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@bluejay Eh? What do you mean by “No backbone”?
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@daeus No support. No reason. No plot. No excitement. Does that help you understand it?
@bluejay Hmm, sounds like you have a lot of ideas that aren’t germinating. Staring at a blank page I assume? Nothing you think up seems worth writing?
There could be several problems. Let me try to feel my way here.
Do your normally edit your stories? Have you ever gotten an in-depth critique from another writer? How many times do you re-edit a story?
Do you plot your stories? Do you know how to create a plot from a theme concept? Are you familiar with story structure?
When you read your stories, do you find you really like some parts, but other’s seem completely dull even though they need to be there?
Do your characters tend to have ghosts (Things in their past that haunt them. Could be a tragedy, or a small thing they did bad, or a failure they had, etc)? Do your characters have big goals for their life (or for short period of their life we get a glimpse of)?Hmm, by the time you answer those questions, I’ll probably be asleep, but I can work on it more tomorrow.
By the way, your sister is the one who does those amazing paintings, right? Ever thought about coloborating on a children’s book together?
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@bluejay, do you know why the king does not desire the position of king anymore? Maybe your book could revolve around him trying to find a worthy successor? (contest,etc.) Is there a back story? (Like he is being forced to step down, but he doesn’t tell anyone about it?) Just trying to throw things out there… 🙂
@daeus. After much careful thinking and all of that kind of stuff, here are my answers to your questions.
Do your normally edit your stories? No. I give them to my Mum.
Have you ever gotten an in-depth critique from another writer? No. Let me rephrase that. I just got one. Still haven’t looked at it.
How many times do you re-edit a story? As many times as Mum gives it back to me.
Do you plot your stories? Plot as in plan out what’s going to happen? Very rarely.
Do you know how to create a plot from a theme concept? No idea. I have never even heard of a theme concept.
Are you familiar with story structure? A little bit, but I think I lack a lot of proper things in my stories
When you read your stories, do you find you really like some parts, but other’s seem completely dull even though they need to be there? Yes. Although, I tend to rewrite those boring bits and until they are at least a bit more interesting.
Do your characters tend to have ghosts (Things in their past that haunt them. Could be a tragedy, or a small thing they did bad, or a failure they had, etc)? Sometimes they do. But not always.
Do your characters have big goals for their life (or for short period of their life we get a glimpse of)? Some of my characters do. Other times, my characters seem to be content with small victories.@jess Yes, he does know why he doesn’t want to be king. Very simple; it’s a boring job. It would be much more fun to be out fighting dragons and saving princesses in distress. 🙂
@bluejay Ok, that helps me. Let me explain my thought process here.
First off, it’s great you’re having your mom give you input. I’m sure it’s already helped you grow a lot. One person’s input though is never enough to evaluate a story fully. Sure you can’t get tons of input on every story, but here is what I would suggest. Get one story and find as many people to give you your input on it as they can. You can ask for help here. I’m sure people would jump on it. I could probably do it myself. Don’t just give it to them on the forum, send them a copy so they can make lots of comments easily. The reason this is so important is that different people have different strengths. Everybody will give you line edits, but some people will give you really good plot ideas, whereas others will give you advice on enlivening dialogue, and another will give you advice on how you could rewrite a scene to make it more interesting. The goal here is not to create a really well-polished story, but to study how your editors are thinking. What caught their attention and how did they come up with a solution? You may be wondering what this has to do with getting excited about writing, but I think it has a lot to do with it. Editing is the #1 way to learn how to write better. Understanding ways to fix a boring scene makes writing a grueling scene bearable. Knowing you can deepen any character makes a poor character seem like an opportunity. And you must do more than just study other people’s advice. You must become your own editor. Editing your own work is an intense exercise, but it’s just that, an exercise. By doing it over and over and over again, your editing abilities will explode. It gives you a mental power you would never obtain otherwise. And self-edit a lot. On my current novelette, I’ve edited it maybe five times, not counting other people’s advice, and rewritten it twice. I can tell you I have learned far more than I would have if I had just spent all that time writing.
So now, one rant down, next one here I come. All writers are different, and for some plotting is a necessity, whereas some don’t use it at all. If you’re having trouble with your stories though, I highly recommend it. If I’m excited about a whole story outline I have, I’m more likely to push through the hard parts because I know at least the basic story is going to be great. More importantly though, it gives me a structure to hang stuff of. This is where a knowledge of story structure comes in handy. K.M.Wieland has written two books about it that are very good. She also talks about nothing but it on her blog.
As for boring scenes, I know I write them too. This is where the editing stuff comes back though. The more you edit and rewrite, the less you will have these scenes to worry about and the more confident you will be that you can fix them.
It’s great that your characters are looking for victories. It’s fine if they are small victories. Just make sure the victories are very important to your character and that those goals heavily dictate how they act in the book.
So I guess to wrap it up, a good story concept does not mean you will have a good story. Having a plot outline will certainly help because it gives you a skeleton to put flesh on. Your best bet though I think is to just edit and edit and edit. That will give you a much better understanding of story that will make stories easier to write.
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@bluejay, It’s okay, I didn’t either! 🙂
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@jess Change of plans; I can write in 20 minutes if you want. I have some rewriting to do.
Anyone can join if they want.@bluejay, sorry, I’m not writing tonight. I’m pretty tired. 🙁
@jess that’s fine.
@bluejay. Sure. I can write for a bit. 20-30 min or so.
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