# Some personal realizations



## Svrtnsse (Nov 10, 2013)

When I started writing my novel my idea was to write an outline and then follow that write the novel. I'd proofread it and check for grammar and spelling errors and then I'd publish it. Easy as that.
I had no thoughts about going over it a second time or making changes. After all, I had planned everything that should happen and I'm an awesomely talented writer so why would I need to change anything? It would be fine as it was.

Then I heard about drafts.
Okay, so maybe once I've written the story I'll call it my first draft and then I'll go through it and tweak it a little, tighten up the language and such. Should be good. There may be some parts that aren't as good as they could be.

Then I learned about tension.
This turned things on their heads a bit. Would it be possible that people didn't find my writing appeal or interesting enough as it was? I mean, to me it was pretty interesting, at least for the most part. Then again, I'm such a talented writer people would probably read it anyway. No? Maybe not.
Perhaps I should go through things a second time to review my scenes and make sure they're interesting. This thing with drafts may not be such a bad idea after all. I'll get to it later.

Then last night as I lay waiting to fall asleep it finally clicked. I was thinking about the scene I'm working on and how well it worked out with some of the things I madce up for it and included in it. Some of the pieces I'd been wondering about finally fit together. I also thought back on how this would affect earlier scenes and I realized that the knowledge I'd gotten from writing this most recent scene would really help in improving another part much earlier on.
I think that's when I finally got it. I've heard and read about it here for quite a while but it's not until just now I finally understand myself.

I guess what I'm trying to say in short is: Don't fret about if the first version of a scene isn't all that. Move on and do the next one and maybe something that happens later down the line will help you improve on earlier events.

Disclaimer: This is The LAW! If you don't follow this rule you are a bad writer and no one will ever read your books.


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## A. E. Lowan (Nov 11, 2013)

By George, I think he's got it!  I love it when those little story elements you stick in there, with no idea why, suddenly click together with others to become a vital whole.  This may be the first time it's happened to you, but it won't be the last.  Good show!


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## Chilari (Nov 11, 2013)

I too have come to a personal realisation in a similar vein. I too planned to write a novel, edit it (though perhaps with more drafts than your original plan) and publish it. All I needed to do was actualy finish something, then it'd be an easy road to publication because all I needed to do was organise a few things, do a few rewrites, get some feedback and tweak, and I'd be ready to publish. But as with you, then I learned about tension. Then I read numerous self-published books that lacked it. Then I realised I'm not good enough. I might work for years on the one novel and while it might be entirely respectable, I'd still not be good enough myself to make it happen again without even more years work.

So my plan for 2014 isn't (as previously committed to in the Blood Pact) to publish a novel. It isn't to make a novel as good as it can be. The plan is to improve my abilities and my knowledge by studying writing, practicing with things that are beyond my normal comfort zone and with exercises that force me to confront what I'm learning about grammar and storytelling, such that by the end of 2014 I'm a writer capable of writing something worth publishing - rather than merely having a book which, thanks to several rounds of beta readers and serious editing, is worth publishing. There's a difference. My plan means that once I've finished the first draft of my WIP, which I'm writing for NaNoWriMo, I'm going to put it aside and forget all about it while I work on learning to be a better writer rather than writing to try to sell. Then in 2015 I'll return to my WIP and rewrite it and make it better, and then, maybe, go through drafts and beta readers and editors until it's something I can be truly proud of, not just immediately but for the rest of my life.


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## A. E. Lowan (Nov 12, 2013)

Chilari said:


> So my plan for 2014 isn't (as previously committed to in the Blood Pact) to publish a novel. It isn't to make a novel as good as it can be. The plan is to improve my abilities and my knowledge by studying writing, practicing with things that are beyond my normal comfort zone and with exercises that force me to confront what I'm learning about grammar and storytelling, such that by the end of 2014 I'm a writer capable of writing something worth publishing - *rather than merely having a book which, thanks to several rounds of beta readers and serious editing, is worth publishing.* There's a difference. My plan means that once I've finished the first draft of my WIP, which I'm writing for NaNoWriMo, I'm going to put it aside and forget all about it while I work on learning to be a better writer rather than writing to try to sell. Then in 2015 I'll return to my WIP and rewrite it and make it better, and then, maybe, go through drafts and beta readers and editors until it's something I can be truly proud of, not just immediately but for the rest of my life.



Honey, I'm a little confused by the bit in bold.  I understand studying writing - I'm myself a runaway from the Ivory Tower and left to join the circus years ago, but I still study my craft every chance I get - but how is having a book ready to publish after lots of editing and polishing different from having a book ready to publish after doing writing exercises for a whole year, besides having the book done a year earlier?  Why can't you do both at the same time?  After all, the great thing about writing is it's a constant learning experience.  I've been doing it for more than 20 years, not counting my childhood, and I still learn new things every day.  Are you sure you're not selling yourself short?


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## Addison (Nov 12, 2013)

Recently as I've been revising/posting my first chapter I realized that I was almost killing myself and the story. I realized that I've been revising and revising out of fear more than critique-desire. So I sat down last night and wrote a letter to myself about it. Big realization that I thought I would share:

"Dear me,

     Why are you worrying so much over your story? Especially this particular story? You've had classes, read books, you know everything about the story; what needs fixing and all. So why are you beating yourself up like this? Why are you tripping yourself?

     Because you're scared, that's why. More specifically you're borderline terrified. A finished story means you're ready for an agent. That means publishing. Which involves reads, book signings, appearances and who knows what else. You're scared of that, in public, exposing and divulging yourself like that.

It's part of the writing life. If you won't make that effort, that test of bravery, then what's the point of writing. Why are you writing? Yes you enjoy it, but your dream for your story goes beyond the immediate family. Your heart is in traditional publishing. that means getting out there. if you don't go anywhere, your story won't go anywhere.

     You did a great job last semester in the acting class. You kicked your foot through your shell. It's broken, now is time to start standing without it.

Sincerely, 
Reality Check."


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## BWFoster78 (Nov 12, 2013)

> Disclaimer: This is The LAW! If you don't follow this rule you are a bad writer and no one will ever read your books.



You can now officially claim me as your mentor


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## Chilari (Nov 13, 2013)

A. E. Lowan said:


> Honey, I'm a little confused by the bit in bold.  I understand studying writing - I'm myself a runaway from the Ivory Tower and left to join the circus years ago, but I still study my craft every chance I get - but how is having a book ready to publish after lots of editing and polishing different from having a book ready to publish after doing writing exercises for a whole year, besides having the book done a year earlier?  Why can't you do both at the same time?  After all, the great thing about writing is it's a constant learning experience.  I've been doing it for more than 20 years, not counting my childhood, and I still learn new things every day.  Are you sure you're not selling yourself short?



What I mean is, I want to be a writer capable of repeatedly creating good books. If I pour everything into this book and just go straight to publishing it (even if after rounds of beta reading and editing), then what I have is a publishable book. If instead I focus on learning to be a better writer, I fix the majority of the problems at the front end by not making some of the mistakes in the first place rather than having to fix them in editing. I want to be a writer who can produce better first drafts, so either (a) less work is needed to get them to the same standard as would be achieved by pursuing publishing straight away, or (b) the same work gets them to a higher standard.

I feel that, over the last decade or so of writing, I've just been going along with what I feel like, occasionally gleaning lessons from discussions with others who are for the main part not much more experienced than I am. I've been coasting along, feeling out the path ahead and doing my own thing. Now I want to try to learn more formally, really learn and understand the rules instead of running on instinct, really study what makes good storytelling and understand the tropes I'm using and the influences I'm subconsciously drawing upon. So by studying, I'll reach a point where I can make greater improvements to what I'm writing now, and be able to produce better stories in future, than I would by coasting along doing it all on instinct.


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## Svrtnsse (Nov 13, 2013)

I'm sort of with Chilari here in the I'm writing to learn to write at the moment.
Much as I was confident in my ability to write I was not as confident in my ability to actually finish what I started. I'm pretty good at starting up new project and then not seeing them through until completion. I was clear on that writing a book would be a major undertaking and I wasn't sure I could do it, but I wanted to give it a go.
I decided to write a practice book. I'd pick some random plot and throw it at one of my less important side characters. I figured that way I wouldn't waste my good story on a failed project and maybe I could learn something on the way. With a story and a character that weren't that important to me it didn't matter so much if the story was full of newbie mistakes. 
So I'm writing to learn. I'm asking all the questions I can think of. I'm trying out new things and mixing things up and testing this or that technique. I'm having a great time of it.


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## Quillstine (Nov 13, 2013)

Svrtnsse said:


> I decided to write a practice book. I'd pick some random plot and throw it at one of my less important side characters. I figured that way I wouldn't waste my good story on a failed project and maybe I could learn something on the way. With a story and a character that weren't that important to me it didn't matter so much if the story was full of newbie mistakes.
> So I'm writing to learn. I'm asking all the questions I can think of. I'm trying out new things and mixing things up and testing this or that technique. I'm having a great time of it.



I've done this, and it's an awesome idea. But don't kid yourself into never feeling "good enough". I put the stories I really wanted to write off.....and off......and off because I felt I lacked the ability to polish them to the glow I knew they could have. If your not careful, you'll slip into a void that's not easy to get out of. What happened for me was, well I just did not care about what I was writing, so I never really learned a thing. I had no yearn to make my "practice books" as good as I could. So I just slammed at the keys, let the story roll out and ended up with 150,000 words of bland, boring and heartless jargon, 5 times over!
One day I decided I would just write what my heart wanted to write, I've only got a certain amount of years in me...why not write my passions and know that I can re-write them again and again if I need to. When I did that, I learnt! I loved the story, I wanted to improve it and focus on it.
I guess what I am saying is...no matter if you write for pleasure or income, if you have never written a single word or your on you 10 millionth novel. We all learn by writing, it's part of the process. Don't put off what you want to write... write it and learn as you go. This is your voice, use it to say what's important to you.


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## Svrtnsse (Nov 14, 2013)

What I've noticed is that as I go on writing my story - the one that isn't really important and that I don't care about - is that the more time I spend on it, the more I come to care about it and the more it means to me.
Enar was originally just a side character in a short story and now he's quite a big deal to me. I guess in theory I could have predicted that, but I didn't. I count that as part of the learning experience too.


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## Svrtnsse (Nov 14, 2013)

I've also realised that over the past few weeks my word count has been higher here on the forums than on my wip. This will have to change, and I don't mean to post less here.


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## Svrtnsse (Nov 22, 2013)

Over the last few days I got around to putting my writing since June together into full chapters so my friend (and everyone else who can be bothered) can read them on her kindle instead of on the screen. I also took the time to read through it all myself. It was an experience both humbling and embarrassing, but also encouraging. 
Humbling, as I came to realize that what I originally thought was pretty good really wasn't all that, and embarrassing as some of it's really rather dire. However, I really felt like I could see the improvement in the text as the story kept progressing and that was really encouraging. I really am improving and getting better at this and that feels awesome.


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## Scribble (Nov 22, 2013)

Svrtnsse said:


> Over the last few days I got around to putting my writing since June together into full chapters so my friend (and everyone else who can be bothered) can read them on her kindle instead of on the screen. I also took the time to read through it all myself. It was an experience both humbling and embarrassing, but also encouraging.
> Humbling, as I came to realize that what I originally thought was pretty good really wasn't all that, and embarrassing as some of it's really rather dire. However, I really felt like I could see the improvement in the text as the story kept progressing and that was really encouraging. I really am improving and getting better at this and that feels awesome.



Nothing has helped me more than putting my shoddy work to a group or friend to comment on. I don't know that there is any other way to improve. Good for you!


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