What I've learned in my first month.

I wrote a story, I thought it was brilliant, so I posted.

A few comments later, and I read my story again.

Did I actually spell like that? Didn't 'spell check' work, obviously not!
That paragraph doesn't make sense, not even to me, and I wrote it!
My punctuation is crap, I know it is, and I achieved an 'A' in English.

Now I look back, at my fist several stories and realise, that I could write every one better, change little bits here and there, and they could be so improved.

I should take my time, write a story, save it, and then revisit. Perhaps rewrite it.

Shit! Why did I start this writing lark?

Should have stuck to reading.

But then again, do a few mistakes matter that much? I'm not trying for a prize in literature, for crying out loud.

So, to those few, who have nothing better to do than critisize (yeah, I know it's criticize), I have only one thing to say........!!!!!!

Have you taken a writing course? Do you make an outline before you begin writing your story? Do you have grammarly.com installed on your computer? Grammarly helps with punctuation as well as spelling. Good luck and don't give up.

EdEc said:

Have you taken a writing course? Do you make an outline before you begin writing your story? Do you have grammarly.com installed on your computer? Grammarly helps with punctuation as well as spelling. Good luck and don't give up.

Click to expand...

Excepting, the writing course, yes I do and yes I have, but somehow, they still sneak by when I'm not looking.
But, now I've got the bug, no I won't give up.
Now, I'm old (well, getting on to be ancient almost), and disabled, I've discovered something I can enjoy.

My advice, always, is don't fuss with the stories you've already submitted, but take the lessons learned and apply them to the next story you write.

You've discovered the embarrassment of premature submission, and the mess is now on the sheets and there's not much you can do about that. Take more care on the next story, compile a set of editing tricks (run spell check, run grammar check but DON'T rely on them to do your writing for you), edit as you go, finish and leave it for a week - whatever works for you. Pop over to the Author's Hangout and search for threads with "edit" in the title - there are regularly threads started on editing, use of tools and so on, with lots of good advice.

There's no single way to do it, there's no simple way, but if you keep writing, your content will get better. Guaranteed. Get a dozen stories in, and compare your latest with your earliest work. You'll see the improvement, unless you're the planet's slowest learner. . Hang in there, keep writing.

I do the same thing.

When I write a story I think THIS IS THE GREATEST THING I HAVE EVER WRITTEN. Two weeks later I think it's utter garbage and can't believe I did it. BUT between those two weeks I re read it a bunch, try and fix all grammar and spelling etc. And try and get someone else to look over it, because they'll always see things you missed

A trick I found that works for me...change the font.

I use Ariel on the first draft and subsequent edits.

After I have finished the story, I change the font to New Times Roman or some serif font. I catch a lot of typo or miss used words that way. All for just changing the font.

Some times I copy the word doc to my phone and read it on my phone. I find some that way too, because it different then the computer screen in size and I have the text as white on black.

There was a study done a long time ago. Serif fonts are easier to read and the eye will find errors more often and quicker than a San Serif font. The study was done a long time before personal computing was born.

I don't think I've ever gone back and read over anything I've written that I didn't then spot all kinds of errors and glitches. Some in the technical aspects. Some in the artistic merits. Anymore, typically the only time I even think about what has already been completed, submitted, and posted is when someone posts a comment on something and I'm going "what are we talking about again?"


As for the conclusion of the OP... Yeah. A long, long time ago I had some training in as varied artistic endeavors from musical to visual. And one thing has been common between every single medium I've opened my trench coat to expose myself in.

An artist has got to be arrogant enough to believe that they have something worth saying, but not so arrogant that they can't always strive to get a little better in how they say it.


*shrug*


So, take the criticisms and witticisms with a leavening of salt, but don't ignore them completely.