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Topic: Ballp.it, help me learn how to write  (Read 8170 times)

Runic

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Ballp.it, help me learn how to write
It's not really an exaggeration to say that my affiliation with PoE and the F+ have had a pretty big impact on my life and the course it's taken. I'm not proud of all of it, but I value this community and many of the people in it. However there's at least one way in which atrocity tourism has crippled me, and it's that it has made me afraid to write. I've long wanted to write, but a decade of exposure to bad fanfiction and the mockery thereof has taken a toll. I find it very hard to write (it took me two hours to work up the nerve to post this) and I really can't stand to read my own writing. It reads terrible to me, juvenile, a pale imitation of good writing. I have lots of ideas and I want to get them out there, but the natural progression of writing shitty fanfiction when still an impressionable youth in order to get it out of my system has been short circuited by anxiety and shame. I don't know what kind of writer I can be starting at the age of twenty-seven but if I don't try I know I'll regret it as long as I live. To that end, I ask for your help fellow dorks. I need resources to help me learn to write fiction and where better to start my search than here? I'm seriously asking that question. Where can I go for help?

I'm looking for books, blogs, and forums mainly. Things I can read. Places I can get constructive criticism. Advice on how to break past my barriers and let my nerd spill out into the world like a greasy technicolor tidal wave. The main problem that I have, and it's one that I know is common to a generation raised on the internet, is that I've got lots of big ideas and ideas for characters but I struggle to fit them together into an actual story. I have always had trouble beginning and ending things, even when writing in an academic context, and I'm not sure how to take a bunch of setting, themes and characters and string them together into a narrative. Any advice or resources you have that could help me on that would be appreciated. Are there books that have given you good advice? Techniques to build stories that work well for you? I want to know about them!

Other than that, I need your advice on how to break through my own insecurities. I know that half the trouble with writing is just actually writing, but I can't shake the impression that writing something and worse, showing it to someone else can only invite ridicule and humiliation. I hate to read my own work, I'm always convinced that it sounds terrible, unfocused, incoherent, trite. I feel all those things about the things I say in person as well because I am a writhing cauldron of mental disorders and abnormalities, but I have some basic ability to gauge other people's reactions when I speak whereas the only way I have to judge my writing is in the echo chamber of my own terminally insecure mind. Do you do something that makes it easier for you to judge your own work? Do you know some place where you can get constructive criticism for writing that is high quality and not overly hostile? Should I do NaNoWriMo? I'm serious about that. Like I said, this place has kind of warped my ability to put myself out there. I've considered doing NaNoWriMo for several years now but keep backing off in large part due to the mockery that sub-par entries have invited on this very site, but I can't help but feel that even writing something shitty is better at this point than keeping on as I am. Even shitty writing is still writing. I just need somewhere to start and I figure someone here probably know something that could set me on the right path. I know there's lots of sites and forums out there where I can get this sort of advice, but I'm acutely aware that lots of them are complete shit because that's how the internet works. I need help narrowing them down to find one that actually works for me.

I know that this post has been long and way too personal, but I feel that I need to do this. I'm trying to put myself out there more in general because I don't have many friends, I hardly interact with those I do have, and it's going to fucking kill me if I don't do something about it. This is my plea: how do I This Is a Thing I Made (writing)?

Muffinator

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Ballp.it, help me learn how to write #1
If you're on SomethingAwful, Thunderdome is pretty good. It's a weekly flash fiction competition, and people give out a ton of no-bullshit crit. If your story sucks, they'll let you know exactly why and that's exactly what you need. In general look for that: you want people who honestly tell you why you suck and you can't afford to be sensitive about it.

The number one piece of advice for wannabe writers is really obvious, but also very few people do it: write. Write as often as possible. Don't sit there stewing on ideas -- just fuckin write. Yes, it'll suck: everybody sucks when they're starting out, and sucks much harder than they thought they would. Writing prose is a skill like any other, and it's ridiculous to think it doesn't take years of practice. You've just gotta keep hacking at it and getting better every day.

If you write a story and post it in this thread, I'll give it an indepth crit. I'll try to do so for every story you post on ballp.it,

nb: I am a shitty "published" author who has been in some mags (apparently there's a word filter for maga.zine I blame isfahan) nobody's heard of. I don't self-pub but I'm hardly Flannery O'Connor.

GirlKisser420

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Ballp.it, help me learn how to write #2
I find it very hard to write (it took me two hours to work up the nerve to post this) and I really can't stand to read my own writing. It reads terrible to me, juvenile, a pale imitation of good writing

Runic, March 16, 2017, 12:42:33 am
This is the key idea that we need to look at. If your struggle with writing is actually rooted in insecurity, you aren't really going to find an external solution in a blog or something. There's 2 big points to take in

1. You're looking at your own writing and thinking "I'm bad, I can't write for shit" instead of thinking "This has problems, I need to fix them" . Almost all art goes through a massive amount of editing and rejigging, but we tend to compare incomplete stuff to a mental amalgam of completed works. It's a hard skill to actually learn, but it's something you can accomplish by being conscious of your own thoughts and arguing against the bad ones, or practicing editing as a skill in of itself with other texts, then applying the lessons to your own works. Next time you review your own writing, ask yourself "how, specifically, can I improve this?"

2. You're talking about your past writing fanfiction and stuff like it's a stain on your soul. The fact is, pretty much every artist started with this stuff.  Every poet's got a black diary from when they were 15 and lonely. Yeah, you've seen a lot of weird shit that teens post about homestuck, but that's because they're teens and they're trying new attitudes and identities out, nothing wrong with that. This isn't something you can really fix unless you actually expose yourself and get all sincere. That's something most people struggle with. The easiest way to do this is to go out more, and realise every one's at least as weird as you are. I'd suggest going on Meetup.com and joining a Dungeons and Dragons game: It's unabashedly nerdy, creative and a surprisingly safe environment to play with narratives and personality.

Runic

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Ballp.it, help me learn how to write #3
2. You're talking about your past writing fanfiction and stuff like it's a stain on your soul. The fact is, pretty much every artist started with this stuff.
GirlKisser420, March 16, 2017, 01:40:48 am
You misunderstand. I didn't do that. I should have done it, should have gotten all that shitty writing out of my system when I was young enough not to be self-conscious about it, but I didn't because I didn't want to be worthy of mockery. Now I'm approaching my thirties and unsure of how to start. How many people become good at something like this who didn't start earlier than me? It's a thought that haunts me.

Frank West

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Ballp.it, help me learn how to write #4
If you did end up making something interesting enough to be featured on the F Plus then you have only added joy and goodness to the world and not subtracted from it. This is an honorable thing, not a shameful one. If you wanna write a thing you should write a thing and once it exists do whatever with it and fuck anyone who judges you because you can't even prove they're not philosophical zombies anyway so they don't even empirically have thoughts and feelings that matter.

What I'm saying is, shitposting is a way of life that is always open.
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Muffinator

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Ballp.it, help me learn how to write #5
2. You're talking about your past writing fanfiction and stuff like it's a stain on your soul. The fact is, pretty much every artist started with this stuff.
GirlKisser420, March 16, 2017, 01:40:48 am
You misunderstand. I didn't do that. I should have done it, should have gotten all that shitty writing out of my system when I was young enough not to be self-conscious about it, but I didn't because I didn't want to be worthy of mockery. Now I'm approaching my thirties and unsure of how to start. How many people become good at something like this who didn't start earlier than me? It's a thought that haunts me.
Runic, March 16, 2017, 01:45:21 am
Alan Rickman started acting in his 40s . Hell, most writers don't make their big break until they're in their 40s/50s. You've got plenty of time, dude. The important thing is: if you want it, start now.

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Ballp.it, help me learn how to write #6
It reads terrible to me, juvenile, a pale imitation of good writing

Sounds like you need to practice writing some more. I cannot stress this enough: writing is a skill. So's cooking, baking, hockey, guitar, programming, photography, assembling models, learning a language. They take practice, work, commitment. For all that we shit on nanowrimo, a lot of people who do it just do it to practice the skill.

I should have done it, should have gotten all that shitty writing out of my system

why? because of some vague sense of being an adult, wanting to be better than that? everyone engages in and produces crap from time to time. it is OK and it is part of the process. embrace it.

Can you honestly see yourself writing about how much you love your metal arms? About yiffing the otter? Really? Maybe you're super goffick and wanna write about how jack sparrow can't take his eyes off you cause your hair is dyed black?
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Ballp.it, help me learn how to write #7
If you wanna write a thing you should write a thing and once it exists do whatever with it and fuck anyone who judges you because you can't even prove they're not philosophical zombies anyway so they don't even empirically have thoughts and feelings that matter.
Frank West, March 16, 2017, 01:48:16 am
This, also read On Writing. Then make a lot of shit you're not comfortable showing people, print it out, burn it, and get to work making shit you feel comfortable showing people. Practice and attitude, my friend.

Baldr

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Ballp.it, help me learn how to write #8
I also recommend Stephen King's On Writing.  It was more autobiographical than I liked, but there's some useful advice in there.  For example, King recommends making time to write a specific number of words each day, preferably before doing anything else.  Making writing part of your daily routine will alleviate your anxiety as it becomes a thing that you just do.

I don't have any interest in writing fiction, but I do something similar where I spend a specific number of hours each week trying to become better at teaching science.  This allows me to detach from the fact that most of my work is garbage and focus on the fact that I'm improving every week.  Defining success by how well I commit to the process of improvement allows me to forgive myself for not meeting my own expectations.

Lemon

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Ballp.it, help me learn how to write #9
Remember Chekhov

There should be penetration on every seventh page.
Anton Chekhov
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« Last Edit: March 16, 2017, 09:14:34 am by Lemon »

Cheapskate

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nb: I am a shitty "published" author who has been in some mags (apparently there's a word filter for maga.zine I blame isfahan) nobody's heard of. I don't self-pub but I'm hardly Flannery O'Connor.
Muffinator, March 16, 2017, 01:09:08 am

Speaking of O'Connor, the writing program she attended has an informative podcast.

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A few bits of advice:
1. Write more.  It's going to be weird.  It's going to feel bad.  But the more you write, the better you'll be able to write.  Every good author has written terrible stories.  Hell, even if you're a good author, you could still write a terrible story.  Your works are yours, but they aren't you.  Writing something bad doesn't make you a bad author, because then every author would be bad.

2. Edit.  edit edit edit edit.  Everything good starts as a worse rough draft.  Editing sucks, if you ask me, but it's so necessary you can't ignore it.  What's more, editing doesn't just make the thing you're writing better, it makes everything you write from then on better.  Editing lets you learn where your weaknesses are. A good author isn't one without weaknesses, it's one who knows how to counteract their weaknesses.

3. Read more. Sometimes people disregard this in writing but writing without reading is like trying to paint without sight. Read as much as you can, read the authors you want to write like and read other authors to find out how they do it.  Read closely, watch for the ways things develop, stop and ask how they did something, how you might do it different.  Reading with an eye for critique makes you better at editing your own writing and, in turn, makes you better at writing.

Runic

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Ballp.it, help me learn how to write #12
Thank you all for your replies. I've started On Writing and I think that Something Awful is actually a pretty good idea probably. I'll look into it.

Alan Rickman started acting in his 40s . Hell, most writers don't make their big break until they're in their 40s/50s. You've got plenty of time, dude. The important thing is: if you want it, start now.
That's why I'm doing this, more or less. There's a saying I've become fond of that the best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago and the second best time is today. I don't really intend to take this up as a career, but it's a skill that I think I might have some talent at. I'd love it if I could share my work with someone who might enjoy it someday, even if its just published on the internet or something. I think that writing a page a day or something is a good idea, and I might re-purpose the diary I've been keeping for that. Even if it's just a few snippets of dialogue or a description that I like it's one step closer to being less shit at writing. I think that part of my path is clear.

The thing that I'm still a bit hazy on is the technical side. Like I said, I've got trouble putting things in a coherent narrative format. I'm sure King will have tips on that, but any further resources on that would be greatly appreciated.

EYE OF ZA

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Off the top of my head, I don't know any hard resources on structuring stories, but I can offer what I know.

There's lots of different kinds of writing, and a story is a special type of writing with two key features: character and conflict.

A character in the broadest sense is someone who wants something.  An explorer wants to find the artifact.  A scientist wants to discover a new formula.  A kid wants a good grade on their spelling test.  A conflict is something that stands in the way of the thing they want.  There's a spike pit between the explorer and the artifact.  The school is threatening to cut the scientist's funding.  The kid is distracted by an alien attack and can't study for his test.

The story is then the character trying to overcome the conflict.  The meat of a story lies in that struggle, which is why stories where the protagonist can solve everything are unsatisfying.  At the end of the story, either they overcome the conflict and get what they want, or they fail; they're changed by the experience, or they aren't but either way, the reader learns more about the protagonist.

As for how to actually structure a story on the page, there's a few good things to keep in mind.  Start when things get interesting.  Interest drives the reader to keep reading, so lead with things becoming interesting.  How much space should be devoted to which parts of the story vary, but the general structure after that is rising action (stakes get more intense, more is at risk, the protagonist is struggling to overcome the conflict), then climax (the critical moment where the conflict is resolved or not), and then denouement (the after-effects of the climax). There's all sorts of ways that things can get more conplicated and so on, but that's the broadest outline of what 'a story' is going to be.

Muffinator

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Ballp.it, help me learn how to write #14
The definitive Hero's Journey breakdown comes from Dan Harmon: link

it's not something you'll expect to use every time (especially as you improve) but it's an excellent place to start
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