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Things You Fear As A Writer?


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What are you afraid of when writing any kind of story, including fanfiction? My fears consist of the following:

  1. The chapters are too short. (I tend to gravitate around 2k words.)
  2. The OC is not a solid character, or that he's a Mary Sue.
  3. The canon characters acted OOC or they were too shallow.
  4. The story is too complex or cliche.
  5. My writing style sucks.
  6. Other people might bash my work over and over again.

Of course, the last one hasn't happened to me yet, although I remember filtering through guest reviews and found an unsigned one saying "What a sh*tfic." which I removed at once. The rest of my reviewers have been positive, with one breaking down every new chapter and pointing out the flaws in a constructive way. In return, I commended him for his positive insight in one of my author's notes.

So what do you guys fear during writing? I'd like to see other people's take on their own problems.

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My main thing is that it will get ignored, generally I don't have problems with the rest of the things sans maybe short chapters. Sorry to hear you got a troll review.

Edited by Dragoncat
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5 minutes ago, Dragoncat said:

My main thing is that it will get ignored, generally I don't have problems with the rest of the things sans maybe short chapters. Sorry to hear you got a troll review.

Ignored, huh. Yeah, that happens a lot especially if the category you're writing for is really big, like Pokémon or FE. Ironically, my main fanfic is the second most recently updated fic in the Pokémon/PJO crossover section, and yet it fails to draw reviews. Only one guy reviews frequently, and there are two others who left a couple of reviews here and there.

Also, I signed up for AO3 in case the ff.net witch hunts get me, as my main fanfic quoted a lyric from Lost In Thoughts All Alone. I might use AO3's liberal environment for writing about the characters singing, as there's a lot of songs I'd like to try.

My invite will arrive around June 15.

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I am very self-conscious when it comes to certain plot elements that even slightly resemble things from movies / tv shows / games etc. Whenever I catch such resemblances, I am inclined to either rewrite the scene or drop the story completely if there are too many.
It's gotten so ridiculous that only I can see the resemblances, but none of my friends and family (my only circle of readers until now) have seen them. If they ever do, I think I'll have a heart attack or something.

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3 hours ago, Purple Mage said:

Ignored, huh. Yeah, that happens a lot especially if the category you're writing for is really big, like Pokémon or FE. Ironically, my main fanfic is the second most recently updated fic in the Pokémon/PJO crossover section, and yet it fails to draw reviews. Only one guy reviews frequently, and there are two others who left a couple of reviews here and there.

Also, I signed up for AO3 in case the ff.net witch hunts get me, as my main fanfic quoted a lyric from Lost In Thoughts All Alone. I might use AO3's liberal environment for writing about the characters singing, as there's a lot of songs I'd like to try.

My invite will arrive around June 15.

Also if the fandom you're writing for isn't very big, sometimes it gets ignored. I usually have to ask people to read, rarely do I get people reading on their own.

Cool, that works!

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6 hours ago, Purple Mage said:

The canon characters acted OOC or they were too shallow.

pretty much this. The dialogue I write for them is either too cringey, one note, or just plain bad or it sounds like something they would never say. Dialogue is just really hard for me to do.

Getting ignored is another one I don't like. It's just really I put a lot of work into this read it please!

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2 hours ago, Purple Mage said:

Ignored, huh. Yeah, that happens a lot especially if the category you're writing for is really big, like Pokémon or FE. Ironically, my main fanfic is the second most recently updated fic in the Pokémon/PJO crossover section, and yet it fails to draw reviews. Only one guy reviews frequently, and there are two others who left a couple of reviews here and there.

Getting reviews or people to read seems hard. A friend of mine has a Persona fanfic, but most of the people who read it were his friends, another was a random person who stumbled upon it, and another was some odd guy who asked him to write chapters for his fics (which make as much sense as Bubsy episode scripts).

Uhh, as for my fears:

- Having wooden dialogue: I'm not exactly the most sociable person, so I have issues with thinking how other characters should behave/talk with each other without sounding robotic or wooden. Writing interactions in the style of Star Wars' prequels is my [Darth] bane.

- Missing details: I can easily forget about stuff that should be important for scenes, but that I forgot about or omitted writing.

- Dragging: I have issues balancing descriptions and dialogue. There are times when I realize my characters have been talking for what feels like forever and nothing significant happened ever since. Which brings me to...

- Minimalistic details: I'm bad with descriptions. Appearances, buildings, decorations, food, environments, I keep forgetting the proper words for them and sometimes my vocabulary is just too short for properly describing things, so I rely on being vague and having the reader fill the details I intentionally left blank. It makes my descriptions bland, though.

- A contrived plot: A plot that no one understands or that overall makes no sense is my greatest fear. Sometimes I don't think things through, and that dilemma which is pivotal to the plot to make sense from a dramatic point of view ends up being a false dilemma that could've been solved easily. Sometimes the worldbuilding itself doesn't make sense or I stumble with elements that weren't intended to exist. Sometimes I just can't plan properly.

- Irrelevant overarching plot: Imagine you write a romantic fiction, but it ends up being as wooden and uninteresting as Twilight and thus no one cares about your main characters. Imagine you write a typical FE-like war fiction, but it's poorly executed and no one cares about the sides of the conflict and the characters. I really fear that my stories might not be interesting enough to sustain its overarching plot.

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1. The story is less original than I realize.

2. The horror isn't as scary/grotesque/etc. as I envision it in my mind.

3. The reader won't resonate with my character.

4. A character is unintentionally a self-insert.

5. I could be using stronger vocabulary and more detail.

6. I'm using too much detail.

7. My pacing isn't right.

8. My dialogue isn't right.

9. The scenario could be more interesting but I don't know how to make it so.

...I could go on, but I won't.

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I expected a philosophical discussion about writing in general and trends about recent literature.

Suffice to say, I'm mildly disappointed.

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Hmmm.  Definitely not Entertainment.  Will move to General.

My greatest fear as a writer is that someone will actually read what I wrote. :P:

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6 hours ago, Dragoncat said:

I must be a rare one, dialogue is easy for me, but I could work on description.

Descriptions are the bane of my existence, especially when it comes to characters. I usually just write that a character is a man / boy / girl / woman / monster / whatever and pretty much nothing else when it's not important like a special hair or eye colour. The same goes for environments. When I have my characters walk through a forest, for example, I usually just write exactly that and leave it there.

I've turned it around to be intentional, though. Through not specifically describing what doesn't need to be specifically described, I'm leaving the picture open for my readers to fill in, thus creating (hopefully) more immersion.
It probably doesn't work that way, but hey.

7 hours ago, Rapier said:

- Having wooden dialogue: I'm not exactly the most sociable person, so I have issues with thinking how other characters should behave/talk with each other without sounding robotic or wooden.

I'm the same way, actually. I believe myself to be able to write realistic characters and dialogue, but sometimes, doubt strikes me harder than it probably has any right to.

Edited by DragonFlames
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The key with description is balance, like more is usually better, but if you take three paragraphs to say what a leaf looks like then that's overkill.

I've been told I need to work on non verbal dialogue/body language. Like I'll describe what a character says and how they say it, but I don't tend to describe their body language as much.

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15 hours ago, Purple Mage said:

What are you afraid of when writing any kind of story, including fanfiction? My fears consist of the following:

  1. The chapters are too short. (I tend to gravitate around 2k words.)
  2. The OC is not a solid character, or that he's a Mary Sue.
  3. The canon characters acted OOC or they were too shallow.
  4. The story is too complex or cliche.
  5. My writing style sucks.
  6. Other people might bash my work over and over again.

Of course, the last one hasn't happened to me yet, although I remember filtering through guest reviews and found an unsigned one saying "What a sh*tfic." which I removed at once. The rest of my reviewers have been positive, with one breaking down every new chapter and pointing out the flaws in a constructive way. In return, I commended him for his positive insight in one of my author's notes.

So what do you guys fear during writing? I'd like to see other people's take on their own problems.

It seems there are some things that draw me out of exile.

Most of those sum up my own writing fears, in addition to the ones mentioned about description. Except, number 5 is pretty well true, so I can't really call it a fear. I'm just waiting for the day someone besides a troll tells me so. Another fear of mine probably stems from being a fan fiction writer. I know it's not "legitimate" writing, but it's all I've got. I'm afraid of being judged on that. I'm also more afraid that my work will be too long rather than to short.

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7 minutes ago, Dragoncat said:

The key with description is balance, like more is usually better, but if you take three paragraphs to say what a leaf looks like then that's overkill.

I've been told I need to work on non verbal dialogue/body language. Like I'll describe what a character says and how they say it, but I don't tend to describe their body language as much.

yeah I've been working on that as well it's kind of hard to really describe what a character is doing in a heavy dialogue scene. like the two characters are just standing there exchanging words what else would they be doing. The problem with me and description and for that matter character thought/internal monologue is that I never really know where to put it without it being too abrupt or interrupting the flow of the current scene.

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17 minutes ago, Otts486 said:

yeah I've been working on that as well it's kind of hard to really describe what a character is doing in a heavy dialogue scene. like the two characters are just standing there exchanging words what else would they be doing. The problem with me and description and for that matter character thought/internal monologue is that I never really know where to put it without it being too abrupt or interrupting the flow of the current scene.

I put internal monologue right in the dialogue in italics. Like...

Quote

"Jesus Christ Frank put that gun down." Oh god his eyes look red! He's clearly possessed! "Seriously, put it down, you're tripping balls right now!"

That was a terrible example...cue copy and paste from Rescue Mission. The infamous "So...you like cheese popcorn?" teenage hormonal angst scene.

Quote

“I’m on a rescue mission. Grandpa’s my sidekick.” Russo chuckled softly at that, but allowed Ray to continue speaking. “You know my friend Keagan?”

“Yeah, the guy whose parents have a lot of clout in the Colony 9 city council.” Joan nodded. “I think he tried to hit on me the last time I saw him. Asked me if I liked cheese popcorn and I swear I saw a flirty look in his eyes. Kind of a weird guy.”

Ray didn’t know how to react to that. What’s this I feel? Jealous? Territorial? Am I starting to see Joan as more than a friend? He put that thought in the back of his mind. “Yeah, that’s him. He’s been kidnapped by bandits who want twenty-five grand to return him safely. They were after ME, actually, but clearly they made a mistake like the idiots they are.”

I guess that's more of an example of internal monologue PERIOD, but yeah. Internal monologue I've found is really useful for...intimate scenes, like when you have a shy male with a more spunky outgoing female, and she initiates their first romantic romp, he's going to be doing an awful lot of that as he tries to fight his hormones and goes back and forth from "Do I want this?" to "Hell yeah I NEED this." If it sounds like a very specific example that's because it is. Shulk and Fiora are adorable dammit.

But as far as "what else would they be doing during dialogue" goes, well, my mom moves her hands a lot when she talks, or if they're arguing they might cross their arms and stomp around, stuff like that.

Edited by Dragoncat
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18 minutes ago, Dragoncat said:

I put internal monologue right in the dialogue in italics. Like...

That was a terrible example...cue copy and paste from Rescue Mission. The infamous "So...you like cheese popcorn?" teenage hormonal angst scene.

I guess that's more of an example of internal monologue PERIOD, but yeah. Internal monologue I've found is really useful for...intimate scenes, like when you have a shy male with a more spunky outgoing female, and she initiates their first romantic romp, he's going to be doing an awful lot of that as he tries to fight his hormones and goes back and forth from "Do I want this?" to "Hell yeah I NEED this." If it sounds like a very specific example that's because it is. Shulk and Fiora are adorable dammit.

But as far as "what else would they be doing during dialogue" goes, well, my mom moves her hands a lot when she talks, or if they're arguing they might cross their arms and stomp around, stuff like that.

I mean I've gotten much better at the body language thing. Also about the monologue thing yeah for me it's kind of hard to make a scene more intimate with the character's thoughts and emotions and whenever i try I fear the little monologue(which I don't do in italics though sometimes it can useful) I do is placed too abruptly which interrupts the flow of the scene, too short which gives the reader too little information, or too long.

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My biggest fear is that my story won't be interesting or the characters I create don't have any "character". I tend to go back and reread what I wrote multiple times to see if I made a character that is just too bland or if I get so descriptive that I forget to give the characters personality. Just making the story interesting is a pretty big fear too because I want people to be into the plot, but if it's too boring then no one will really want to read it. 

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Writing fears, huh.

Perhaps paradoxically, I fear the story existing. Not what's it about, not how it's written, not how the characters are, or what they do, not things that happen in there. Just... existing. Even if it's not going to be read by any other soul but mine, I still feel uneasy writing it down. I can't really explain well that feeling...

Then again, considering I am currently writing and publishing a fanfic that's already over 30k words (though it has taken me two years, for what it's worth) at this moment, then perhaps I am getting over it. Maybe.

Though that just brings another fear of mine. Or more like just a worry, but the way that story is going, I just worry I might screw up... without even knowing or trying. It doesn't have a bad reception, although technically speaking it doesn't have a good one either. Not active, at least. Just passive positive. If I haven't able to improve that, at least I'd want to avoid screwing up.

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As eclipse, Jotari, and now TheSilentChloey can attest, Paragraph Breaks are the bane of my existence. I try to remember to use them, but unless I have someone else check my work and they bring it up it generally gets forgotten.

I also dread Fight Scenes because I have difficulty pacing them properly and can't seem to get them to sound right to me. I also tend to wax somewhat gruesome if I don't watch myself.

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Two things: 
1) I'll get made fun of 
2) I'll get called "~problematique~"

Those two things keep me up at night. I don't even feel like I can call myself a writer because those fears have paralyzed me so badly that I've never actually shared any of my written works online. It feels disingenuous. 

I flip back and forth between not giving a shit whether somebody finds my stuff cliche or cringey. I usually write original stuff for myself, just to have fun or explore concepts. I just like to enjoy myself when I create, yaknow? I'd like to think that I respond well to criticism, but once that criticism stops being actual criticism and is just bashing or something similarly mean-spirited, I lose my composure. Its hard to stay earnest if people kick you while you're down. Especially when its as self-indulgent as my writing is. I put a lot of myself into my works so I get really scared to share them.

As for the problematic stuff... when I was younger I had the unfortunate displeasure of getting mixed up with certain.. vocally political groups. I bet if you looked at my old posts from 2015 on this site you'd see some side-effects of that. I think I learned a lot of valuable lessons from that time, but now I'm absolutely terrified of "messing up". I want to write about controversial subjects because I think its interesting and there's merit in exploring them.. but I don't want to be shunned and socially exiled for it. It doesn't matter how delicately you handle a situation, or even if you actively portray that topic in a negative light, somebody will always find a way to make you look like the bad guy if you cover ~problematic~ topics. Two semi-recent examples that come to mind are the Houseki no Kuni mangaka and her previous works, and that film Call Me By Your Name. Just because the HnK mangaka covered unsavory topics in her old works, somebody threw a shitstorm and caused a huge scene in the western fanbase. It was ridiculous. And I'm terrified of that happening to me. I'm not so vain as to think thousands and thousands of people will read my stories and rally together to get me to delete my blog, but the anxiety is there. I don't think I could cope with that stress. 

uhhhhhhhhhhhh yahhhhhh

On a less serious note, dialogue can go eat pant. I can also get really prose-y without meaning too. oof. I just get carried away. p: Oh! and pacing. Making sure everything fits together too. I always end up imaging individual scenes and have such a hard time linking them together, even just in a timeline sense. I also over-plan. So I guess.. just everything everybody else already said? p: :p

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