In which I pose two writing-related questions (with various related sub-queries).
First: what are your strengths when writing? What do you feel that you do well? Why do you do it well? How would you tell others that have trouble doing what you believe you do well?
Second: what are your weaknesses? What gives you difficulty? Why do you think that is? How can you improve this thing that gives you the shivering shits and the fretful fits?
(Writing can be about the language, but I’m also including storytelling in all this.)
I ask these things in part just to evaluate what we do, and how we do it.
I also ask because maybe, just maybe, you can help each other.
Community, and all that.
*hands out straitjackets and thorazine*
*locks the asylum doors*
DISCUSS.
Vicious Pen says:
Strengths: I’ve been told I’m rather original, and not in a “ooh look at me I’m doing crazy stuff to be different” kind of way. When I ask readers to explain they often can’t, they’ll just say it feels different, good different, take it however. People say my writing is compelling. I often get people persistently asking me to write more about something so they can find out what happens next. Been told I get in your head, had someone get so scared reading a horror story of mine they left their own house for 6 hours. I’m not sure really, people read me and say it’s just different and fun to read, interesting, they get excited when they read something of mine, like excited about how good they think it is.
Weakness: My biggest weakness is me. I used to be the most prolific writer you’d ever meet, but I’m down to a 12th of what I used to be able to do. Read an article by this author talking about how writer’s go through this period of needing support and reassurance and encouragement, till they get past it and are “in their stride”. I had something traumatic happen with a loved one couple years back and my writer hasn’t been the same since, it’s my confidence mostly, just, shot, constantly question myself, feel unsure. I could talk about issues with commas and story structure and shit, but the truth is, my inability to shrug off that doubt is my greatest thing holding me back. It just kills me, makes me wonder if I should stop cause maybe I’ll never get past it.
November 3, 2014 — 10:15 AM
allreb says:
Allrighty, I’ll play.
My biggest strength is plot: I am very good at throwing things at my characters, raising stakes, twisting things around, and building to a big ol’ climax. I’m not sure why I do it well, except that I’m pretty naturally good at looking at a story and figuring out what elements to add or condense to make the payoff bigger – my brain spits out “what ifs?” aplenty, and often one of them will work out better than whatever I’d originally planned. (Of course, then I have to figure out how to deal with the consequences of said what ifs, but that usually makes the story stronger, too.)
What I’d tell others who have trouble with that comes back to the what if: toss out everything you think you’re going to do, and ask questions about alternatives – what if your main couple don’t get together? What if the villain you’ve been planning is just a red herring, then what’s really going on? What if the back up your character is waiting for never shows up? Etc, etc – until you hit on something that feels dire and exciting. Then you’ve got it. 🙂
My weakness is, well, the opposite of all that: character motivations. I get very caught up in moving pieces around my chessboard that I often forget, you know, that the characters should feel things about what’s happening and have actual reasons for moving where they do that don’t consist of it being necessary for the plot. Making sure the characters shine and no one can squint at them and see me pulling strings behind the scenes is my weakness.
I tackle this by doing round after round of revision, asking my crit partners to tell me where they don’t buy what’s going on, crying, drinking wine, and revising some more. Usually around the third or fourth draft they finally stop feeling like paper dolls. I’d love to be able to speed that process up, honestly.
November 3, 2014 — 10:25 AM
Katie says:
Allreb, I feel like I’m precisely the opposite. While character development, motivations, etc. come pretty easy to me, plot is pretty difficult. But I thought I’d let you in some things that I do in my character-making process just in case it helps?
For a while, I wrote online in some community RP forums. I didn’t get involved in any big plots, but one of the most valuable things I found is that when my character was interacting with others, the writers in charge of Romantic Interest, Best Friend, Nemesis, etc., would ask me a lot of questions. “What would s/he do in X situation?” It helped me create a character that I understood much more, just because I had to answer these questions and justify them if they didn’t make sense.
Another thing that I’ve done, if you care to take less time than the above, is to pluck characters out of one universe and smoosh them into another. There was an interesting writing prompt that went on for 30 days, and each day was a new fandom. You could take whatever characters you wanted, and then would put them in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer universe, or in Harry Potter, etc. What you’ll find (at least, what I did) is that there are some things about Character X that stay the same, and others that change drastically. For example, I have universes in which my favourite go-to character is a female, some where they’re a male, some where they’re an addict, others where they’re an investigator or an engineer, etc. But the core of their being–their motivations and prejudices and aversions to having a lot of money–those remain regardless.
I don’t know if either of these will help you out, but I hope so. Your current methods of talking to crit partners and revising are really good already. Sometimes just doing it in different ways can help spark some new ideas. Best of luck!
November 3, 2014 — 11:20 AM
allreb says:
That’s really interesting, thank you! I love the alternate universe idea.
November 3, 2014 — 3:16 PM
Bagatell says:
Strength – Going by both what I’m told, and where I feel most sure, then creating characters and portraying them is where I shine. Pretty sure this has something to do with years of role-play, my constant ideas for them, and the fact that characters has always been what makes the story for me, more so than the story itself (‘Hey, remember that book where they did this stuff?’ ‘Uh, no, but I do remember how rad Character G was.’). I’m sitting on a folder stuffed full of characters who doesn’t belong to any story (yet), because ideas for them are easily provoked, and the only way to make them shut up about how much fun they’d be is to bleed them out and stuff them in a box until I’m ready for them.
Weakness – These are closely linked: blank documents and rambling. That endless whiteness that just goes on and on makes me spazz, and I end up writing nothing at all. For NaNo last year I found two methods that usually does the trick for me, which is pen and paper, and a ‘this is what happens in this chapter’-lists to mark up the path. When I write by hand, it means I’ll run out of paper and ink, which in turns means I feel like it’s going somewhere. It’s visible progress. And it curbs the ramble a great deal, because I get punished for those 20-page ‘I can’t remember the point’ kinds of detours with a nifty cramp.
November 3, 2014 — 10:28 AM
Kevin Wallace says:
Strengths – Passion. Lots of people have it, and I do too. I understand the world better when I make stuff up about it. I create situations that I’m afraid of or hopeful for, and then I let them play out on a page as this answer to some twisted, convoluted “what if” scenario. Life is better when I’m doing it.
I can start a story with no trouble, once I understand the fictitious players, and then they become not-so-fictitious.. They dance and talk and laugh and cry and behave like humans do… or at least like I would imagine humans do.
Weaknesses – Finishing. Maintaining the forward momentum in the fourth kilometer of the 5k. Once I commit to a character dying or to progress toward a definitive ending, I become paralyzed. What if it’s wrong? What if it’s stupid and hokey and ridiculous?
The blank white of the first page of a new chapter is the most terrifying enemy that I face on a regular basis. Sometimes I have to type something stupid just to destroy the perfection of it, and waves of words wash out from it like ripples from a stone thrown in a pond.
Continuing the running metaphor, the very hardest part of the run is quite often lacing up my shoes and getting out there to start. Life is busy, and “more important” things can easily distract me away from this “silly little hobby” of mine, even though the benefits are very tangible once I’ve done it, even if no one reads.
It’s the grit, Chuck, just like you said.
*gets in the back of the thorazine line again, hoping you won’t recognize me*
November 3, 2014 — 10:55 AM
Faith A. Colburn says:
I am really good at writing complex English sentences. I believe that is because teachers used to REALLY teach English grammar. when we diagrammed sentences, we didn’t just underline subject and predicate like my kids were taught to do. We DIAGRAMMED the darned things.I am often taken back by modifiers of various kinds that don’t modify what they’re intended to modify. I couldn’t name the parts of a sentence anymore because it all became second nature when I was in about fourth or fifth grade.
I’m very much challenged by writing character emotions. I come from some very stoic people, so for me, what looks like very intense emotion (some slight, almost imperceptible gesture or a quiet word) comes off to “normal” people as flat, dead, unemotional.
November 3, 2014 — 11:08 AM
mat says:
Sentence structure, punctuation etc are massive weaknesses of mine. I put that down to not being taught it at all in English as a kid, I could probably construct a better sentence in Spanish than English.
I’m trying to get round it by writing shorter snappier sentences, which is a discipline I’m happy with. However it would be useful to have a guide to sentence structure.
Anyone got any recommendations?
November 5, 2014 — 2:48 AM
Patricia Harvey says:
Strengths: Using lyrical language (love creating unlikely turns of phrase – but it’s gotta flow); natural (as opposed to forced) similes and metaphors; robust nouns and active verbs. Embedding description into dialogue (instead of doing info dumps). Fold-backs, used as a technique for adding background without becoming episodic. Embedding the meaning of foreign terms. Capturing emotion through dialogue and body language. And probably structuring scenes and sequels.
Weaknesses – In other words, things I’m learning to do: Not being episodic just because I want the reader to experience something cool. Remembering to restate the MC’s story goal in different ways, to remind readers what is important to MC. Identifying scene goals and motivation before wasting time with stuff that isn’t important. Moving forward. (I’m good at polishing, not so great at plotting.)
November 3, 2014 — 11:23 AM
fadedglories says:
Wossa fold-back please? I’ve not come across that term before.
November 4, 2014 — 3:24 AM
joshuamneff says:
My strengths: I generally quite proud of the dialogue I write. I think it snaps–I’m mostly influenced by the dialogue of Joss Whedon, Aaron Sorkin, and 1930s screwball comedies. I’ve also been told my overall style is nicely “unpretentious” but I’ve also been told I’m good at “fucked up metaphors” and unusual imagery.
My weaknesses: I’m not great at plotting. I’m not great at actually planning out a plot and when I pants it, the plot tends to rely heavily on overused tropes. But even worse, I talk myself out of starting stories way too easily, and when I do start them, I’m much better at starting than I am at finishing. It’s the main reason I love NaNoWriMo–I publicly hold myself accountable for writing constantly and really working at finishing what I start. And even if the finished plot is cliche as hell, it’s something that can be worked on in later drafts.
November 3, 2014 — 11:28 AM
leifthesailor says:
Dialogue seems to be a strong point of mine along with anything mechanical, science. Dialogue used to be a week point of mine, but I did an experiment. I decided that I needed to do an interview style story and that did the trick. I’ll admit, the story is shit. The rewrite I did for it came out better, but it still borders on face due to ridiculous plot. My other stories have improved so much though since dry and lacking dialogue is now a thing of the past.
The science and anything mechanical description comes with my engineering degree, fancy that; a non english degree that helps with writing.
My week point is describing how people look. I can imagine how people look perfectly in my mind, but when it comes to translating words I just have a hard time. It is a weakness that will leave with a little practice.
November 3, 2014 — 11:33 AM
leifthesailor says:
*farce not face.
November 3, 2014 — 11:34 AM
Brian says:
I think I’m pretty good at dialogue in general. Making each character sound and feel unique within the story. Each character having their own personality that shines through interaction. The comic relief that some characters bring into a scene. The turn of phrase that makes you think of a Quentin Tarantino movie at times.
My weakness would have to be setting up the scene and describing the surroundings. I’ve gotten some complements for it from some of my readers but I’m never quite satisfied. It always feels inadequate, but at the same time I don’t want to spend three pages describing each scene when the characters are only going to be there for a few moments.
November 3, 2014 — 11:51 AM
J.T. Evans says:
Based on feedback I’ve received from others (agents, editors, critique group partners, etc.), here are my two items:
The Good) I absolutely rock at combat scenes. It doesn’t matter if it’s one-on-one, in-your-face swordplay, mass combat, unarmed, armed, ranged, etc. I nail it. It’s a natural talent of mine to take almost 3 decades of martial arts practice (both armed and unarmed, armored and unarmored) in a wide variety of disciplines and translate that into words that evoke the motion, action, feelings, sensory details, and very gut-wrenching nature of a fight.
The Bad) I suck at dialogue. As a good friend of mine (very nicely) asked, “You’ve been role playing for over 30 years, but you somehow fall short when it comes time to have your characters speak. Why?” I don’t know why. I still haven’t been able to put my finger on it. Sometimes, I put things down in a natural manner, but I think that’s more luck than skill. Dialogue is the #1 thing I’ve been working on in my craft lately.
November 3, 2014 — 11:56 AM
Carol McKenzie says:
Do you talk out loud, as your characters, while you’re writing? I’ve been told I carry on conversations while I write…sometimes while I’m not writing, but that’s different.
Maybe just sit down and have a chat with your characters, as if you were talking to a flesh-and-blood person. See what they have to say, how you respond. Write that down, see how it feels. Read it out loud, see how that sounds.
November 3, 2014 — 12:41 PM
A Citizen of the World says:
I second Carol re talking out loud when writing dialogue. I try it in my head first, then I write it out in screenplay format because that format is a shorthand way to see how the conversation flows since it doesn’t have description and dialogue tags getting in the way. Then I say it out loud in the rhythm that I’ve said it in my head. It’s when you say the words out loud that you realise if they sound stilted or natural.
Also – I’m one of those weird writers whose characters literally talk to them. Literally. I’d be halfway writing out a scene and one of them would pause, break the 4th wall and tell me: “Hey! She’d never say that. I would!” And there have been times when all characters have paused in the scene and yelled at me: “NOOOO! We didn’t say that!”
On the flipside: do you have any tips re writing combat scenes? I know I’m going to have to write some of those as the kids in my book grow up and kick ass (literally).
November 4, 2014 — 9:58 PM
jrupp25 says:
I write dialogue well. I’ve spent 30 years performing and producing theater. Reading and watching plays, I think, is a very good way to improve one’s dialogue skills. I’m not good with narrative description because I forget to write it down. After all, in theater, it’s the scenic designer’s job or the costume designer’s job or the lighting designer’s job.
November 3, 2014 — 12:34 PM
Melissa Clare says:
What I do well: Character development, especially dialogue. I think I do it well because I can see and hear the characters so clearly. There’s a piece of me in each of the characters – whether they’re male or female, hero or villain, etc. There’s also often an element or two from someone I’ve met in the real world. Those elements give me a handle to get inside the character’s skin and understand who they are and what they want, even if it’s not something I would ever want. Believable dialogue comes naturally when you’re in the character’s head like that. To someone having a hard time developing characters, I’d suggest writing out some personality, social, and physical traits of theirs, key points in their history, but also assigning them a trait or two from someone you know who might be a bit like them. Also, try writing monologues in their voice (even if they’re never a first person character) and read your dialogue out loud.
My weaknesses: Plotting, in general. I’m not convinced the tension is really rising in my recent stories. It feels a bit like it’s just trucking along and then: climax. I also know that I sometimes rush scenes. I’m afraid of being boring and I sometimes get feedback about how the scene just flashed right by and there wasn’t time to really get lost in it. The only way I can think to improve that is to force myself to write more in a given scene, take my time through it, then cut later on if need be (it will probably still be too quick. I know this.)
November 3, 2014 — 12:35 PM
Kyra Dune says:
Strength: I’ve been told I do characters very well. Especially in YA. I’ve been told I really know how to get inside a teenager’s head and show what motivates them.
Weakness: I have a hard time writing body language. I know it’s important to intersperse dialogue with action to avoid bogging things down with two many tags, but I have hard time figuring out how best to describe people doing things without sounding stilted or repetitive.
November 3, 2014 — 1:45 PM
Savannah says:
So just to preface, I am writing my very first novel as we speak, so my experience is very limited. That being said, so far my strengths are character and general plot brainstorming. I have yet to have writer’s block in the sense that I can think of plenty to write. I immediately had an idea for the main plot, my major characters and their interactions, and the setting itself. I breezed through understanding my character’s weaknesses, strengths, and motivations.
My issue comes in when I realize the mechanics don’t make sense. For instance, I have had a single lingering issue of how my POV character gets from this point A to point B for the entirety of the writing process. Instead of just dealing with the nitty gritty details and figuring out how it all works I have written a draft around it, because I am afraid of doing it in an illogical way. Basically, I am a procrastinator on the hard stuff.
November 3, 2014 — 1:59 PM
Wendy Christopher says:
Okaaay…
Feel a little out of my comfort zone when it comes to bigging myself up, but I’m told I’m strong on character building and dialogue. I think dabbling in acting and doing a two-year Performing Arts course has helped enormously with that; once you’ve done a few roles that require Breaking Through The Dickhead Barrier, you’re forever less self-conscious about putting yourself into a character’s skin to test out how they’d REALLY say what they’d say in a given situation. The hands-down best way to improve your dialogue skills is to act out the dialogue you’ve written as if you were your characters . You don’t have to be Olivier for it to be effective; just hearing your words spoken out loud is enough, because anything clunky will show up straight away (as will those snappy lines that look great on paper but are in reality devilish difficult to get your tongue around.) If you really can’t face that, the next best way is to imagine the scenes as a movie or tv series playing out in your head, with suitable actors saying your lines.
Weakness? My two biggest both come under the mantle of ‘describing stuff.’
Number one is describing settings and locations in my story – I know what it looks like in my head, but when I try to transfer what’s in my noggin to the page… I swear to God, sometimes it doesn’t even look like I’m speaking English. That’s if I even REMEMBER I’m supposed to tell readers where the poor buggers actually are for a particular scene, of course.
And number two is a rather unfortunate side-effect of thoroughly absorbing the mantra ‘show, don’t tell’ in my quest to Never Use An Adverb Ever when writing dialogue. So, instead of my characters doing their thing “something-ly” they sometimes get caught up in an endless cycle of frowning, raising eyebrows, waving hands, nodding, shrugging, staring… Kind of like Thunderbirds puppets on crack.
Betcha really wanna read my stuff now, huh? 😉 I am at least getting better a spotting my moments of sheer terribleness, so I think there’s hope for me yet.
November 3, 2014 — 4:01 PM
fadedglories says:
I haven’t read anything of yours apart from your flash pieces but the dialogue problem, could it relate to the words your characters use?
if a character is angry does he swear? If he’s in love does he use terms like ‘darling’, ‘beloved’ or ‘fluffybunkins’? Do you convey moods by having another character make a comment like. ‘What’s gotten into you?’ or ‘You keep looking at that girl. I don’t think you’ve heard a word I said.’
Is that helpful at all?
November 4, 2014 — 3:43 AM
Beth Bishop says:
Strength: Dialogue. I’ve been told my dialogue is very natural and believable, that readers can hear my characters in their heads. Most of my stories and novels are driven by dialogue. I think what makes a writer good at dialogue is actually listening to other people when they talk to each other. I try to replicate that but remove the aspects of conversations that can make them convoluted.
Weakness: Too much detail. If I don’t watch myself carefully, I tend to describe settings and people until there is no room left for the reader to imagine. I know this stems from being a bit of a control freak. I know what the settings and people look like in my head, and I want everyone else to see them the same way. I draw floor plans, sketch portraits, and so on. An editor pointed out this flaw to me, giving me specific examples from my writing and reasons why it can be so annoying to readers. She said, “You describe things to death.” She told me to hack and slash that stuff and only add it back if it was really essential to the action of the story or just to get a feel for what a character looks like. It’s the best personal writing advice I’ve ever received, and it has made me mindful and careful about that aspect of my writing when I’m in edit mode.
November 3, 2014 — 7:05 PM
Jessica says:
I exist most comfortably in the often-awkward space between poetry and prose, and so I am good at mood, at setting, at rhythm, and at meaning.
I struggle with characterization, and have never fully reconciled with the paradox of sketching through fiction an experience wildly divorced from one’s own. I struggle with dialogue, perhaps in part due to my own nature — I’ve always been a better listener than talker. Or perhaps due simply to my struggle with character: if I don’t know who a person is, how will I ever anticipate the words that they might say?
These things I continue to work at, to struggle with. Some days I think I might be making progress.
November 3, 2014 — 9:48 PM
mangacat201 says:
I know exactly what you’re talking about ‘listening’ instead of ‘talking’ I don’t really have a problem per se with dialogue, or feeling a character’s voice out, but I can just ramble on in someone’s head for ever and ever and not notice that nothing really happens outside anymore…
November 4, 2014 — 3:07 AM
Evee says:
I’m good at dialogue. People who read my stuff say that my characters talk like real people, and I’m pretty good at figuring out how to give my character a personality by the way they talk. My weakness; description of scenes. First, too much description always bores me as a reader, so I’d rather focus on character and plot development. Second, I feel like I’m using the wrong words and my descriptions feel cheesy or blocky…they just don’t flow. I’m never going to be a writer who waxes poetic for several pages about the sunlight through the trees, but I do need to work on giving readers just enough detail to put them in the scene, just to set the reader’s imagination on the right path.
November 3, 2014 — 11:09 PM
Official says:
Strengths: I’ve always been told I have a way with words, especially on non-fiction work. I’m also extremely good at what-if situations and playing devil’s advocate.
Weaknesses: Getting the words from my brain onto paper. The words/character/scene are bouncing around but I don’t feel that I can ever portray them like they’re in my head. So, I procrastinate a lot because I think the reality won’t live up to the fantasy. I’m not great at leading a plot and sometimes I can over describe the scene.
November 4, 2014 — 6:34 AM
Mozette says:
My strengths is my spelling and grammar… I know that sounds oh, so dorky, but it is. I was that square of a kid who sat at the front of the class who brought a dictionary and thesaurus to class; because I really wanted to be a writer – and had been since I was 5 years old. To me there was nothing better than sitting down and writing a book.
Weaknesses of mine were my characters and where to put them… how to make them act. I didn’t know how to make them work to start with. Then, after much practice, they followed my direction because (as stupid as this is going to sound) I got it… I understood that I was supposed to damn well tell them what to do! Shit!
Then, I was told that my sex scenes really sucked out loud.
Well… okay… at least there’s something I could seriously work on.
I asked about my plots to my reader friends… some of them said my plots moved either too fast or too slow… but they liked how my endings came to the twistiest endings since Stephen King and that I really can write the biggest and baddest arsehole of a bad guy – so much so that when the bad guy is killed off they actually go and celebrate that he’s dead (now that’s something).
Otherwise, I feel that sometimes my books can do with more in the story-telling area, while my Constant Readers and First Readers tell me to keep it the way they are… I guess it’s just how people like things. I’ll keep them happy, but description was always my forte. 🙂
November 4, 2014 — 8:30 AM
mariceljimenez says:
I don’t know what my biggest strength is. I think I do dialogue well. I can hear my character’s voice in my head and I use dialogue a lot to reveal things. But maybe my biggest strength is proofreading (believe it or not). I can spot a typo a mile away and they tend to give me headaches. That doesn’t mean my manuscripts don’t have them, they do; plenty. But if I set them aside for a while and pick them up again the typos just stand out. Therefore, I’m great at doing that last proofreading. But that’s not really handy as a writer. Not really, you could get someone else to proofread your work.
So in the end, it boils down to the weaknesses. Those I’m well aware of. My biggest weakness is sticking to my decisions. I decide what will happen in a story and change my mind later. I start writing a book and then decide I’d rather work on a second idea. I get 20 ideas while trying to work on 1 single idea and get horribly distracted. I used to get stuck on names, but eventually I decided to go with the first name that came to my head. I can always change those later. In a completely blank name situation, you can always write “character A” and find replace later. Ridiculous how silly things like names can get you stuck. I guess we all have our blocks.
This was a good exercise Chuck. Thinking about these will help me I think, so thanks!
November 4, 2014 — 1:19 PM
Geneza says:
Strength: I can usually tell right away whether an idea will work for me or not. That way by the time I sit down and start keyboard-punching, I already know that YES, this is the scene/plotline/chapter I want to write, and can commit to it fully. Sometimes I do get sentimental and try to smuggle in an idea that I really like on its own, but that does not really fit well to the rest of the story – but deep down I always know it won’t work well, and it’s usually gone by the second draft.
Weakness: I love plotting and outlining, but sometimes I feel I am allergic to simplicity. For me, things have to be nuanced, intertwined and complicated, so writing flash fiction in like trying to fit an rhino into a shoebox. Maybe it’s because I grew up on fantasy sagas – you know, the kind that always came with the glossary at the end because otherwise it was impossible to keep track of all the characters.
Also, while the best things you could say about my descriptions is that they are made of words, the thing I struggle even more with is fitting them between all the action and dialogues. I tried the trick with getting into the character’s mind and describing what she is feeling, but I always figure that they have more important stuff going on (say, action or dialogue) than to describe the colour of the walls. Whenever I try to include a description that takes up more than half a sentence, it always feels like it’s clunky and detracts from the overall story – and the characters always end up being suspended in nondescript void.
November 4, 2014 — 1:49 PM
Wanda Fittro says:
My biggest strength is dialogue. Worst problem I have – passive voice. I really like the word ‘was’.
November 5, 2014 — 1:28 PM
Jeff Black says:
I’m nothing to scream about but I would say that dialogue is my strongest suit, whereas plotting and coming up with plausible story progressions just vacuums my soul clean of all its joy and happiness. I’m hoping this is an actual skill you can develop with time and practice, but so far it’s just brutal.
I almost feel like I’d be better at taking someone else’s plot idea and writing the story for them at this point.
November 6, 2014 — 1:30 AM
mandybroughton says:
My strength is brevity.
My weakness is knowing when not to be.
November 9, 2014 — 10:26 PM
storyteller5 says:
Strengths: Creating characters that readers care very deeply about; kick-ass plots. Like a lot of the people here, I feel I have a real flare for dialogue. But I don’t control my characters or put words in their mouths–they’re in charge.
Weaknesses: I used to really suck at description, because I personally hate it when an author goes on and on about how the sunlight looks when it hits the mountains in the summer. Unless you’re amazingly interesting when it comes to describing things (Elizabeth Berg), you’ve lost me. I’m skimming until I find the action again. So I have a tendency to not include enough description, but I’m working on that.
My worst weakness is self-doubt. I had a terrible agent for four years, and subsequently stopped sending my stuff out to agents and editors for another FIVE years. I just started again in April. I do bad things to my novels when in the grips of self-doubt, like adding unnecessary prologues. And people can always tell right away–anything I’ve added out of fear and insecurity jumps out at them.
I’d love to get my armour back. Any tips?
November 12, 2014 — 2:13 AM
tracikenworth says:
I’ve been told I write dialogue well. That my characters actually sound different from one another and true to who they are. I’m weak in the area of body language. It always feels like I’m writing Insert Slot A into Slot B etc. Of course, maybe this is just the first drafts, by the time I get it beta ready, things seem to smooth out. Still, describing people and their actions just seems so mechanical to me. I hope to one day change this by learning as much craft as I can.
November 13, 2014 — 8:24 PM
soluzek says:
I’m late to this party, apologies. For years I wrote in third-person perfect tense, which it seems most fiction is written in. And then one day, six or so years on now, I wrote a particular section in first-person present… I fell in love and never turned back. My writing improved by leaps and bounds, and I welcomed, and still welcome, the challenges of writing with such a tight focus.
Going from those who’ve read works of mine, the one thing that stands out on feedback, and which encompasses so much of story-telling – they tell me my characters all have their own distinguished voices, their personalities reach up and grab them…a huge compliment that I accept with pride, because I work endlessly, tirelessly, some-other-long-term-adverb-ly at this, moreso than anything else. I want the reader to feel every emotion, their pain when they’re harmed in some way, their happiness or joy, to blush and feel humiliation or shame…I want the reader to transcend and /become that character/, just as I do when I write them. My hardcore belief: The characters write the story.
Weaknesses…two spring to mind immediately. One – settings/describing environments. This has only gotten worse since switching to FPP, and I borrow from my own life here – when I enter a room, I don’t look from wall to wall, corner to corner, floor to ceiling, and take in everything. No, I walk in and something, or perhaps a couple of somethings, catches my attention – the tan…or is it dirty?…crumb-covered couch topped with animal hair to make it more appetizing, the over-sized and off-center chandelier, the stunning panoramic window looking out onto a rock garden. It’s the same with people – the stunning (color) eyes, the blast of freckles, the crazy hairstyle, realizing I’m taller than them by several inches.
So I can write these snatches of setting or description, but pulling more than a couple of sentences out at a time is sheer agony. Thus I try and draw attention away from the poor description and put it where it belongs, on the characters and what they’re doing.
The second is organization. Post-it’s should be for writing a note to come back to, placed somewhere that I can’t miss. Instead, there’s about four pads worth of Post-it’s with omgsoimportant writing notes stacked haphazardly in little clumps everywhere, with no rhyme or reason or chronology to be found. Add in the six writing journals thrown about the house, with half the pages randomly scribbled in oft-incomprehensible writing, in all directions. Let’s not even get into the innumerable Word files, all with ‘Notes1’, ‘Notes2’, ‘Notes4785’ as identifiers all spread out in whatever folder – not in the folder where the ongoing novels are, that would be too easy, not to mention the lack of sticking to a single story even within each file…
November 27, 2014 — 11:36 AM
Cait says:
1. Description, It’s one of the things I love the most when I read and in writing I’m really good at packing the little things and vivid detail into my work. I think I do it well because I’ve always wanted to show what I see and hear and smell, the works, so that’s something i’ve focused on practicing. If you’re having trouble describing something I’d recommend creating lists, describe the smell, the texture, the sound, taste, etc of that thing in as many words as you can. Give that thing a round wordiness.
2. Dialogue/character interaction. I suck at those things and it’s not for lack of practice in my writing, i feel it’s lack of practice in the great wide world, I don’t talk a lot, I don’t hold a great deal of conversations, don’t meet a lot of people outside of brief encounters at the shops when I do leave my house, i’m hugely agoraphobic. i’m also very a ‘write what i’ve experienced’ kinda person (something i’ve been trying to work on tbh because I can’t experience everything). I feel like i’m improving on it by just watching and listening how other people interact, watching movies and tv shows that good character interactions and friction and just really getting into the nitty gritty of who my characters are.
August 17, 2017 — 12:38 AM