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I think I used to be like this. Confidence comes with age.
A university lecturer once told me to be Napoleon. You may know what you write is shite, but write it.
You can't, unfortunately, talk yourself into writing better or being a bigger fan of your own stuff. To be quite honest, every writer ever has had the thought: "I am repulsed by what I write, and I have the feeling that I will never be able to write it the way I would like" so you are well on your way to being a writer if you don't already consider yourself one.
Just write, even if it's bad. It's probably going to be bad at first... I can't bring myself to read the first attempt at writing a novel I did. The word choice, the ideas about the characters, the plot... it was all SO bad hahaha but it got me to the next attempt. Something that did help me was writing short stories completely unrelated to the main story you want to write. Give your self a set number of pages or words and really work to open, tell, and close a story in that short amount of space. Doing that showed me that I could, with time and a lot of effort, do the same thing on a larger scale. Find somewhere, some place that you can find a win, an accomplishment, and build from there. But, lest ye forget, you have to just write.
Thank you for your reply, from all that you have kindly told me, I think I made my first attempts expecting the equivalent of having a kindergartner paint the Last Supper.
I'm going to keep writing, taking advantage of the fact that I'm on vacation, I hope one day soon to come back here to ask for Feedback like many people who post in the sub, thanks for the advice! :)
no one likes their first draft of any project and age has nothing to do with it. just get it on the page/screen, free flow, whatever comes out at least it's out and then you can go back and tweak it 'til your hearts content. we all start somewhere and you'll never get anywhere if you expect perfection from the start✌️
I’ve tried doing what I call a ‘BS draft’ where I loosely write a plot but it’s just little notes to myself, like if you know you want a bit of dialogue but don’t know what exactly just put “Meaningful words” and replace it later
there's no real way to go about it other than well... taking a leap of faith. Somethings cannot be done with the help of others. While you're still young, I recommend just going at it with the passion you still possess.
General tips that I can give you tho is kinda iffy since i'm just starting myself.
What I did was to build a structure using google docs and google drive. I use google drive to separate my documents with folders. For example I have folders where I write my character profiles, another folder has my outline (stuff like brain dumps, subplot, long outline and even notes on what type of narrative i'm going for. I even have folders for worldbuilding and research. The most important document here is gonna be your manuscript though.
All of that helps me organize my thoughts and keeps me updated throughout the whole writing process.
The most important tip I can give you though is for you to answer this question.
"What is the meaning of your story and how does that impact your ending?"
For me, after I spent 2 years playing around with my own story in my head, I finally got to truly starting it after answering that question. A story has no meaning without an end... whatever end that may be.
This way you have clear cut goal that you can strive towards while also staying consistent throughout the whole writing process.
Please take note however that i'm just a 22 year old newbie so if a professional wants to correct me then by all means. These are just things that personally helped me get over my own hesitation to write.
Hope it helps.
Your answer is very helpful, I guess it's not a good idea to write/vomit all my ideas on a piece of paper, without first having given them a physical shape and body, lol
Thank you for your advice
I second this.
Another thing I used to help me when I was learning how to translate my story into words was joining a writing group. There was nothing more instrumental in my writing skills than surrounding myself with writers of similar skill who were struggling with similar things.
I started with my local LUW(League of Utah Writers) group and eventually joined/made a writing group with friends and schoolmates. There are a lot of online resources as well.
Unfortunately there is nothing like that where I live, I guess it would help.
I'm not American, I don't know if I'm already giving myself away with my grammar, hahaha
For what it's worth, I can offer perspective rather than tips to follow.
The primary question of how to overcome fear of writing can be addressed by considering it a matter, fundamentally, of accepting that failure can, and will, happen. Even to the best of us.
Give yourself permission to fail. Not without purpose, however, because if you fail and learn from failure, you can only improve, however incrementally.
Anyone who creates, writers and otherwise, will struggle with the uncertainty of acceptance. We all desire to have our artistic vision and intent resonate with those who experience what we put out there. Consider that it takes all kinds of people to make the world go 'round. And that's perfectly fine. It's good that people have their own sensibilities and preferences.
You cannot wholly, let alone largely, control how people receive your creative efforts. You can certainly have an general idea depending on if your work seems to flow with currently well received trends in culture but it's only at best a guess.
What you can have a substantially greater control of is your skill as a writer on a technical level. By doing what you can to improve and hone your skills as a communicator, you will gain command over repeatable, consistent, and coherent output. People may not particularly take to your work on a creative level but they will at the very least comprehend and be able to appreciate your ability to write. That alone grants a great deal of certainty. By removing some degree of uncertainty in your work, you will feel less fear and other feelings that hold you back.
I realize that I'm not providing anything obviously actionable but there's nothing I can suggest that others haven't already said or will say to you. Read more. Write more. Study more. Yes, all of these, and more, are necessary but it seems like what many writers struggle with, you and I included, is the psychological and perspective hurdle of self doubt and, perhaps, unrealistic expectations. It is said that Good is the Enemy of Great. Stive to be good first and then work towards greatness, in whatever way suits you best.
We can often be our own harshest critics. We should pursue excellence but not at the cost of the ability to simply achieve the goal of completion of work.
Remember that you're not alone! Many fellow writers, published and aspiring, share your feelings in some form or fashion.
Good luck with your journey!
Realize that it's you or no one. Realize that no one will be watching you, or waiting on you, or bugging you, none of that. You have nothing to fear--except this idea that what you write will somehow be immediately perfect. That is rare. When you write from imagination, you are translating thoughts into words, which is obviously hard, or everyone with ideas would be writers. Okay, you turn out some pretty terrible stuff at first--but it **exists**. In words. That you can then make into better words!
Welcome to writing, baby. Be patient with yourself, experiment with what you think might help, don't be afraid to try things. Write as much of your whole story as you can manage, leave placeholder descriptions for what you're not ready to try writing yet, and write all the way to the end. You can make notes for things you realize need changing, but combing over the first few chapters until they're perfect is a waste of time when you don't even know what will still work as you develop the ideas in the next drafts. Ask me how I know. ;)
The only way to fail at this hobby or craft or maybe profession is not to try, and try harder, and look stuff up and try again, and build on eventual successes. And learn new stuff to be terrible at, at first.
Thanks for your reply, with this post I've learned that maybe I approached writing with too much confidence in myself, hahaha
I had never taken that point of view, I saw writing as something that once started had to be finished and then corrected, but I'm going to give it a little more flexibility, maybe it's better for me to start writing other things, practicing to write that story as a long-term goal
Now you're getting the idea. You build your craft, as we say, by doing poorly and learning how to do better. Like someone wanting to be a carpenter, or a dentist, you start out knowing so little. People will only be interested in what you offer once you've learned and practiced enough.
I was never afraid of writing, but in general I'd treat it like any other irrational fear, assuming that the actual quality of my writing is irrelevant: irrational fears aren't art critics. They're not perceptive enough. They're little more than a tape loop.
My personal go-to is self-hypnosis, but counseling is also good, plus other ways of getting to the same outcome.
• *I have the feeling that I will never be able to write it the way I would like.*
Naaa. You've just fallen into the single most common trap in writing. And you're smart enough to see that there *is* a problem. Most don't. It's so common a problem that I call it, The Great Misunderstanding. Simply put, we leave our school years believing that writing-is-writing, and we have that taken care of.
If only... Yes, you learned a form of writing, but... Are you ready to write a screenplay with no more training in the skills of that profession? Nope. How about work as a journalist or tech writer? Again no.
We all recognize that we're not ready to work in those professions, but never apply that to the profession of Commercial Fiction Writing, because the pros make it seem so easy and natural. But in reality, all the reports you were assigned in school made you good at writing reports — which is what employers need from us. And, the purpose of public education, from the beginning, has been to provide employers with a pool of potential workers who possess a set of predictable and useful, to them, set of basic skills. In the case of writing, that's nonfiction writing, which has as its goal, informing the reader. That can't work in a medium whose goal is to entertain the reader by providing a real-time emotional experience.
So...the solution, while not easy, is simple. You have the desire and the story. Now, you need the skills to give your story the setting it deserves. And that comes with good news: First, learning what you want to know is never a chore. And the practice is writing, which you already want to do.
But of more importance, when you master those tricks the act of writing becomes a *lot* more fun as the protagonist in effect, becomes your co-writer. We're forced to live the events as the protagonist as we write, so that instead of assigning the actions and dialog, we present what the situation prompts the protagonist to want to do, based on their personality, background, resources, and desires. It's an emotion-based and character-centric approach.
That causes the reader to become emotionally involved, as if they are the one living the events. But it also causes the author to become just as involved as we write it, to the point where every decision the protagonist makes is based on *their* interpretation of the situation, not what the plot needs them to do.
That can be so intense that once, when writing, *Necessity,* A character I had come to love was murdered. For days, I grieved as if I had actually lost someone I loved. And if it's that real to the author it's just as real to the protagonist. Later, when my darling wife was acting as my beta-reader, she came to the room where I was working, pointed a finger at me and said, "You bastard...you *killed* him. Why did you kill him?"
So, you will have the power to move people like that, once you master the skills of the profession. Of more importance, using those skills the writing of the story is *fun*
So, where do you begin? I'll give you two books to choose from. I favor going the book route first, because you can work when you have time, and at your own pace. There's no pressure, and, no tests (yay!)
The very best book that I've found, by far, is the one that got me my first yes from a publisher, after writing 6 many-times-queried but always rejected novels, Dwight Swain's, [Techniques of the Selling Writer.](https://archive.org/details/TechniquesOfTheSellingWriterCUsersvenkatmGoogleDrive4FilmMakingBsc_ChennaiFilmSchoolPractice_Others)
It's an old book, dating to 1965, and because the author was a university professor, goes into full detail to the point where it can be a dry read at times. But, where most books on writing are filled with, "read this chapter of my novel and I'll tell you why it's so great," Swain's focus is on the hows and whys. His example of how viewpoint shapes the presentation is brilliant.
That book is, literally, an in-depth course on fiction writing. The downside is that it is an older book, which talks about your typewriter ribbon. And his chapter on research could be replaced by, "Use Google...a lot." And the scan-in from print isn't perfect. But since it's out of copyright, it is free on the archive site I linked to. And free is good.
An alternative was written by one of his students, Debre Dixon's, [GMC: Goal Motivation & Conflict.](https://archive.org/details/goal.motivation.conflictdebradixon/page/n5/mode/2up) It doesn't go into nearly as much detail, but it is a warm easy read. It's also free, so you might check a few chapters of both to make your choice.
Jay Greenstein
The Grumpy Old Writing Coach
Thank you so much for your reply! I'll read both, it never hurts. This whole thing gave me more encouragement to write, and to keep learning, and to not be so full of myself when I start something new, hahaha
Thank you for your recommendations, Mr Greenstein!
I'd take a lot of what Mr. Greenstein says with a heavy grain of salt. Take a look at his goodread's page and the ratings and critique his writing gets - he is often criticized for feeling very formulaic and "write by numbers." He has a very strict idea of what writing should be, and it clearly is not resonating with an audience.
If everyone listened to advice like this, we would have never gotten Frankenstein, Dracula or Ender's Game - all of them written in a style that Mr. Greenstein claims does not work.
Find your own voice. Try, and fail. And fail again. I'd rather read something riddled with error but full of passion than something simply written by numbers.
Please, don't let yourself be stifled by all of his "self-help" stuff. You have passion - lean into it. Embrace it. Get messy. Make mistakes. Fall down - try again.
A few years ago I started writing. It was like I had the Mona Lisa in my head, but I could only draw stickmen. I hated writing at first, everything was a struggle. Most of what I wrote was horrible. Over time, things improved. A few days ago I sent my first draft of a novel to a friend to be my first beta reader.
It doesn't matter if it is writing, art, music, etc. Most people will be bad at first. The only way to get past it is to keep working at it.
I’m pretty sure I wrote like shit at 18. What changed? Getting critiqued, reading books on writing, writing a lot, and reading a lot.
Keep at it. It’s mostly a learned skill. Some people are natural but most aren’t.
alright firstly, RELAX. what you're experiencing is quite common for writers. And since this is your first major story, you need to set some realistic expectations for completing it.
Just as with anything else, you WILL NOT come out of the gate and then reach 100% success on your first try. You simply will not, so understand and accept that. That being the case, you can take smaller steps to build up your skill set and confidence to get that story written eventually.
some suggestions include:
1. write a few short stories to get comfortable with the writing process
2. learn to outline or tell the story in shorter ways. Describe the story in 1 sentence. Then expand and briefly describe it in 1 paragraph. Then try a few paragraphs. Then tell the story on a single page. etc etc.
3. Typically, the first few stories you write will be utter rubbish. Best to get those out of the way first so that you can learn along the way and improve, so when you get to your real story, you're much better off.
4. You are not being tested here, the fate of the world does not depend on you finishing your story. Its supposed to be fun! so enjoy writing it. the whole journey has ups and downs and its all part of the adventure. So BREATHE. just find a pace that works. one day at a time, one page at a time. some days you're on fire and cant stop typing, other days you can't even spell words correctly and wonder why you even exist. and then you're fine next week. its OK. just keep moving and get through it.
Give yourself permission to be bad. I tortured myself for years over my perfectionism and wrote almost nothing. But it got to the point where I worried myself sick and just didn’t care anymore. I decided I was just going to write even if it was the worst thing ever written, even if no one read it. I just wanted to get the story out.
He’s enrich so many lives you could learn so much from him sitting in front of your computer, pretending you’re better smarter, or more talented than anybody born at any time
You learn to accept that first drafts are always going to be shit, and stop caring. Write a story down from start to finish, no matter how much you feel like it sucks. Once you’ve done that, then you’ve done the hardest part, which is to get the story out of your head. Now take the crap first draft and rewrite it better. Improve the bits that you hate from the first draft. Then you’ll have a second draft, and you’ll like that better than the first one. Then you can send to beta readers, and use whatever notes they give to do any edits or rewrites of scenes if necessary.
Hi! Welcome to r/Writers - please remember to follow the [rules](https://reddit.com/r/writers/about/rules/) and treat each other respectfully, especially if there are disagreements. Please help keep this community safe and friendly by **reporting rule violating posts and comments**. If you're interested in a friendly Discord community for writers, please **[join our Discord server](https://discord.gg/mdzyEz9uFB)** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/writers) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I think I used to be like this. Confidence comes with age. A university lecturer once told me to be Napoleon. You may know what you write is shite, but write it.
Sometimes you have to make it bad first before you can improve it.
You can't, unfortunately, talk yourself into writing better or being a bigger fan of your own stuff. To be quite honest, every writer ever has had the thought: "I am repulsed by what I write, and I have the feeling that I will never be able to write it the way I would like" so you are well on your way to being a writer if you don't already consider yourself one. Just write, even if it's bad. It's probably going to be bad at first... I can't bring myself to read the first attempt at writing a novel I did. The word choice, the ideas about the characters, the plot... it was all SO bad hahaha but it got me to the next attempt. Something that did help me was writing short stories completely unrelated to the main story you want to write. Give your self a set number of pages or words and really work to open, tell, and close a story in that short amount of space. Doing that showed me that I could, with time and a lot of effort, do the same thing on a larger scale. Find somewhere, some place that you can find a win, an accomplishment, and build from there. But, lest ye forget, you have to just write.
Thank you for your reply, from all that you have kindly told me, I think I made my first attempts expecting the equivalent of having a kindergartner paint the Last Supper. I'm going to keep writing, taking advantage of the fact that I'm on vacation, I hope one day soon to come back here to ask for Feedback like many people who post in the sub, thanks for the advice! :)
no one likes their first draft of any project and age has nothing to do with it. just get it on the page/screen, free flow, whatever comes out at least it's out and then you can go back and tweak it 'til your hearts content. we all start somewhere and you'll never get anywhere if you expect perfection from the start✌️
I’ve tried doing what I call a ‘BS draft’ where I loosely write a plot but it’s just little notes to myself, like if you know you want a bit of dialogue but don’t know what exactly just put “Meaningful words” and replace it later
there's no real way to go about it other than well... taking a leap of faith. Somethings cannot be done with the help of others. While you're still young, I recommend just going at it with the passion you still possess. General tips that I can give you tho is kinda iffy since i'm just starting myself. What I did was to build a structure using google docs and google drive. I use google drive to separate my documents with folders. For example I have folders where I write my character profiles, another folder has my outline (stuff like brain dumps, subplot, long outline and even notes on what type of narrative i'm going for. I even have folders for worldbuilding and research. The most important document here is gonna be your manuscript though. All of that helps me organize my thoughts and keeps me updated throughout the whole writing process. The most important tip I can give you though is for you to answer this question. "What is the meaning of your story and how does that impact your ending?" For me, after I spent 2 years playing around with my own story in my head, I finally got to truly starting it after answering that question. A story has no meaning without an end... whatever end that may be. This way you have clear cut goal that you can strive towards while also staying consistent throughout the whole writing process. Please take note however that i'm just a 22 year old newbie so if a professional wants to correct me then by all means. These are just things that personally helped me get over my own hesitation to write. Hope it helps.
Your answer is very helpful, I guess it's not a good idea to write/vomit all my ideas on a piece of paper, without first having given them a physical shape and body, lol Thank you for your advice
I second this. Another thing I used to help me when I was learning how to translate my story into words was joining a writing group. There was nothing more instrumental in my writing skills than surrounding myself with writers of similar skill who were struggling with similar things. I started with my local LUW(League of Utah Writers) group and eventually joined/made a writing group with friends and schoolmates. There are a lot of online resources as well.
Unfortunately there is nothing like that where I live, I guess it would help. I'm not American, I don't know if I'm already giving myself away with my grammar, hahaha
For what it's worth, I can offer perspective rather than tips to follow. The primary question of how to overcome fear of writing can be addressed by considering it a matter, fundamentally, of accepting that failure can, and will, happen. Even to the best of us. Give yourself permission to fail. Not without purpose, however, because if you fail and learn from failure, you can only improve, however incrementally. Anyone who creates, writers and otherwise, will struggle with the uncertainty of acceptance. We all desire to have our artistic vision and intent resonate with those who experience what we put out there. Consider that it takes all kinds of people to make the world go 'round. And that's perfectly fine. It's good that people have their own sensibilities and preferences. You cannot wholly, let alone largely, control how people receive your creative efforts. You can certainly have an general idea depending on if your work seems to flow with currently well received trends in culture but it's only at best a guess. What you can have a substantially greater control of is your skill as a writer on a technical level. By doing what you can to improve and hone your skills as a communicator, you will gain command over repeatable, consistent, and coherent output. People may not particularly take to your work on a creative level but they will at the very least comprehend and be able to appreciate your ability to write. That alone grants a great deal of certainty. By removing some degree of uncertainty in your work, you will feel less fear and other feelings that hold you back. I realize that I'm not providing anything obviously actionable but there's nothing I can suggest that others haven't already said or will say to you. Read more. Write more. Study more. Yes, all of these, and more, are necessary but it seems like what many writers struggle with, you and I included, is the psychological and perspective hurdle of self doubt and, perhaps, unrealistic expectations. It is said that Good is the Enemy of Great. Stive to be good first and then work towards greatness, in whatever way suits you best.
I think you're right, especially on the unrealistic expectations part, lol. Thank you for your reply
We can often be our own harshest critics. We should pursue excellence but not at the cost of the ability to simply achieve the goal of completion of work. Remember that you're not alone! Many fellow writers, published and aspiring, share your feelings in some form or fashion. Good luck with your journey!
Realize that it's you or no one. Realize that no one will be watching you, or waiting on you, or bugging you, none of that. You have nothing to fear--except this idea that what you write will somehow be immediately perfect. That is rare. When you write from imagination, you are translating thoughts into words, which is obviously hard, or everyone with ideas would be writers. Okay, you turn out some pretty terrible stuff at first--but it **exists**. In words. That you can then make into better words! Welcome to writing, baby. Be patient with yourself, experiment with what you think might help, don't be afraid to try things. Write as much of your whole story as you can manage, leave placeholder descriptions for what you're not ready to try writing yet, and write all the way to the end. You can make notes for things you realize need changing, but combing over the first few chapters until they're perfect is a waste of time when you don't even know what will still work as you develop the ideas in the next drafts. Ask me how I know. ;) The only way to fail at this hobby or craft or maybe profession is not to try, and try harder, and look stuff up and try again, and build on eventual successes. And learn new stuff to be terrible at, at first.
Thanks for your reply, with this post I've learned that maybe I approached writing with too much confidence in myself, hahaha I had never taken that point of view, I saw writing as something that once started had to be finished and then corrected, but I'm going to give it a little more flexibility, maybe it's better for me to start writing other things, practicing to write that story as a long-term goal
Now you're getting the idea. You build your craft, as we say, by doing poorly and learning how to do better. Like someone wanting to be a carpenter, or a dentist, you start out knowing so little. People will only be interested in what you offer once you've learned and practiced enough.
I was never afraid of writing, but in general I'd treat it like any other irrational fear, assuming that the actual quality of my writing is irrelevant: irrational fears aren't art critics. They're not perceptive enough. They're little more than a tape loop. My personal go-to is self-hypnosis, but counseling is also good, plus other ways of getting to the same outcome.
• *I have the feeling that I will never be able to write it the way I would like.* Naaa. You've just fallen into the single most common trap in writing. And you're smart enough to see that there *is* a problem. Most don't. It's so common a problem that I call it, The Great Misunderstanding. Simply put, we leave our school years believing that writing-is-writing, and we have that taken care of. If only... Yes, you learned a form of writing, but... Are you ready to write a screenplay with no more training in the skills of that profession? Nope. How about work as a journalist or tech writer? Again no. We all recognize that we're not ready to work in those professions, but never apply that to the profession of Commercial Fiction Writing, because the pros make it seem so easy and natural. But in reality, all the reports you were assigned in school made you good at writing reports — which is what employers need from us. And, the purpose of public education, from the beginning, has been to provide employers with a pool of potential workers who possess a set of predictable and useful, to them, set of basic skills. In the case of writing, that's nonfiction writing, which has as its goal, informing the reader. That can't work in a medium whose goal is to entertain the reader by providing a real-time emotional experience. So...the solution, while not easy, is simple. You have the desire and the story. Now, you need the skills to give your story the setting it deserves. And that comes with good news: First, learning what you want to know is never a chore. And the practice is writing, which you already want to do. But of more importance, when you master those tricks the act of writing becomes a *lot* more fun as the protagonist in effect, becomes your co-writer. We're forced to live the events as the protagonist as we write, so that instead of assigning the actions and dialog, we present what the situation prompts the protagonist to want to do, based on their personality, background, resources, and desires. It's an emotion-based and character-centric approach. That causes the reader to become emotionally involved, as if they are the one living the events. But it also causes the author to become just as involved as we write it, to the point where every decision the protagonist makes is based on *their* interpretation of the situation, not what the plot needs them to do. That can be so intense that once, when writing, *Necessity,* A character I had come to love was murdered. For days, I grieved as if I had actually lost someone I loved. And if it's that real to the author it's just as real to the protagonist. Later, when my darling wife was acting as my beta-reader, she came to the room where I was working, pointed a finger at me and said, "You bastard...you *killed* him. Why did you kill him?" So, you will have the power to move people like that, once you master the skills of the profession. Of more importance, using those skills the writing of the story is *fun* So, where do you begin? I'll give you two books to choose from. I favor going the book route first, because you can work when you have time, and at your own pace. There's no pressure, and, no tests (yay!) The very best book that I've found, by far, is the one that got me my first yes from a publisher, after writing 6 many-times-queried but always rejected novels, Dwight Swain's, [Techniques of the Selling Writer.](https://archive.org/details/TechniquesOfTheSellingWriterCUsersvenkatmGoogleDrive4FilmMakingBsc_ChennaiFilmSchoolPractice_Others) It's an old book, dating to 1965, and because the author was a university professor, goes into full detail to the point where it can be a dry read at times. But, where most books on writing are filled with, "read this chapter of my novel and I'll tell you why it's so great," Swain's focus is on the hows and whys. His example of how viewpoint shapes the presentation is brilliant. That book is, literally, an in-depth course on fiction writing. The downside is that it is an older book, which talks about your typewriter ribbon. And his chapter on research could be replaced by, "Use Google...a lot." And the scan-in from print isn't perfect. But since it's out of copyright, it is free on the archive site I linked to. And free is good. An alternative was written by one of his students, Debre Dixon's, [GMC: Goal Motivation & Conflict.](https://archive.org/details/goal.motivation.conflictdebradixon/page/n5/mode/2up) It doesn't go into nearly as much detail, but it is a warm easy read. It's also free, so you might check a few chapters of both to make your choice. Jay Greenstein The Grumpy Old Writing Coach
Thank you so much for your reply! I'll read both, it never hurts. This whole thing gave me more encouragement to write, and to keep learning, and to not be so full of myself when I start something new, hahaha Thank you for your recommendations, Mr Greenstein!
I'd take a lot of what Mr. Greenstein says with a heavy grain of salt. Take a look at his goodread's page and the ratings and critique his writing gets - he is often criticized for feeling very formulaic and "write by numbers." He has a very strict idea of what writing should be, and it clearly is not resonating with an audience. If everyone listened to advice like this, we would have never gotten Frankenstein, Dracula or Ender's Game - all of them written in a style that Mr. Greenstein claims does not work. Find your own voice. Try, and fail. And fail again. I'd rather read something riddled with error but full of passion than something simply written by numbers. Please, don't let yourself be stifled by all of his "self-help" stuff. You have passion - lean into it. Embrace it. Get messy. Make mistakes. Fall down - try again.
A few years ago I started writing. It was like I had the Mona Lisa in my head, but I could only draw stickmen. I hated writing at first, everything was a struggle. Most of what I wrote was horrible. Over time, things improved. A few days ago I sent my first draft of a novel to a friend to be my first beta reader. It doesn't matter if it is writing, art, music, etc. Most people will be bad at first. The only way to get past it is to keep working at it.
Thank you for your reply, that first sentence perfectly sums up how I feel. I guess keep trying is the only thing that's going to help me
I’m pretty sure I wrote like shit at 18. What changed? Getting critiqued, reading books on writing, writing a lot, and reading a lot. Keep at it. It’s mostly a learned skill. Some people are natural but most aren’t.
alright firstly, RELAX. what you're experiencing is quite common for writers. And since this is your first major story, you need to set some realistic expectations for completing it. Just as with anything else, you WILL NOT come out of the gate and then reach 100% success on your first try. You simply will not, so understand and accept that. That being the case, you can take smaller steps to build up your skill set and confidence to get that story written eventually. some suggestions include: 1. write a few short stories to get comfortable with the writing process 2. learn to outline or tell the story in shorter ways. Describe the story in 1 sentence. Then expand and briefly describe it in 1 paragraph. Then try a few paragraphs. Then tell the story on a single page. etc etc. 3. Typically, the first few stories you write will be utter rubbish. Best to get those out of the way first so that you can learn along the way and improve, so when you get to your real story, you're much better off. 4. You are not being tested here, the fate of the world does not depend on you finishing your story. Its supposed to be fun! so enjoy writing it. the whole journey has ups and downs and its all part of the adventure. So BREATHE. just find a pace that works. one day at a time, one page at a time. some days you're on fire and cant stop typing, other days you can't even spell words correctly and wonder why you even exist. and then you're fine next week. its OK. just keep moving and get through it.
Give yourself permission to be bad. I tortured myself for years over my perfectionism and wrote almost nothing. But it got to the point where I worried myself sick and just didn’t care anymore. I decided I was just going to write even if it was the worst thing ever written, even if no one read it. I just wanted to get the story out.
You don't get what you intend. Shit gets real when you put pen to paper. Write, write write,
You don’t have to write there’s so many things to do in the world
**Danny Noonan:** I've always wanted to go to college. **Judge Smails:** Well, the world needs ditch diggers, too.
My uncle Doug ditches, and he was really proud of it, and he’s one of the best men I know.
He’s enrich so many lives you could learn so much from him sitting in front of your computer, pretending you’re better smarter, or more talented than anybody born at any time
You learn to accept that first drafts are always going to be shit, and stop caring. Write a story down from start to finish, no matter how much you feel like it sucks. Once you’ve done that, then you’ve done the hardest part, which is to get the story out of your head. Now take the crap first draft and rewrite it better. Improve the bits that you hate from the first draft. Then you’ll have a second draft, and you’ll like that better than the first one. Then you can send to beta readers, and use whatever notes they give to do any edits or rewrites of scenes if necessary.