Hello friends! (I need help organizing my thoughts and strategizing my next writing move)
I've been absent for a few weeks, and have been struggling to write consistently for the last half a year. I wanted to ask some serious questions, and share my experiences. I know many of you know how I got started, know how big my stack of unfinished work is, and have traded with me, chatted with me, or otherwise shared this journey in the past five years. Thanks for that, by the way!
Recently, I had a really stark awakening. It was after that "Serious Writer Voice" article. I realized I'd been taking my work that I loved, and vanilla-ing it all down into something I felt was neat and non-polarizing in its execution, if not in its subject matter. But I was SO WRONG! And now I'm undoing all the damage I caused. But here's the thing...I'm really confused.
And so I'm asking you folks for advice, because I'm not sure what I'm doing anymore. My first three books are totally awful, so I'm not even going to think about them again ever. But I continued a series from there and fell in love with some of the stories. That's my fantasy series, and if I eliminate the first three, there are 5 more of them written, and one that's concept-only, but it's in the middle of the remaining ones. So there are those, and I like them and think they're pretty good story-wise (as in, worth rewriting so the quality is professional). Then, I have a stand alone novel you've all heard me talk about endlessly, similar to Renaissance Venice. The problem I've run into on this one is that it's too long. Like hella long, and I trimmed all I could, but then I noticed I cut "me" out, and eliminated my tone and style, for the sake of brevity. Plus, the story has some issues, but it's not unfixable. The main thing I realized was that readers have a hard time getting their bearing in the story because right from page one, there's a whole lot going on, because the inciting incident happened two years before the story opened. So either I need to learn more about how to tell a revenge tale, or I need to do my other inclination...write a prequel. I know, please stop cringing, I said it, and I'd grab my shirt collars and shake some sense into me too.
So a prequel...the point of that is that two of the story's MCs (of a cast of 7 MCs in the original story) would be center stage, and everything complicated in the original story, began in the past. So if I go back and write it out, then opening the other story might not be so awful, because there'll be all the history available in bite-sized portions in the prequel. And to be honest, I just haven't found a way to strategize the original novel in a way that any readers really like. I can open here, I can open there, I can make this guy more prominent, or watch her story first, but every way I slice it, the story is complicated and there's no convenient way to ease a reader into it, because I've tried every way I can think of, and I'm just doing so bad I'm ready to give up.
And that brings me to where I am now. I can write. I can craft deep characters and unique scenarios. I can be funny if I don't try too hard. And naturally capture a range of emotions that reflect each character's individuality. But my stories still suck. And I'm not sure what to do about that. I know part of it is that I just read them too much. But part of it is that I'm still searching for my goal. Like, it's easy for me to say, "I'm going to write so the tone of this story is just like The Lies of Locke Lamora, or Swordspoint" (since those stories are very similar in tone to mine). But the problem I'm having is that I was developing my "serious writer voice" because I thought that was what we were supposed to do. And I kept writing and shelving things, and now I'm 14 years into this journey, with a massive collection of written words, but nothing to really show for it.
How do I deal with that? How can I strategize where to go from here? I know some of you are really strategic about your writing, and I feel like a hopeless starving artist right now, unable to just make and implement a plan, tough I plan all the time! Can anyone offer me some counsel? My goal is to finish a couple things, but I keep derailing my own train by not knowing what my goal should be, and I hear how childish that sounds in my own head, but I've done my best and failed to create goals and a linear method for working. It didn't go as planned, so I stopped writing because I couldn't take the next step. To complete the next step I had for myself (rewrite a detailed outline for the novel I'm currently editing), I'm going to have to take time and a lot of working outside my comfort level, to learn how to do the kind of outline I think I need, when in my head, I don't even want to do it or think I need it, and I'm just happy to scribble notes in a notebook and just write the story.
All the advice says, "Find something that works for you," and I've found a lot of great things that do work for me, but I'm in need of a few more advanced strategies, because I'm having a really hard time taking my second draft manuscripts into what I think looks like a professional product. (I'm having a really hard time in trying to understand whether I've got enough detail to engage an audience, but not so much it's heavy-handed, and the worst part is that when I get feedback from betas, one wants more detail and the other tells me to scrap the detail because it's erroneous.) Now, that's just one example of how I'm confused about my style and tone, and how it affects readers, but the problem is bigger than just that. I'm now so paranoid, I am avoiding writing out of FEAR. I'm afraid of going too far off track, of writing something I think is great, but then it's inconsistent in tone or style to other sections. I'm just plain agitated and anxious anytime I think about writing lately. I'm afraid of hearing another confusing crit. I feel like I've failed at all of this and was a good sport throughout, but now I just need someone rational to help me weed through all the confusing thoughts, and help me figure out what I need to do.
Any takers? I'm trying to do the, "Do YOU love this, Anita?" strategy, but it's not really working because I no longer know what I love. I'm just trying not to fail at this point, and it's definitely not helping me. I feel rather unhealthy when I think about writing.
I'm unsure whether my problem is that I need to turn writing into a recipe I follow that will yield the results I'm hoping for (because I've never believed much in formulaic writing as a definitive tactic to achieve professional quality), or whether I need to just take an extended break and rejuvenate (which I've been doing and keep getting back to the same stress level in shorter periods of time), or whether I just need to cut ties, do my best, and send stuff to someone else to edit, and just get over it. The worst thing is, I can totally write new stuff at any time, but then I do the same things to it, too. This isn't behavior I'm exhibiting over one terribly problematic work, I've developed as a destructive pattern. I'm like a meth-head picking scabs on her face...I can't remember life before I tampered and over-edited everything, reading it dozens of times and changing very little because I felt it was good, but I was just so afraid there might be something bad in there. and so I'd add in a couple little lines for "clarity" and soon, it's bloated and horrible. I worry so much about everything being perfect, I'm creating shambling zombie monstrosities that feel over-manipulated. And all I want is the feeling that I have achieved a level of professionalism, but in reality, I've gone off the deep end. How does one judge whether their writing is professional quality? That's the question I so need to answer, because one can't simply look at other books. Their nuances are too many to provide accurate comparison.
Help!
I've been absent for a few weeks, and have been struggling to write consistently for the last half a year. I wanted to ask some serious questions, and share my experiences. I know many of you know how I got started, know how big my stack of unfinished work is, and have traded with me, chatted with me, or otherwise shared this journey in the past five years. Thanks for that, by the way!
Recently, I had a really stark awakening. It was after that "Serious Writer Voice" article. I realized I'd been taking my work that I loved, and vanilla-ing it all down into something I felt was neat and non-polarizing in its execution, if not in its subject matter. But I was SO WRONG! And now I'm undoing all the damage I caused. But here's the thing...I'm really confused.
And so I'm asking you folks for advice, because I'm not sure what I'm doing anymore. My first three books are totally awful, so I'm not even going to think about them again ever. But I continued a series from there and fell in love with some of the stories. That's my fantasy series, and if I eliminate the first three, there are 5 more of them written, and one that's concept-only, but it's in the middle of the remaining ones. So there are those, and I like them and think they're pretty good story-wise (as in, worth rewriting so the quality is professional). Then, I have a stand alone novel you've all heard me talk about endlessly, similar to Renaissance Venice. The problem I've run into on this one is that it's too long. Like hella long, and I trimmed all I could, but then I noticed I cut "me" out, and eliminated my tone and style, for the sake of brevity. Plus, the story has some issues, but it's not unfixable. The main thing I realized was that readers have a hard time getting their bearing in the story because right from page one, there's a whole lot going on, because the inciting incident happened two years before the story opened. So either I need to learn more about how to tell a revenge tale, or I need to do my other inclination...write a prequel. I know, please stop cringing, I said it, and I'd grab my shirt collars and shake some sense into me too.
So a prequel...the point of that is that two of the story's MCs (of a cast of 7 MCs in the original story) would be center stage, and everything complicated in the original story, began in the past. So if I go back and write it out, then opening the other story might not be so awful, because there'll be all the history available in bite-sized portions in the prequel. And to be honest, I just haven't found a way to strategize the original novel in a way that any readers really like. I can open here, I can open there, I can make this guy more prominent, or watch her story first, but every way I slice it, the story is complicated and there's no convenient way to ease a reader into it, because I've tried every way I can think of, and I'm just doing so bad I'm ready to give up.
And that brings me to where I am now. I can write. I can craft deep characters and unique scenarios. I can be funny if I don't try too hard. And naturally capture a range of emotions that reflect each character's individuality. But my stories still suck. And I'm not sure what to do about that. I know part of it is that I just read them too much. But part of it is that I'm still searching for my goal. Like, it's easy for me to say, "I'm going to write so the tone of this story is just like The Lies of Locke Lamora, or Swordspoint" (since those stories are very similar in tone to mine). But the problem I'm having is that I was developing my "serious writer voice" because I thought that was what we were supposed to do. And I kept writing and shelving things, and now I'm 14 years into this journey, with a massive collection of written words, but nothing to really show for it.
How do I deal with that? How can I strategize where to go from here? I know some of you are really strategic about your writing, and I feel like a hopeless starving artist right now, unable to just make and implement a plan, tough I plan all the time! Can anyone offer me some counsel? My goal is to finish a couple things, but I keep derailing my own train by not knowing what my goal should be, and I hear how childish that sounds in my own head, but I've done my best and failed to create goals and a linear method for working. It didn't go as planned, so I stopped writing because I couldn't take the next step. To complete the next step I had for myself (rewrite a detailed outline for the novel I'm currently editing), I'm going to have to take time and a lot of working outside my comfort level, to learn how to do the kind of outline I think I need, when in my head, I don't even want to do it or think I need it, and I'm just happy to scribble notes in a notebook and just write the story.
All the advice says, "Find something that works for you," and I've found a lot of great things that do work for me, but I'm in need of a few more advanced strategies, because I'm having a really hard time taking my second draft manuscripts into what I think looks like a professional product. (I'm having a really hard time in trying to understand whether I've got enough detail to engage an audience, but not so much it's heavy-handed, and the worst part is that when I get feedback from betas, one wants more detail and the other tells me to scrap the detail because it's erroneous.) Now, that's just one example of how I'm confused about my style and tone, and how it affects readers, but the problem is bigger than just that. I'm now so paranoid, I am avoiding writing out of FEAR. I'm afraid of going too far off track, of writing something I think is great, but then it's inconsistent in tone or style to other sections. I'm just plain agitated and anxious anytime I think about writing lately. I'm afraid of hearing another confusing crit. I feel like I've failed at all of this and was a good sport throughout, but now I just need someone rational to help me weed through all the confusing thoughts, and help me figure out what I need to do.
Any takers? I'm trying to do the, "Do YOU love this, Anita?" strategy, but it's not really working because I no longer know what I love. I'm just trying not to fail at this point, and it's definitely not helping me. I feel rather unhealthy when I think about writing.
I'm unsure whether my problem is that I need to turn writing into a recipe I follow that will yield the results I'm hoping for (because I've never believed much in formulaic writing as a definitive tactic to achieve professional quality), or whether I need to just take an extended break and rejuvenate (which I've been doing and keep getting back to the same stress level in shorter periods of time), or whether I just need to cut ties, do my best, and send stuff to someone else to edit, and just get over it. The worst thing is, I can totally write new stuff at any time, but then I do the same things to it, too. This isn't behavior I'm exhibiting over one terribly problematic work, I've developed as a destructive pattern. I'm like a meth-head picking scabs on her face...I can't remember life before I tampered and over-edited everything, reading it dozens of times and changing very little because I felt it was good, but I was just so afraid there might be something bad in there. and so I'd add in a couple little lines for "clarity" and soon, it's bloated and horrible. I worry so much about everything being perfect, I'm creating shambling zombie monstrosities that feel over-manipulated. And all I want is the feeling that I have achieved a level of professionalism, but in reality, I've gone off the deep end. How does one judge whether their writing is professional quality? That's the question I so need to answer, because one can't simply look at other books. Their nuances are too many to provide accurate comparison.
Help!
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