In the few weeks I've spent here, I've learned a lot of useful things about how I write, and hopefully how to make it better. These are some of the things I've discovered so far that I need to work on / keep an eye out for: My dialogue frequently yaks on too long My point of view is often all over the place I don't always show enough My characters are usually strong My prose generally reads well I have no idea how to punctuate properly (amazing how I managed with meeting minutes, press releases, social media updates, networking online and all the rest for so long! I guess that sort of stuff is meagre fare compared to storytelling) I need to build in more interior monologue for my characters What have you gleaned about your writing?
Grammar sucks. My grammer especially sucks. Punctuation sucks, especially mine. No infodump. No trying to disguise infodump. Do not bombard the reader with too much at once. Stop trying to lead the reader, dammit. My personal challenge is to write entirely in dialog. I fail miserably. There's more to my story than I thought, dammit. Worldbuilding is tough, and fun. Destroying the world is funner!
I need to target my descriptive language more tightly - don't use lazy generic words, use specific ones that actually paint a picture. I'm starting to get the hang of this POV thing. I really do need to make more effort to show, and examine where I'm telling too much. My grammar remains terrible.
ive learnt that my view of the world is not necessarily relatable. im too self deprecatory or cynical.
Writing is thinking on paper. Writing things down helps me work through problems I other wisemight struggle with. It helps to conceptualize it like paying for something in cash as opposed to plastic.
I might sound pretentious but here it is: I tend to either tell too much in narrative or I overuse dialogue. I tend to use my characters as mouthpieces for my own ideologies I focus quite a lot on philosophical ideas throughout dialogue. I sometimes incorporate things in my writing that only I "get" and assume readers have my mind state. I do use a little too much adjectives sometimes. I get overzealous about a certain idea that I want to push and it comes out as preachy.
when i get really in to a scene, i tend to write too fast and it REALLY shows in my spelling and grammar i cant just work on one piece at a time, because i experience burn out and writers block (my mind constantly has to be doing something, even if it means working on something else for a while then going back to a main project) i'm too descriptive (says my professor) (i have to think more on this!)
Stop abusing adverbs and adjectives Scan for those loose words that don't add to the writing and cull (baby stuff)
I tend to overwrite Then I underwrite in an effort to compensate My prose oscillates between bland and purple, sometimes striking a healthy balance Dialogue is one of my strengths. I sometimes go overboard on the narration/internal monologues I am bad at plotting I am less bad at characterization. Sometimes I'm downright decent at it I'm even less bad at setting I have good ideas, but I don't always know how to implement them well I am not very good at writing long forms (i.e. novels and that) but I enjoy it immensely I'm good at giving old phrases a new turn I often struggle to see the whole picture; I can get caught up on smaller units of content I often struggle with tension and momentum My descriptive language is so-so