complete novels this way. they ain't all good, but many are complete :) and that makes me happy.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Negative reinforcement can also work in manageable doses :blob_okay::blob_sir:
 
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PurpleCatGirl

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JayDirex - yeah agreed!

when i dont have the spark i don't give up. it just gets a whole lot harder. i try brainstorming. i look in my ideas folder (any story idea gets written out then saved in there, sometimes they turn into finished novels later). i look at stuff i've already written. or if i have other stories on the go i try switching to them. or just let my brain wander, consult with headmates, etc. sometimes tho i do just take a few days off & stop thinking about writing cos soemtimes it just takes a bit of time away to reset & prevent burnout.

i know eventually the spark will come back.

so yeah, agree with you 100% and i know the system works - all my stories are complete ^^ i usually dont start posting anything till the whole thing's been written, so i wont post anything that i dont already know is going to have an ending. dont wanna leave my readers hanging ^^
 

LilTV1155

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For me it was characters. I tried to make rich characters with their own backstories and motivation. They'd came to my plot and break it with their own living decision. However, as it often do, it fell flat. Most of them looked trope-ish.

A stupid cutboard of what I envision them to be. Sure two or three of them might be those good cutboard with photorealistic image. But it was a cutboard nonetheless.

Yeah, I got a lot to learn
Yeah, and sometimes the characters end up breaking through the fourth walls or go OCC when I least expected them.

Personality - Check
Background - Check
Plot - Check

Wait a minute! What?!

Personality - Check?
Background - Uncheck! Full Reboot!
Plot - Uncheck! Full Reboot!

Those characters must have a mind of their own. And the story is screwed all over the place, but the plot's still stuck with inconsistent behaviors and actions. And I am the writer, their creator. I don't expect any of them to follow the tropes in the first place, but they were already running away from their roles anyway in the stories I gave them. Talk about playing the hardball curve.
1. Got cool ideas and progression in mind then froze when I start writing outlines.
2. Grammar is hard and language keep evolving, couldn't catch up.
3. Getting constructive feedback in piecemeal, as opposed to someone dumping a whole heap of critique in a single post or review.
Agreed with you on the number 3. Also getting feedback is a total double-edged sword.

Too much criticism can ruin the flow. Corrections helps. But main point is, we shouldn't rely too much on the readers for feedback except for corrections and inconsistencies. Overreliance on other people for feedbacks can potentially backfire on the writer or artist themselves. It's a painful way to burn.
 

Lord_Drakonus

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Holy shit, all of them. I'm not even kidding. English is like my 3rd language, so having 2 other languages in your head kinda mess you up in how you articulate your words.

Except for that outer space one, that one's just weird.
 
D

Deleted member 45782

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Holy shit, all of them. I'm not even kidding. English is like my 3rd language, so having 2 other languages in your head kinda mess you up in how you articulate your words.

Except for that outer space one, that one's just weird.
That's pretty cool though! You know more languages than me. English is my primary language but even native English speakers always make typos haha. The only other language I know I'm barely, just barely conversational in and that's about it.
 

Lord_Drakonus

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That's pretty cool though! You know more languages than me. English is my primary language but even native English speakers always make typos haha. The only other language I know I'm barely, just barely conversational in and that's about it.
It is cool, but it's a mess. Sometimes when I dream, I speak mixed words from these three languages. What's worse is that my consciousness voice gets divided into three, it's like having three people talk in your head at times.
 
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Deleted member 45782

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It is cool, but it's a mess. Sometimes when I dream, I speak mixed words from these three languages. What's worse is that my consciousness voice gets divided into three, it's like having three people talk in your head at times.
XD. This is like me trying to decipher what some of my relatives said - switch Vietnamese, English, Cantonese in one convo.
 

Napelynn

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I really fear floating in outer space. It’s something I dread from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep. Every second of my day is devoted to worrying about floating in outer space.
 

atgongumerki

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When suddenly a third of the poll options are just descriptions of procrastination, ... I think we know the BBEG. Now we only need to wait for the hero to deal with it.

Sadly until the hero has destroyed the beast, we cannot do anything.

(This is totally not just a weak excuse to procrastinate)
 

SootShade

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Mar 30, 2021
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Presently, avoiding exposition dumping. For the time being, I seem to have have successfully overcome the great enemy, otherwise known as procrastination, by just forcing myself to finally publish something and then keep making frequent releases. The result is surprisingly passable otherwise, but I just can't find the time to figure out good ways to present information.

Probably wouldn't be here if I'd used my initial inspiration to write out a few chapters first, rather than just releasing the prologue the second I completed it. But if I'd tried that, I might instead be rewriting said prologue for the twentieth time right now, if I was working on the story at all.
 

lilwriterb

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I saw the option 'floating in space' and remembered all those super realistic floating through space dreams I've had :')
The part of writing I struggle with the most is putting into words what I have in my head. When you are thinking, it's not just in words. There is imagery, action is more fluid (like in videos), and there's sounds, but removing or converting these different mediums into one medium, i.e. words, is pretty hard for me.
 

Motsu

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Well, I do struggle to find the time to write because of my works, but I don't think that has anything to do with the writing process. If I say so myself, I think being productive is pretty much the accurate writing process—since being industrious has a bigger effect than most of the exaggerated complications that don't really exist or has no relation to writing. Other than that, feeling the accomplishment of writing a chapter, and finishing the story with some barebone conclusions isn't as hard as it looks (lol). And while I think I struggle when it came to what should the character monologues be on a certain day or today? Or, how to divide monologues and dialogues for my main character? I think it has little to no effect when no one really reads my story.

A Good Explanation:
The Creative Process
What Do Artists Do Every Day?
 
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