I've always been terrible at spelling. I was an 'A' student in school, but would routinely fail spelling tests.
I seem to have trouble figuring out when I need to use ';' instead of ','. I also tend to have a lot of '...' in my writing because I don't understand '-' that much.
My weakness doesn't so much lie on anything SPaG related (though I'm confident there are things I could work on), but more along the lines of overcoming personal issues that prevent me from writing.
My own issues come not so much from the writing, but from evaluating what I've written. I refuse to believe that my work is anything other than mediocre, despite the wide range of opinions given on various things I've written. Still, at least it doesn't actually stop me from writing
I get excessively caught up in details of punctuation and grammar sometimes. It's more important to get the words down, split infinitives and sentences with no main clause be damned. One of the things I do at work is proof-reading so I can get fixated on such things.
Of course I have weaknesses. Sometimes, I even use those to develop writing exercises to improve my ability to deal with them. In real life, I have a hard time with heights. So I ride Ferris wheels whenever I can. I climb up the sides of cliffs. Sometimes I end up shaking like a leaf afterward, but I also feel accomplishment. And a little less fear. When I came here, I had a strong aversion to writing poetry. At one point, I decided that was too limiting, so I worked on critiquing poems, and eventually wrote a few. Some are in my blog. Similarly, I used to hate writing dialogue, so I made a point of writing some dialogue-heavy pieces. I'm still improving my handling of dialogue. I still have plenty to learn. And I'm enjoying the journey.
I learned English in school, before I moved to Australia as a teenager, so my spelling is usually really good, but one thing really doesn't get into my head, as hard as I try, and that is "a" and "the". Most of the time I get it right, and I know the rules, but that's where I make most mistakes. As far as other writing weaknesses go, I am sure I have lots, but the one that bothers me is writing full blown action scenes. I can do it, bt I'd like to be able to do it much more easily.
I tend to include a lot of boring run-of-the-mill material when I should be cutting to the chase, so to speak. I wind up deleting a lot of stuff like this. [ Fred picked up the phone and dialed George's number. After three rings, a woman answered. "George's office." "Could I speak to George, please?" "I'll see. Can I ask who's calling, please?" "Tell him it's Fred, and it's about the Robertson contract." "Hang on a minute, sir." A minute passed, then George's voice came over the line. "Fred! What's going on?" "There's a problem with the Robertson contract." etc. etc. ] All of this is unnecessary. All I need is this: [ Fred called George. "George, there's a problem with the Robertson contract." ] Reading over my old stuff always reveals a lot of stuff that should have been just left out in the first place.
I constantly edit as I write in such an obsessive manner that more material is rewritten then actually written. I need to work on completing a piece before I go back and rework it. I also began writing as a prose poet, a genre that I'm still very fond of. Unfortunately, I now tend to overwrite the exposition in my fiction works, making them too dense and wordy.
My problem is not exactly a writing problem. But when I watch or read something that really stands out to me for its plot or characters, I start wishing that I can have the same impact in my story, reevaluate everything, and feel like I should start over. For example, I will read a story about faeries and then not want to write about werewolves as much. I've gotten a lot better and learned to admire other stories but not feel "influenced" by them if you know what I mean.
I agree. I used to add a bunch of extra crap to my writing. I still use a lot of description in mine but try to cut to the chase.
Too many to list lol Mainly I have a problem with dialoge. Not the actual dialoge, but what comes after, how to make sure you know who is saying what. The "he said" type of stuff. I'm also really bad at head hopping. Mainly only between two characters at a time, but it's something I'm working on. It can be hard to tell the difference between "style" and "problems" Sometimes it really is something that needs fixing and sometimes its someone being overly harsh when they critique your work.
Well... my two main ones right now are description and avoiding a self editing urge that kills things from getting long, mainly the first though. My description is... lacking. Which actually reminds me, exercises for the first?
I don't see this as a problem. I think it's a virtue. When you finally get all that rewriting done, are you happy with the result? Have you produced good work? That's all that matters. I think most of the best writers do more rewriting than writing - maybe more rewriting than they'll admit to.
Ok, I lied, I'm not perfect. I just took about 4 days to write a scene that's only 800 words long. It's an action scene with very little dialogue, and I've recently come to realise that most of my scenes are really dialogue heavy. I wouldn't say I can't write action, but it's definitely not my favourite. I like conveying things in conversation, but I'm worried that my story is becoming very transactional and episodic. I go from one scene where characters interact with each other to another scene where characters interact with each other, and there's very little of my characters just being on their own or DOING stuff. I think the only large chunks of narrative I have involve description and scene setting, so I get a pattern like this: Introduce scene Introduce characters to scene Describe scene in more detail Make characters say stuff to each other Leave scene on some question or other Introduce next scene I read books that have loads of narrative just sprinkled with dialogue and I think 'how do they do that without making it really boring?' I get bored of writing narrative after a few paragraphs and I just want to hear what my characters have to say about the situation. I don't know if that's bad or not...
I suppose I should say that when writing on a deadline it becomes a burden, as I struggle to actually finish a piece in a timely manner because of constant rereading and reworking after every other paragraph. But it is as much a blessing as a curse, I will agree.
Fight scenes and spelling. orz Plus sometimes I mix up the meaning of words, or use them very strangely. I sit with a dictionary when I write just in case.
Spelling errors/grammar because English is my second language. I don't write violent/killing or depressing scenes. I have a very short concentration span so I tend to write shorter stories hence my love of poetry. I also would love to learn to draw to accompany my work. Lack of drawing for is a big weakness for me. I wish I could just draw and write, that would be a dream come true for me.
After forcing myself to write a lot of them, I believe I finally have some grasp of action scenes. Was a lot of work though. My main issue right now is filler words... like: kind of, quite, really, and more words I can't think of atm. I do that in real life as well... it's annoying.
Right now I think my biggest weakness is how to make justice to my ideas. I want to write in a certain way, but the two ideas I have sitting in my head doesn't fit with that style at all, and I don't know what do do with them. In general I get ideas easily but then have problems to fully believe in them, because they either sound silly or too difficult for me to write, or I'll try and they'll come out as really boring to read because of too much seriousness. I guess my problem is finding the right voice, to set the tone. I've kind of stopped writing right now, after having switched between those two for a couple weeks and I don't know which one I should focus on. They both need a really drastic rethinking to work.
I've been worried lately about not putting enough conflict into my plots. I know that things are really important to the characters, but I'm not sure I'm conveying it well enough or making it clear a lot hangs in the balance. I kind of hate being too melodramatic and like knowing that everything is going to be all right.
What would you say your biggest weakness is as a writer? Why do you think that is? And what are you doing about it? I'll lead off, starting with the second question. As a reader I hate being confused. I dislike not knowing who's speaking. I get annoyed when there's a scene break and I can't tell if what comes after is a chronological sequel (redundant? ) to what came before, or a flashback, or a dream sequence or what. I don't like it when characters do inexplicable things for inexplicable reasons. I also don't care for it when I've written something, fiction or nonfiction, and a reader says, "You should have said something about XYZ" and dammit, I did. Right there on page 3, didn't you catch it? So . . . on the principle of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you," I try to make sure every damn thing is clear. Maybe too clear. Thoroughly and at length and sometimes with repetition. As in spoonfeeding the reader. As in assuming that it isn't enough to leave what I need to convey implicit in my prose for the intelligent reader to derive. Then, too, I teach school and making sure every last damn thing is clear is part of my job. What am I doing about it? Posting on the Workshop is proving very helpful. Having more experienced writers tell me that all the explication isn't needed is encouraging me to take a deep breath and venture on leaving it out. However. If you get a flashback or a dream sequence out of me, you'll know that's exactly what it is. Your turn. What do you struggle with?
