Writing with the doors closed?

I think that's something Link had to work through. Would it have helped him if he sat staring at his screen thinking 'Is this offensive?' with nobody to ask? Would he have shrugged and thought, "Well I can't check so I guess I'll just write it" or would he have not written at all?

Sure, if it helps them. If it doesn't help them then no.

Of course you're entitled to your opinion. I don't think you're entitled to tell other people they're writing by committee and their story isn't theirs because they didn't write it in the way you think is right.

 

I think we're getting hung up on semantics, to some extent. Specifically my choice of the word 'committee.' What I mean by 'committee' is solving creative problems in tandem with others, as opposed to solving them on your own. Group creativity as opposed to individual creativity. As I said in my post above, there are pluses and minuses to each approach. Personally, I think the pluses of writing on your own and getting feedback later on will result in a story that's more uniquely 'yours.'

It's a bit different from @Link the Writer 's issue, which seemed to stem from trying to please everybody at the outset, but pleasing nobody—and then losing sight of why he was writing in the first place and being unable to move forward. He arrived at the conclusion (on his own) that he was better off on his own. Hats off to him.

 

Personally, I think any path that leads to a solution is fine unless it involves, like, murder.

 

@Tenderiser @jannert - Well that escalated quickly, ladies.

But yeah, it's difficult for new writers to learn that it's OK to start the first draft by basically puking out everything from their head onto paper, no matter how silly and nonsensical it is. Right now I'm reviving a long-dead story that I hadn't thought about for twelve years (maybe more.) It basically involves super powerful magical ninjas and it's heavily inspired from Dragonball Z and Naruto.

Now obviously I'm going to tweak it to match my writing skills as of right now, and make it so it's not as blindingly obvious but I've since learned that when you start, asking people all those questions is a good way to get you hung up and frozen in your tracks because it's not this way or that way.

I'm 108 words into that story now, and I can almost hear those characters asking me, “What the hell took you so long!?”

 

"It takes time to hide the bodies, guys."

By the way, 108 is a godly number in certain Hindu denominations. Good omen

 

I have the shovel. Put them in my trunk, ladies.
------
And would you believe that the story starts off with the main character struggling to lower himself into a hot spring? Hey, the story has to start somewhere, no?

 

Any path that leads to a quagmire or back into the maze, however, is probably best avoided!

 

Yes, that would be best.

And I'm enjoying my ninja story now. :] Sibling rivalry and cousins mocking the poor main character for not standing the hot spring.

UPDATE: 318 words.

 

Is he boiling his nougats?

 

Let's just say he doesn't like hot water, which his elder brother takes pleasure in mocking... by doing a cannonball jump into the spring and sending a huge wave of it at him.

Poor guy is the mutt of the family. He even tells himself This is why I left. The sooner this is over, the better. 318 words in and I already have a conflict.

 

Or, you've already got your character in hot water.

 

Both physically and metaphorically. :>

 

It was difficult for you to learn that. I absolutely believe you, and I absolutely believe that it was a lesson you wanted/needed to learn. But it's not a lesson that I should have learned, because it doesn't fit my way of writing, and it's probably not a lesson other writers should have learned (because I doubt that I'm unique in the universe).

Again, it was a good way to get you hung up and frozen in your tracks. But not necessarily someone else.

What I know I'm saying and think others are saying is that this question (like many other writing questions) isn't going to have the same answer for all writers. When we use dismissive terms to refer to an approach that works very well for some writers, or when we make absolute statements against them, we may make new writers who would benefit from that approach less likely to use it, and that would be a shame.


And, on a previous note, I'm another writer who consults my agent/editors fairly early in the creative process. I can write a lot of different kinds of stories; I want to write the ones that are most likely to sell. This may come down to a difference in the ultimate goals for our writing. For me, I enjoy writing. Not a specific story or specific genre or specific type of characters. The world is my oyster and I'm happy to move around in it, because the other thing I enjoy is selling my writing. So if I don't really care what I write (within some limits... the oyster does have a shell), why shouldn't I write what other people want to read?

Contrast this with the stress some participants in this thread seem to put on telling their story and pleasing themselves with their writing. Equally valid reason for writing, but not my reason for writing. And, again, I don't think I'm unique.

 

@BayView - I was speaking from personal experience.

 

Don't get me wrong, I agree with Bay here. I was just saying I was speaking from personal experience. :3 I hope she's not too upset...

<swims away before she can harpoon me>

 

Yeah. But you were drawing it out to advice to others.

So, as I said, I absolutely believe that it was your personal experience. But you expand it to "it's difficult for new writers" instead of "it's difficult for some new writers" or "it was difficult for me". I think you're over-generalizing, that's all.

 

Fair point.

I do tend to over-generalize. Probably should work on that.

 

You absolutely should. Writers who over-generalize can never achieve anything! Over-generalization is a fatal flaw. Real writers don't over-generalize!

 

I agree! Let's keep things in the middle-ground. Over-generalizing and thinking in black/white mentality is what antagonists do.

 

My post wasn't in response to yours. I was confirming that when Bay said she thought others were saying the same, it was true in my case. It's the dismissive terms that particularly bug me.

Not good ones! Good antagonists are just as well-rounded as protagonists.

(Something I'm still learning... my villains are too black-and-white and it isn't good.)

 

Only a Sith deals in absolutes.

 

Aye, they do...

Margaret Atwood
“The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read. Not by any other person, and not even by yourself at some later date. Otherwise you begin excusing yourself. You must see the writing as emerging like a long scroll of ink from the index finger of your right hand; you must see your left hand erasing it.”

Harper Lee
“Any writer worth his salt writes to please himself... It's a self-exploratory operation that is endless. An exorcism of not necessarily his demon, but of his divine discontent.”

Raymond Carver
“Every great or even every very good writer makes the world over according to his own specifications. It’s akin to style, what I’m talking about, but it isn’t style alone. It is the writer’s particular and unmistakable signature on everything he writes. It is his world and no other. This is one of the things that distinguishes one writer from another. Not talent. There’s plenty of that around. But a writer who has some special way of looking at things and who gives artistic expression to that way of looking: that writer may be around for a time.”

 

You realise none of those quotes supports your point, right?