Dealing with draft loathing

[Nimue]

These days when I sit down and try to write something--a short story or my WIP novel--I get a few sentences in and then just delete them, because it sounds awful, and whatever I wrote before sounds awful as well.

I'm aware of the concept of a shitty rough draft, but the sheer scale of the shittiness is discouraging. And I have a no-edit-until-it's-all-written policy in place, but moving forward is difficult by itself. It isn't the story itself or the scenes in question because I do love them in concept, but the execution is continually disappointing me. I realize that it's probably more pessimistic realism than anything else, because I am an inexperienced writer and doubtlessly what I'm working on is Not That Good, Really, but it's more helpful to see that about my work a couple years later or in a critical editing phase. Optimism, even if it's false, is kind of essential for getting things on the page.

How do you guys get out of the rut of hating your writing? Are there any practical exercises (not platitudes) that help?

I have found it helpful to sit down and read an average book--not one of my best-book-ever favorites--just to dispel the idea of every word in a book being perfect and magical. Do I need more practice editing, to be more realistic about what can be improved? Kind of difficult when I don't finish anything, though.

 

[Butterfly]

When I get like this I start small and build up usually around headings and bullet points. I tend to get stuck with transitionary scenes where little happens. I'm currently stuck on one chapter right in the middle of the book. I have left its editing till last, but it needs some major overhauling to be any good, in fact it's likely I'm going to delete it and start again.

I tend to try building the scene around a framework of notes. Think about what you want the chapter or scene to achieve. I use bullet points of things that have to happen in the scene, whether it is action, bits of dialogue, description, what your character sees, feels, tastes, hears, smells or even just singular words I want to use in a sentence or two. I write each part separately, build up the paragraphs, and then move them around into the most suitable position in the scene, or blend them all together. Cut what doesn't fit. Add where it is needed. Then I read through and think a while before going back in a few hours or days.

 

[FifthView]

I find myself in this same position sometimes. One thing I've realized about myself that helps me to cope with my frustration—even if it doesn't actually rid me of frustration—is this: When I'm writing what I know, the words flow really well, and when the words aren't flowing well, that's a sign that I don't really know enough about what I'm writing.

For instance, I might have a series of scenes and even chapters that work conceptually, but if I'm struggling when it comes to executing them in prose, I usually (eventually) realize that I haven't thought out the scenes well enough. Some aspect of the characters, the plot, the world building, a prop, etc., is incomplete, even though I thought I knew all those things already. So I allow some brainstorming, ask myself some questions about the various parts of the scene, see what comes to mind.

This can help me deal with the frustration, but when definitive answers to those questions don't come, I remain frustrated, until I get answers. But I look at it like this: Rather than be paralyzed, see that roadblock as an opportunity to go deeper into the ideas you are trying to write.

 

[Incanus]

I feel your pain here. I have difficulties with this as well. Unfortunately, most of what I can offer is only commiseration, or platitudes.

At the moment, I have been writing the first draft of my novel for fourteen consecutive days (tonight will make fifteen). I set out beforehand to try to make things easy on myself, because I’ve never completed a draft of a novel before (they were all so terrible, irredeemably so). Aside from choosing a simple linear plot, a single limited-third POV, and an easily relatable character (not the you’re asking about, I know), I decided to also keep the prose simple and clean.

I tried to loosen up a bit on how harsh I am on myself about execution. And I’ve been doing only the smallest amount of tinkering, so as to plow ahead. So far, I’ve been successful, but only mildly so. My daily production has been consistently up, but not stellar. The writing… it’ll need work, but it’s something to work on. I’ve had a few blah-ish days—less ideas, less words.

All I can say is try to turn off, or strongly suppress, that critical eye at this point. Maybe you just need to really make peace with the idea that whole pages of first draft will likely need to be re-written from scratch, not because the scene isn’t working, but simply because it was written on one of your so-so days.

I like what I’ve seen of your writing and hope you work your way through this. I think that if you give yourself permission to write ‘poorly’ for awhile, you can start getting accustomed to it. And then, it will hopefully start to get a little better—both the writing and the mindset.

Wish I could be more helpful--

 

[MineOwnKing]

Stop reading other novels while writing, you must believe that you are the only writer worth reading, you must become the best in the moment even if it's only in your own mind, you must believe you are a literary warrior.

It's important to maintain a solid connection to your introspect, especially when writing dialogue.

Introspect is triggered by emotion.

A broken heart, falling in love, contemplation of revenge, an urge to buy something, a movie that makes you cry. These are all examples of important tools to work passion into your words.

Ever listen to the song Thunderstruck by AC/DC?

Sure it can seem like a bad example, but imagine being swept into an alternate universe, you wake with a sword in your hand, you're on the edge of a cliff, your palms are sweating, you hear a woman screaming, now imaging the music starting to play, a horde of barbarians emerge in the distance, it's time to test your metal, it's time to orchestrate a masterpiece.

You can do it.

 

[Nimue]

...Just realized I put this in the wrong forum, this was supposed to be in Writing Questions. Oh, dear.

When I get like this I start small and build up usually around headings and bullet points. I tend to get stuck with transitionary scenes where little happens.

Sometimes my issue is with scenes where little happens; sometimes it's with scenes where I know exactly what should happen but can't seem to get there; sometimes it's with important scenes where a lot happens and I'm just intimidated. Sort of a global thing, I guess. I think I have gotten better at transitions and the passage of time, mainly through cutting or compressing it. Surprisingly much can be said in a couple sentences at the head of a new scene.

I do outline, but I've never really tried to experiment with building a scene from pieces. I tend to write things from start to finish in full render, because that feels most natural and readable, but on the other hand it does put more pressure on it sounding good the first time. Thanks for the suggestion.

I find myself in this same position sometimes. One thing I've realized about myself that helps me to cope with my frustration–even if it doesn't actually rid me of frustration–is this: When I'm writing what I know, the words flow really well, and when the words aren't flowing well, that's a sign that I don't really know enough about what I'm writing.

For instance, I might have a series of scenes and even chapters that work conceptually, but if I'm struggling when it comes to executing them in prose, I usually (eventually) realize that I haven't thought out the scenes well enough. Some aspect of the characters, the plot, the world building, a prop, etc., is incomplete, even though I thought I knew all those things already. So I allow some brainstorming, ask myself some questions about the various parts of the scene, see what comes to mind.

I don't know if this is my problem, at least with my WIP, which is very well-worn in my head by now. I do a lot of visualization and brainstorming, listening to the appropriate music, but that rarely translates onto the page. It is true though that the crux scenes that I've envisioned more often do get written a lot quicker. Something to think about.

At the moment, I have been writing the first draft of my novel for fourteen consecutive days (tonight will make fifteen). I set out beforehand to try to make things easy on myself, because I’ve never completed a draft of a novel before (they were all so terrible, irredeemably so). Aside from choosing a simple linear plot, a single limited-third POV, and an easily relatable character (not the you’re asking about, I know), I decided to also keep the prose simple and clean.

I tried to loosen up a bit on how harsh I am on myself about execution. And I’ve been doing only the smallest amount of tinkering, so as to plow ahead. So far, I’ve been successful, but only mildly so. My daily production has been consistently up, but not stellar. The writing… it’ll need work, but it’s something to work on. I’ve had a few blah-ish days–less ideas, less words.

This reminds me really strongly of when I was writing my first draft of my WIP--I did it during NaNo a few years ago, albeit with a much-reduced word goal. It was really helpful and I wrote far more than I ever had before, up to about 80k. But I did eventually get disheartened by the all the flabbiness and bad plotting that had ended up in that draft because I wrote it without enough forethought. I ended up restarting, hacking huge chunks of it, superfluous characters, meandering, etc. I think my current, still-sort-of-first-draft is much better for that revision, but it still needs so much work. It's hard for me to put emphasis on quantity over quality when I can see just how unbalanced and sluggish it is, and I'm sure I'll regret it. Still, that first big push gave me passages to work with, explored the plot and gave me new ideas, and reinforced the idea that I could get somewhere with this. I've tried getting back to "x amount of words per day" and sort of failed each time, but I suppose it can't hurt to go for it again. Motivation is hard though; suppose nothing's going to change about that.

 

[Penpilot]

When I write the first draft, I always keep these things in mind.

1- It may suck now, but I can always make it better.

2- It's never as good as you think it is, and it's never as bad as you think it is.

To me, scenes are just parts. I know what each part is supposed to do. I know what input each part takes and what output it spits out. Knowing these things means I can swap a crappy part out later and replace it with a good one.

To think about it another way, have you ever watched a movie or read a book in which you though a certain scene was all wrong? Have you ever thought to yourself, if only they'd did this instead it would have been way better?

That's easy to do because you've seen the whole story and know where it's going. Well, that's where you want to get to with your first draft. You want to be able to see the whole story and look at a scene and say, "Well that's crap, but this other thing would be way better." And you can't do that until you finish.

 

[Incanus]

I've tried getting back to "x amount of words per day" and sort of failed each time, but I suppose it can't hurt to go for it again. Motivation is hard though; suppose nothing's going to change about that.

Just a quick addendum: I'm NOT doing a minimum words-per-day kind of thing. Since on some days the work flows much better than on others, I don't see a minimum ever working for me. Sounds like that might be the case for you as well.

 

[Svrtnsse]

I haven't experience this on a big scale, but I've had it happen with individual scenes and chapters now and then. I find that it just doesn't work and I just don't like it and it's really just not good enough. When that happens I delete the chapter and start over.

Occasionally I just start writing on the chapter again, but for the most part I begin by doing a new outline of the chapter. Usually I've learned from the first failed version what needs to happen so I make sure there's space for that. I also try to make the outline as detailed as I possibly can. I note down where characters stand, what their expressions are, what words they are saying and everything else I can think of that's going on.

Then, once I've done that I write the scene.

The advantage for me with this method is that I don't have to worry at all about what's happening in the scene, I just have to write the actual prose. It's kind of like filling in the colours in a colouring book.

Example from the current scene I'm working on (it's a conversation between three people):

E: I know father. [sighface] It's me they're talking about.
H: This isn't just about you. [sternface]
E: [glares]
K: [sternface]
E: [sighs] I know. [angrysadannoyed] Are we done?
H: We are done.

So this is pretty detailed, but it's very obviously not the actual draft.

Edit: This conversation takes place in the first chapter of the story and I'm rewriting it for the second draft. This means I already got it written out in full once and I'm able to use that as an outline as well.

 

[skip.knox]

How do you know it's bad? Have you workshopped your writing?

This is significant, imo. If it's just you, I'd say you are a lousy judge of writing, at least when it's your own. You really, truly cannot judge.

OTOH, if you have shown your work to others, and they consistently say it stinks, that's a different issue!

But it's also possible that you aren't finishing. You start A, get discouraged. You start B, get discouraged. Etc. If that's happening, the problem may not be the quality of the writing, it might be the discipline of the writer.

Yet another possibility, and here perhaps I'm making too much of a single word. You say you love the concept. IMO, a concept isn't a story. For me, anyway, I have to be intrigued by the characters. The concept is important as well, but I've had concepts without (interesting) characters before, and they almost never turn into stories.

Seems to me, the advice is going to depend on the problem. Does any of the above ring true for you?

 

[Nimue]

Stop reading other novels while writing, you must believe that you are the only writer worth reading, you must become the best in the moment even if it's only in your own mind, you must believe you are a literary warrior.

That's kiiiind of a tall order for me. I've always, always tried to view myself and my accomplishments as objectively as possible, so saying I'm the best at anything is neither believable nor particularly inspiring... Do I, personally, want to read the thing I'm writing? Yes, but uh...if it was better.

Sure it can seem like a bad example, but imagine being swept into an alternate universe, you wake with a sword in your hand, you're on the edge of a cliff, your palms are sweating, you hear a woman screaming, now imaging the music starting to play, a horde of barbarians emerge in the distance, it's time to test your metal, it's time to orchestrate a masterpiece.

Hahaha, this sounds a little off-genre for what I'm writing, but I definitely appreciate the emotional power of good music, even if it's not AC-DC. I've always got a playlist for every story, and for my WIP I have three or four. It's just not a magic switch, necessarily.

When I write the first draft, I always keep these things in mind.

1- It may suck now, but I can always make it better.

2- It's never as good as you think it is, and it's never as bad as you think it is.

The second thing rings true for me; it's the first that I have my doubts about. What if this, and my writing in general, is just that inherently terrible? I think I do need to finish more things, to go through editing and see the difference between raw material and polished product. It's so hard to get there, though.

Just a quick addendum: I'm NOT doing a minimum words-per-day kind of thing. Since on some days the work flows much better than on others, I don't see a minimum ever working for me. Sounds like that might be the case for you as well.

Ah, I wonder. With a word goal it's just so easy to think "and now I'm -5,000 words in the hole" which isn't super productive. Those are imaginary words, they never existed in the first place.

 

[Svrtnsse]

What if this, and my writing in general, is just that inherently terrible?

Let's say it is. Then what? Would you throw it all away and stop writing forever, or would you keep going, keep learning, and keep getting better?

Also, yes. You need to finish more things.

A few months back, I located the very first short story I wrote, from several years ago, and I rewrote it - using the original as an outline. Then I compared the two versions and it was very encouraging. It showed me just how much I'd improved since I started.
Maybe you could try doing something like that?

Edit:
The fact you've reached a stage where you feel your writing isn't good enough is in itself a sign that you've improved above where you started.

 

[Nimue]

I haven't experience this on a big scale, but I've had it happen with individual scenes and chapters now and then. I find that it just doesn't work and I just don't like it and it's really just not good enough. When that happens I delete the chapter and start over.

Occasionally I just start writing on the chapter again, but for the most part I begin by doing a new outline of the chapter. Usually I've learned from the first failed version what needs to happen so I make sure there's space for that. I also try to make the outline as detailed as I possibly can. I note down where characters stand, what their expressions are, what words they are saying and everything else I can think of that's going on.

Then, once I've done that I write the scene.

The advantage for me with this method is that I don't have to worry at all about what's happening in the scene, I just have to write the actual prose. It's kind of like filling in the colours in a colouring book.

Hmm. I've never really tried writing in a more fragmented/outliney way, I always just kind of make myself slog through top to bottom. But if I left something unwritten and moved ahead I'd feel like I was cheating somehow, and I worry that writing a really important scene without what's necessary to get there would sap my motivation to write the rest because that is, after all, more difficult. Well, maybe it's something I should try. I have no idea what I'm doing.

How do you know it's bad? Have you workshopped your writing?

This is significant, imo. If it's just you, I'd say you are a lousy judge of writing, at least when it's your own. You really, truly cannot judge.

OTOH, if you have shown your work to others, and they consistently say it stinks, that's a different issue!

I shared an earlier draft of my WIP at a writer's group once, and posted it in a couple places online, and the responses have generally been mildly positive to indifferent. Which is harder to parse, because obviously you have to allow people indifference, but I think that usually means polite dislike. The one friend I showed it to IRL has been badgering me to write more, but that can be as unhelpful as helpful when I'm not getting any of it done, heh.

But it's also possible that you aren't finishing. You start A, get discouraged. You start B, get discouraged. Etc. If that's happening, the problem may not be the quality of the writing, it might be the discipline of the writer.

Well, that's absolutely what it is. I don't think I have enough internal pressure to keep going--how do you build that up without relying on falsehood or delusion? Or maybe I just need to inspire some genuinely-believed delusion again.

Yet another possibility, and here perhaps I'm making too much of a single word. You say you love the concept. IMO, a concept isn't a story. For me, anyway, I have to be intrigued by the characters. The concept is important as well, but I've had concepts without (interesting) characters before, and they almost never turn into stories.

No, I used that word as a catch-all--the characters, plot, world, and internal scenery of this story are all very well fleshed-out. I have a good grasp on all that, I think--I hope.

 

[Svrtnsse]

Hmm. I've never really tried writing in a more fragmented/outliney way, I always just kind of make myself slog through top to bottom. But if I left something unwritten and moved ahead I'd feel like I was cheating somehow, and I worry that writing a really important scene without what's necessary to get there would sap my motivation to write the rest because that is, after all, more difficult. Well, maybe it's something I should try. I have no idea what I'm doing.

I recently posted a link to the outline of Emma's Story in another thread (here: Emma’s Story – Full Outline | s v r t n s s e).
The basic idea is that I start very vague and then rewrite the story in more and more detail each time. In the link the outline is sorted by scene, but it's not written that way. Rather, first I wrote the entire first scratch (for all scenes), and then I started over at the beginning of the story and added a second scratch for each scene, and so on.
This way I get a better and better idea of what the story will be about and what each scene needs. It also lets me account for things that need to happen later on. Just like scenes early on will affect things that happen later, so can scenes later on change what's required of scenes early on.

 

[Svrtnsse]

Another suggestion: Experiment

In my current WIP I'm mixing two different narrative styles. One is a close third person POV in the past tense. It's pretty standrard.
The other style is written in present tense and quite distant from the character. This style is a lot more flowery and poetic and is a lot more uncommon (I believe).

The close 3rd persn style is used for conversations and the far-distant style for everything else (yet it stll only makes up for about a quarter to a fifth of the story).
I haven't written in this style before and it's both fun and refreshing.

 

[Miskatonic]

Don't delete them and just keep typing.

 

[Bruce McKnight]

All good advice. Sometimes those things work for me, but sometimes I just need to take a break. When I feel like I'm really forcing it and not getting anywhere, I just do other things and try not to think about it - let my subconscious figure it out. Even if I have to take a couple weeks to clear my mind, I find that it's a lot easier when I come back.

 

[JCFarnham]

In terms of my own experience I've found that thinking too much about how the craft works and exactly when I should be editing always gets me bogged down into one of these exact ruts.

For me it helps to stop writing and just read.

For example, I had one bit of advice put to me a few years ago regarding grammar (it doesn't matter what it was in this case) and for a while that was all I could think about. So convinced was I that my writing was bad that I just couldn't write. So I didn't. I read instead. I realized that a huge amount of my favourite authors do exactly the thing I was just told not to.

In that case I needed to just lighten up. The advice was good, but I took it way too seriously.

Also it might be worth reflecting on whether one really is an edit later writer. I know, I know, it's universal advice that must not be questioned, but I've found switching to editor mode for a set amount of time before going back to drafting does help with the unsticking process.

Sounds stupid but don't overanalyse issues. Try listening to your "gut" more. Maybe it's trying to tell you something important about how you as a writer work best?

 

[Chessie]

Honestly Nimue, the only way to be more productive is to just have a writing schedule that's achievable for you at this point in time. Yes, first drafts always suck. No, you shouldn't worry about it. That's why there's editing and rewrites. What is your schedule like right now? Can you set up time daily or even a few days throughout the week where you write for a certain amount of time? I wouldn't try and do a word count goal if that seems like too much. You'll get there. But only by sitting your butt down in the chair and writing with a consistent schedule. And now I'm off to do the same.

PS:
P.M. me anytime if you need additional support. I'm always up for helping out fellow writers. Loneliness and self-doubt is a big part of this game.

 

[pskelding]

I once wrote part of a short story and never finished. Then a writer friend was putting together an anthology and asked me to contribute. I pulled out the half-finished story and finished it knowing the entire story in my mind. He could tell exactly, to the sentence where I had stopped and returned. My writing had improved that much in the months away from that short story. I did rewrite the entire thing before submitting a draft for editing.

For me I just make sure I hit my 500 word a day minimum on my current project. I might think the words are crap later but they were finished and moved me forward in the draft.

You could also try what I've read others do... skip the problematic scene and move to something more exciting to write coming back to finish the problem scene later.