posted
Whenever I start writing, it seems like a fairly good story... the next day i'll look at it and think how stupid and kiddish it looks. Do I need to change my thinking about it? Or my writing?
Posts: 3 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
Have you tried withholding judgement until the piece is done? Write fast, don't overthink things, and see what you have after it's written down.
But even then don't panic; most people write really really awful first drafts.
posted
Wow, I used to have this problem all the time. Still do, sometimes. Beth has a point: don't go back and scrutinize it until it's done, or you won't ever get anything done. It's never going to be perfect. Get your ideas down on paper, even if you think that the draft itself is worthless. Chances are, as you write, you'll find yourself coming up with completely new ideas that will make your story stronger in the end. You won't get that creative flow going if you're constantly going back and looking at what you've already done. Sometimes you have to force yourself to do it, but it's worth it.
The first draft, for me, at least, is all about getting the basic idea into words. After that, I can play with it and tweak it until it's a decent story. I think that's the fun part, anyway.
One last thing: my later drafts almost never look much like the first draft. Don't be afraid to make big changes. Often, the first idea you get isn't the best one you can come up with, and there is nothing wrong with changing your entire story. But, in order to change a story, you have to have one to change first.
posted
Very true. Sometimes the first draft is just getting the idea out of your head so you don't lose it. Once you have a first draft, you have something tangible. I've always found revision to be much easier than writing fresh copy (just not as fun).
Posts: 2 | Registered: Aug 2010
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posted
Hmm. I've discovered the exact opposite to be true for me, Spaceman. It must be an individual thing.
Granted I agree that you should finish it before worrying too much--if you haven't gotten a lot of completed stories under your belt. First worry about quantity. Later on in your career you can focus more on quality. If you start worrying about quality before you have a lot of output under your belt you will just freeze up. If you've written for a while and produced a fair amount of words, that initial draft isn't as hard and you'll find that your quality has improved almost by itself.
I have found, after a year of writing pretty consistently, with about 100,000 words under my belt in short stories, that if my beginning is off, the rest of the story will be too. And revision sucks. I hate it. I am actually rewriting a 20,000 word work from scratch right now because for me that is easier than major revision.
Bottom line? Listen to everyone's advice but don't assume that what everyone else does will automatically work for you. Pick and choose what you like, and don't worry about the rest. As a new writer by all means experiment with lots of different methods; how else will you discover what works for you? But eventually you'll find a method, and then you'll know what kind of writer you are and won't have to ask for advice anymore.
posted
That's another thing you learn with experience. Beginners can't find story ideas. Experienced writers find them everywhere.
Here is an exercise we did at Uncle Orson's Writing Class. Find 5 story ideas, two from research, two from observation, and one from an interview. Thake them home and write a brief story with each, using ONLY one side of an index card for each story. Use outline form (present tense).
If you want to take it one step further, do the bootcamp exercise of writing the full story in 24 hours.
posted
Another thing you can do is always ask "why"--for everything you encounter. Why is that man running after the bus? The obvious answer is that he missed it, but what made him miss it, and why is it so important that he catch that particular bus instad of just waiting for the next one? Don't go for the first answer you can think of--try to find more unique ones.
Also, when you see an interesting person, give them a personality. If you see a little old lady with a walker and a tiny dog sticking out of her purse, make up a story about why she keeps the dog in her purse--maybe the dog tripped her, and that's why she has the walker.
It's hard at first, but you don't have to write anything down. Just do it in your head as you wait for other things to happen. After a while, you'll find it easier to develop interesting stories, because you do it all the time.
posted
I partially agree with autumnmuse: for me the first draft is always the most fun. I never compose directly on a computer, but instead write longhand using good old lined-paper and a pencil. And, yeah, a lot of the time typing it all up into the computer and reworking it can be a real drag. If feels like work! [Shudder] But unlike autumnmuse that's not the case all the time. For instance I had terrific fun recently revising a novella I wrote at the end of last year.
Now you may say why don't I avoid the drag of retyping my stories and just write straight onto the computer to begin with? But I much prefer longhand for that initial draft, and always have written them that way. Stephen King said he recently went back to longhand because he felt his words were trapped under glass when he was writing directly onto the computer (and given the size of some of his books his readers probably feel trapped under the weight of them when they try to pick them up!). I feel there is more of an immediacy and a connection when writing longhand.
But that's all off topic.
In regards to beginning a story I've never ever had any problems. Why? I simply don't sit now and start writing until I've already - in my head - written the first paragraph or two. They say the hardest part of a story for an author to write is the first sentence, which is just horse dung if you ask me. The trick to not being intimidated when you initially sit down and are confront by that white screen or white piece of paper is to write it in your head first.
To me the hardest part of writing is revising, in the sense of what to keep and what to cut. You're simply too close to the story sometimes in order to make that kind of judgement. (Murder your little darlings! they say, and we cry out But I can't!) That's why, when I finish a first draft, I photocopy the handwritten pages, file one at home and another at my parents' house (so as I've always got two copies of my first drafts somewhere at any one time) -
- and then I ignore it. I don't touch it. In the case of a short story, I'll let it languish for six months. A novel, a year. In the meantime, of course, I write. I have to do this, I have to abandon my stories; I need that distance.
As has been already said here - and will be said many more times in various topics - keep your head down during that first draft and don't look back. Meaning don't revise until the entire story is finished. Get the story down. You've noticed that you've just used the same adjective three times in the same paragraph? Who cares. Leave it. That's what editing's for. As I've said elsewhere in another forum think of editing as trying to wallpaper before you've built the wall, the wall being your story.
One final point, and this does very much relate to beginning a story: of all the novels, novellas, short stories and what not that I've written in the past sixteen years there has only ever been two occasions when I have not been able to finished a story, and therefore abandoned it. The single reason, I believe, that stories become busted is because we were unable to find the story's voice. Some members have already commented that, despite the fact that they knew what was going to happen in their story and even how to get there, they still couldn't finish it! And I bet the reason is because they couldn't find the voice for the story.
Of course, having said that, just because you may have found the voice and managed to finish the story still doesn't mean that it's any good!
And the final and only advice (and we've all heard this before, so let's all chant it together!) read read read. Then when you're done doing that write write write and write again, take a break, go make a coffee or have a beer, then write some more!
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