As I said in some earlier blog posts, there are some things that I personally have a hard time dealing with, in regards of writing. However, I'll go back and add another one to the list, for a simple reason - Re-reading old stories. As I also said earlier, I planned on finishing earlier stories and rewriting others, which pushed me to re-read the first part of my good old Antsua School, and OH GOD HOW IT'S BAD. Yeah, I know, great critic right there and all that, but let me explain.
The flow of the story feels un-natural. The characters feel bland and forced. The setting is so barely inexistant you just switch from a place to another. And while the basis of the story is to rewrite all that happened through years of play-by-post games, it still needs to actually be a story. But that made me thought, what about the other old stories I wrote ? I went back to them, and except for one or two, the result was the same. I feel I wrote something seriously bad. Not teen self-insert tier, but close to.
Aaaaaaand that actually is motivating. Going back on the most recent story, Four Friends, and seeing the huge amount of progress between them makes me see how I can grow better as a writer. And if that applies to me, that applies to anyone, you included. So go on. Go and read your older writings. Revel in how bad they are, and in how much better you grew. Notice that gap in experience, and grow further from it.
Learn from it to structure your stories better. Get more in touch with your characters and make them much more human. Create your settings while still leaving room for your writers to build upon it, in order for them to appropriate your story. Compare, contrast, rewrite and recreate. You'll yourself get more involved with what you're writing, and you'll enjoy it further as a result.
As for me, I went back to writing, using the motivation from both some comments here and from writing more often (which includes those posts) in order to go further. The help of a new keyboard and mouse (the classic Logitech MK120 duo, low-cost and very sturdy) also does wonders to the fingers. And I wish the same for the writers among us.
The flow of the story feels un-natural. The characters feel bland and forced. The setting is so barely inexistant you just switch from a place to another. And while the basis of the story is to rewrite all that happened through years of play-by-post games, it still needs to actually be a story. But that made me thought, what about the other old stories I wrote ? I went back to them, and except for one or two, the result was the same. I feel I wrote something seriously bad. Not teen self-insert tier, but close to.
Aaaaaaand that actually is motivating. Going back on the most recent story, Four Friends, and seeing the huge amount of progress between them makes me see how I can grow better as a writer. And if that applies to me, that applies to anyone, you included. So go on. Go and read your older writings. Revel in how bad they are, and in how much better you grew. Notice that gap in experience, and grow further from it.
Learn from it to structure your stories better. Get more in touch with your characters and make them much more human. Create your settings while still leaving room for your writers to build upon it, in order for them to appropriate your story. Compare, contrast, rewrite and recreate. You'll yourself get more involved with what you're writing, and you'll enjoy it further as a result.
As for me, I went back to writing, using the motivation from both some comments here and from writing more often (which includes those posts) in order to go further. The help of a new keyboard and mouse (the classic Logitech MK120 duo, low-cost and very sturdy) also does wonders to the fingers. And I wish the same for the writers among us.
