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I remember quite distinctly the period of my life when I was first and foremost a writer. I was 14 to 18 years old, and I was gifted with the capacity to understand what the teachers wanted to see in tests, which is a good skill toi have, as it mimics intelligence well enough and it allowed me to spend a very minimal amount of time working for school, and most of my time on other stuff I wanted to spend time on. The biggest of my interests at the time was writing. I started a long epic fantasy series, and I gather that most 14-year-old writers do that. It was really bad, and I didn’t finish it – again, that’s standard. Then I wrote some short stories, which were actually not too bad… They would need some reworking and a less mechanical aspect, but some of them were okay I’d say. Most of the time, anyway, I was faced with the massive handicap of being a lazy fuck.
To be honest, that is only a partially accurate depiction of my issues. What I used to do was write like a maniac, having sessions of five or six hours where I would do nothing else but write, and in these sessions I came up with the best five or six pages that I could come up with. But then, once I had done that, I needed a laaaaarge period of time to “reload”, as if my batteries were down or something, I wouldn’t write anything for like three weeks or a month.
And because I was an idiot, I thought that was a perfectly OK model. I had read about how writers have different rhythms, how some just force themselves to sit every morning and write for four hours straight (Stephen King iirc), and how others just can’t be that systematic. I read Gaiman telling a netizen how “George R.R. Martin is not your bitch”, how you can’t expect a writer to dedicate his life to writing and do no other stuffs until his book is over. Gaiman isn’t wrong; I just made the mistake of assimilating it. He is saying that people shouldn’t push writers, and I read it as “I shouldn’t push myself to write.”
Things went worse after that. I entered University, in Literature, which is probably the worst thing you can do as a young aspiring writer. In my native language, as far as I know, there is no such thing as “storytelling classes”, and that’s a damn shame, cause literature does very little to appeal to your creative mind. First, it crushes the illusions that you might have had about being talented. You read about authors that can put so much more in a sentence than you can, and you hear from teachers who (most of them anyway) can draw so much more from a sentence than you could. Are you as good as any of them? No. At least, not as young and inexperienced as you are at that point.
My reaction to university was probably the worst that you can imagine. It was twofold. One, I started to distanciate myself from the act of writing. It didn’t seem to matter too much whether I was writing or not, because what I did was so unbelievably small and insignificant, when put in perspective with what had been done before. Second, the few times I did find myself writing, I started to do way over the top theorization. I couldn’t write a line without inserting third and fourth meanings behind each word, which resulted in writing like two paragraphs in four hours or something, and it drained me extra-fast. And then two weeks later, when I would read those two paragraphs again, I wouldn’t remember anymore why it was so central and necessary that I used this word or that one.
I drew a very basic conclusion from it, because I was still an idiot: I started to blame university for killing my passion. I hit the wall that I couldn’t write as lazily as I used to anymore and still be satisfied with the result. But instead of realizing that the problem was my laziness, I thought the problem was my extended knowledge of what was good writing and what wasn’t.
So I stopped writing, for quite a few years actually. I used that time to put some things into perspective, and make some realizations. I might start writing stuff again. Maybe I will use this blog for it, maybe I won’t. I don't know. For starters, I just wanted to write about writing. Mostly why to write, and how. This is already way longer than I expected it would be, so I’ll just write another blog post on how, and focus on why for this one.
So, why should you write? Notice I’m going with “should” here. I know there are tons of reasons why people write, and if you’ve ever been to a writing forum, you’ve probably read most of these. My feeling about that is that a ton of those reasons are terrible. I don’t mean that they’re wrong, I don’t mean that people lie about writing for those reasons, or that people are bad people for having those reasons to write. It’s just that those reasons are going to hinder, or completely stop, your evolution as a writer.
- Write because you have stories to tell! That seems intuitive, and of course you shouldn’t write if you have nothing to say. But that actually doesn’t happen: I’ve never met a single human being who didn’t have anything important to share. But having stories to tell isn’t the prerogative of a writer, it’s just the prerogative of creating something. Just because you have things to say doesn’t mean you need words to transmit them, maybe you’d do better with painting, or music, or whatever else floats your boat. Don’t write because you have stories to tell, write because you’re good at telling stories, write because words are the right medium to express yourself.
- Dissenters will object, write for yourself! That is a very common advice and it’s pure bullshit. For three reasons.
a) Writing is a communication from an author to an audience. If you’re just going to ignore the audience when they tell you you’re doing it wrong, then you’d be better off just writing a diary and not caring. That’s a different process. I wouldn’t expect the people who write a diary to enter university and write “omg dear diary, all these authors are so much better than me, I don’t want to write in you anymore”. The people who write diaries aren’t looking for advice on how to write, they just fucking do it. That’s why “write for yourself” is a bad advice, as it is addressed to people who don’t need advice, and aren’t likely to read it anyway.
b) People aren’t retarded. If they can’t share your personal trip, it doesn’t mean that you’re so much smarter than they are, it likely means that you have failed at rendering your personal trip accessible or pleasant. Don’t write in a bubble. If you finished a text and people can’t understand any of what you were trying to convey, then you haven’t achieved anything. Get back on it, be more precise. That’s part of being a writer, and by the way, that’s no small part at all.
c) It’s actually bad logic: just because you’re writing for yourself, doesn’t mean you can’t include any exterior influence. There is no dividing line. You can write for yourself, enjoy the act of writing, enjoy the feeling that you get when you put in the final word and realize that you have achieved something (as it is indeed fucking awesome), without having to ignore all criticism. Grow up. Accept help. People took time to read this text that they didn’t like and react on it. Respect that.
- Write for recognition. If you want recognition, I can think of like 750 things that you should try to do before you try writing. Doctor. Anything scientific. Mathematician. Even poker player. Being a writer because you want to be famous is a horrible horrible mindset, because you have little control on whether or not you’re going to become famous, and you’re likely to see a lot of people succeed with writing that you deem bad or uninspired, and get all resentful and angry and shit.
- Write because you have ghosts to escape. I love that line, it actually sounds even better in VO, which is French (“J’écris pour échapper aux fantômes.”). I read that on a forum and I still think that the person who wrote this is a genius just for having thought of it. Nonetheless, it’s still a terrible reason to write, because it’s the culmination of “writing for yourself”. Your ghosts are your own, we (as an audience) have no business sharing that chase. Also, depression is very detectable in a writing, and you don’t want to write something pointlessly negative. I’m not saying you should write about unicorns, to the contrary, most of my short stories were very dark. But that negativity should have a purpose, and a purpose that is inherent to the text. If the purpose is exterior, just chasing your own ghosts, then you’re probably just creating ghosts in other people’s minds, and that’s how the Vashta Nerada keep reproducing themselves.
In the end you should write because you want to express something, and your most advanced expressive skill is writing. Write when you need to. It’s very basic and very complicated at the same time. I’m not sure I could describe it, but I’m pretty sure most people have felt it anyway.
That being said, here are a few things to do in order to stop not writing.
- Stop thinking that you aren’t motivated enough at the moment. Please. That won’t ever change. If you want to write something, just fucking write it.
- Create deadlines. In extreme cases, find girls on the web, and write things for their birthday. You won’t get laid (At all. Ever.), but you will still be writing. There might have been a shift there, it’s possible that people didn’t work like this before, but a lot of the time our generation needs to HAVE to do something in order to do it.
- Don’t be afraid to share your process. We’re on the web, we can go for beta posts, we can edit, we don’t need to produce utterly perfect results from the start. Maybe you’re having trouble with a plot point, and you can’t find a way around it? Just post your damn problem. Let people weigh in. People are useful.
- Use your references. I used a modified Day[9] quote a few lines back. That’s not shameful. Plagiarism is such a huge thing today that people tend to approach writing as if no other human in history had approached it before. Originality only gets you so far. Worry about being good, don’t worry about being unique.
I hope I don't sound patronizing. I’ll try to be more concise on the second post anyway.
  
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Baa?21243 Posts
Things went worse after that. I entered University, in Literature, which is probably the worst thing you can do as a young aspiring writer. In my native language, as far as I know, there is no such thing as “storytelling classes”, and that’s a damn shame, cause literature does very little to appeal to your creative mind. First, it crushes the illusions that you might have had about being talented. You read about authors that can put so much more in a sentence than you can, and you hear from teachers who (most of them anyway) can draw so much more from a sentence than you could. Are you as good as any of them? No. At least, not as young and inexperienced as you are at that point.
Yea I know that feel - the sense of total incompetence when you see people do what you never thought was possible. It's totally crushing T_T
And yet, the other common advice for aspiring writers is always to read as much of the greats, the classics, the others, etc. as you can. Seems kind of contradictory, no?
I guess the major challenge is to overcome the first and reach the second =P I have no point to make here, fun blog~ Writing's too hard orz
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In general, I find that people who have things to say in written form are either insane geniuses or old enough to have read many books. If you do not fit into one of those categories yet, then keep reading! One of them will surely pan out 
And as for your bit on plagiarism, T.S. Eliot agrees.
“Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.”
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On September 19 2013 00:07 farvacola wrote:In general, I find that people who have things to say in written form are either insane geniuses or old enough to have read many books. If you do not fit into one of those categories yet, then keep reading! One of them will surely pan out And as for your bit on plagiarism, T.S. Eliot agrees. “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.”
"Good artists copy, Great artists steal" - Picasso
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the best advice to any aspiring writer is: 'shut up and read'
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normally i dont read blogs this long (unless its a girl blog) but this was a nice read. =)
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Reading can make you a mediocre writer, but writing can make you a passable storyteller, which I think is most important. Some of the best storytellers of our time are "mechanically" mediocre, but there's just that spark in how they tell their stories that touches people, and it has nothing to do with diction or hidden meanings, whether they use too many adverbs or none at all.
Other than that, write for yourself, then rewrite and edit for your audience if you have the spirit to do so. I find that the easiest part to writing is starting a story. The hardest part is finishing one. And then the worst comes when you have to knock the whole thing down and start all over again, because you know there's something off about it, but you don't know exactly what, except that it's in the foundation of the story. The whole thing goes (minus a few salvaged paragraphs here and there), and you start over again.
And after all this work, you find that it doesn't matter anymore anyways, because the story has become too personal for you, and you'll never share it. But you still finish it up to your own standards, just so you can say you did. :/
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Babs, are you implying that folks like GRRM and GGK have written more than they have read? I don't think that that is the case.
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I suppose it depends what you want to write. I realized that I wanted to write a novel with a bunch of ideas in it, and I didn't have the ideas, so it was pointless to write and I just needed to learn a lot more and collect ideas
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On September 19 2013 02:39 farvacola wrote:
Babs, are you implying that folks like GRRM and GGK have written more than they have read? I don't think that that is the case.
No, just implying that, past a certain point, there is little to gain from reading that you can't gain more effectively through writing (i.e. practice). Anyone can sit around and dissect a story/play/movie and say, "Oh, this is why X works, but Y really should have happened here, and there was not enough set-up for Z," but it's all moot until you sit down and try to write the story yourself. I think reading is very good for picking up certain things, like raw information, grammar (for very young/new writers), tropes, the basics of what makes up good characterization and pacing, the foundations of how to write a thematically strong tale, etc. But I can be aware of all these and still write a godawful story. And I think this is true for most people, unless they're "naturally gifted" -- which everyone knows is really just code for "I've written a lot of shit, and now I know better."
I also believe that effective storytelling is far more compelling to most people than great writing. Great writing is, well, great, but it's not what gets people to their feet, and it's not what will stick with them after they close your book.
On September 19 2013 02:40 sam!zdat wrote:
I suppose it depends what you want to write. I realized that I wanted to write a novel with a bunch of ideas in it, and I didn't have the ideas, so it was pointless to write and I just needed to learn a lot more and collect ideas
To a certain extent, yes, but if you're trying to disseminate your ideas, you'll need to know how to write a good story. And then you'll need to write a good story.
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I don't really buy all this stuff about practice
if you have something to write the words write themselves. Writing is easy, it's having something to write that's hard
it's not about disseminating ideas, it's about writing a book that is about something besides itself
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On September 19 2013 03:46 sam!zdat wrote:
I don't really buy all this stuff about practice
if you have something to write the words write themselves. Writing is easy, it's having something to write that's hard
it's not about disseminating ideas, it's about writing a book that is about something besides itself
Writing's easy. Storytelling is hard.
All books and stories have something to say about things larger than themselves, it's just that sometimes it isn't so clear, because the author never realized it.
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I guess it depends on what one wants for their writing. If you are looking to get your thoughts on paper and more or less write for yourself and no one else, practice might be more important. The problem I have with that approach is that when I look around at what is being published today, I don't see writers who need more practice, I see writers who need ideas.
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storytelling is easy. Something happens and then something else happens and so on etc.
+ Show Spoiler +if only someone could have explained this to virginia woolf when was writing to the lighthouse....
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On September 19 2013 03:58 farvacola wrote:
I guess it depends on what one wants for their writing. If you are looking to get your thoughts on paper and more or less write for yourself and no one else, practice might be more important. The problem I have with that approach is that when I look around at what is being punished today, I don't see writers who need more practice, I see writers who need ideas.
The ideas are already there, it's just the author who has failed to bring them out of the narrative. All stories are about something, even badly told ones. What happens first is that the author doesn't realize it (or doesn't care, or doesn't have enough time, or isn't practiced enough to know what to do), then doesn't telegraph it clearly in the text, and the readers miss it amongst all the conflicting signals, thinking it was never there to begin with.
On September 19 2013 04:06 sam!zdat wrote:storytelling is easy. Something happens and then something else happens and so on etc. + Show Spoiler +if only someone could have explained this to virginia woolf when was writing to the lighthouse....
If that's what you think it's all about, then I've nothing more to say to you on the topic. :/
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just trying to push yr buttons. It's fucking hard
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When people say "write for yourself," what they mean is write in whatever genre you want to write in, - not whatever seems popular at the time. Sort of how people should just play whatever game they think is most entertaining and satisfying, not whichever is at the head of the "ESPORTS" bandwagon.
If I chose to write thrillers so that I could best set myself up on the long road of a hack (not a bad thing), and it turns out I fucking hated thrillers, no matter how good I was at managing pacing and plot, I would not fucking write thrillers. That line isn't an excuse - it's a credo. Write what entertains YOU.
The world is big enough that if your execution is good enough (please separate execution from ideas, one is essentially worthless without the other, while the other is essential no matter what genre you write in) there WILL be a niche that likes to read your works. There absolutely fucking will be.
It does NOT fucking matter if writing is your most advanced expressive skill if it is what you have always wanted to do. What matters is that you do it. It is no more different than riding a fucking bicycle. Eventually, whether it takes 50 thousand words, or 200 thousand, the elements which you pick up from the books you like to read which matter the most, beats, setups, queues, managing a plot and proper expression of character, will begin to come to you.
Your advice is great. Because it's real. You get it dude. I bet you wish you had realized how much a crock of fucking bullshit university literary system is.
My advice - if you are having trouble with prose - find one writer whose beats and dialogue constructions you particularly enjoy and copy the sit out of them. Use your own material, but copy his or her style. As you use it as a vehicle for your own works, you will filter out what you like and don't like through use. As an example, when I was first reconstructing my prose, I copied a combination of Brandon Sanderson, Jim Butcher, and David Weber.
What did I want? Brandon Sanderson to me has always had some of the best character development. I analyzed how he used queues in his prose and took some of his ideas and constructions for myself.
Jim Butcher's Codex Alera series has some of the best witticisms and stark humor that I've read in the genre. Paragraph construction has always been a strong point of his. As far as beats and tags, I prefer his, so I took from him for the most part.
What did I take from David Weber? Prose flow (a dynamic between clipped and flowing like his), description, and plot construction. He and Sanderson both have the same sort of character interactions that I am looking for.
Don't be afraid to steal ideas and use them for yourself. Often times when people complain that they "just don't have any ideas" it means that they just don't have a PLOT! These people are very likely character oriented. Take a plot that you really love and use it for yourself. What will change it and make it your own are your characters and world.
One of my favorite tales is the story of how Mistborn came to be. What plot did Sanderson use? A heist plot. He was free to work with characters (his favorite) and his world in any way he wanted by not having to worry about the construction of his plot. Only when those were done did he tweak it and make it his own.
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I wish I could write up a long essai on this, but in short: avoid nativism.
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you are not as good as these professors, but do you ever feel like you have the precious opportunity to learn from their deep vats of knowledge that has accumulated in their cranium over the years?
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reading is good for you.. for writing.. i think..
i feel like reading is just as important as writing..
i dont know your experience studying literature at the university that you went to, but i feel like i learned a lot about writing through studying literature.. not only that but i definitely feel like there are classes depending on what university you are going to that are about "storytelling"..
i feel like the way i am interpreting "storytelling" that an effective study of literature.. or reading philosophy.. are things where you are trying to "get at" storytelling.. like that's the main goal..
i feel like the advice of writing for yourself is very important.. i feel like ive made my greatest strides, as an aspiring writer, when i decided that i didnt care what other people thought about what i wrote.. i think when i am trying to be myself, to express myself, myself truly, completely, honestly.. thats when i am most effective, not just in writing but in reading.. this includes feeling depressed.. or anxious.. or bleak..
someone said something about ts eliot here which i would make an example.. comparing the four quartets to the waste land.. in considering both written in sort of similar circumstances.. in the face of a global war.. i feel like the waste land is more effective because of this depression and bleakness that eliot feels, this uncertainty.. instead of the suredness that he has in the four quartets.. i always feel there is something very admirable, and comforting about the waste land.. the idea of eliots disintegrating marriage.. his nervous breakdown.. him running around, bombs falling everywhere, trying to save what he can, scrambling around.. negative emotions and negativity feel, to me, more important than positivity, than things being moralistic.. or having meaning.. its not the same for everyone, i know, but this is the reason that i read, this is what my desire to read stems from..
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EPT
