What's wrong with your writing? (And why is it secretly okay?)

[burgwad]

What's wrong
My characters talk too much.
My stories are slow and empty.
My plots are misshapen.

Why it's okay
My characters like to get to know each other.
My stories are peaceful and uncluttered.
My plots go with the flow.

 

[Amy_66]

I posted my first story here in 2001, and was well over 18 when I did so. I grew up in a world without laptops, cellphones, the internet, indoor plumbing... Okay, I lied about the last one. Some readers complained that they had no idea what I was talking about. One wrote that my characters should have "just Googled it" (the story was set in the 1980s).

So now I intertwine a fair amount of "history" so it makes sense to those "kids" who have no idea what things were like avoiding hungry dinosaurs on the way to school.

 

[lovecraft68]

I'm wordy and self indulgent. Stories that could be done in 10k turn into twice that for me. I put a lot of detail into my characters back story and the how did we get here.

All of those things, which some people would brand 'flabby' writing, make the characters real and relatable to the reader, make the reader invested in them, and because they are invested the payoff is much hotter.

 

[t_h_seacrest]

Ah, great thread.
My writing tends towards the flowery, purple, circuitous.
Hm I happen to enjoy unhurried meandering and can seldom resist a beckoning short-skirted tangent or two?
That isn't the best wording but it'll do for now.

 

[BiscuitHammer]

I'm completely incapable of writing a short story. But that's okay, because I'm dedicated to sagas, more or less.

I wrote about the smallest details in the lives of my characters. And that's great because I love treating them like real people and my dedicated readers love it as well.

I can't keep my sense of humour out of my stories. Fortunately, my readers love my sense of humor (they've told me, hopefully they're not lying).

My social mores are very prominent in my stories, and it makes Alt-Right, ultra-conservatives, Nazis, and the Nazi-adjacent very angry. But that's good, because it makes Alt-Right, ultra-conservatives, Nazis, and the Nazi-adjacent very angry.

I tease and slag on millennials a lot. I'm good with that, they deserve it.

 

[NotWise]

My stories take way too long to write, and I spend too much time telling tales, which some readers don't like.

But...

I like toying with word choices, rhythm and flow, and I read the stories aloud to myself to make sure I enjoy the way they "feel."

And

If it weren't for the stories, I wouldn't be writing much at all. The sex is just seasoning for the stew.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I have difficulty balancing detail and pace. Sometimes I want the pace to read quickly and so I skimp on detail, especially if it's emotional detail, then other times I bog down in detail and slow the pace.

 

[Cali_Love]

1) I write like I talk.

2) The mechanics of my English is not proper. ENG100 in college was the worst class I ever took, and my professor can just suck it. I almost write in a way just because.

 

[TxRad]

Wrong according to whom and for how long?

Tell your story the way you want and don't sweat the right or wrong of it.

 

[Jmanchu]

What's wrong with my writing:

1) I have trouble making time to get shit done
2) my writing is disorganized sometimes
3) It's hard to plan out my writing and keep to the script.
4) Improvising is a must which sometimes I can't do. Sometimes.

What's okay

1)I got no deadlines
2) I dunno. Somehow it works
3) It makes my writing interesting since even I don't know where it's gonna go

 

[SimonDoom]

Proofreading mistakes. I always edit and proof my stories and yet they get through, and sometimes they are extremely embarrassing. That was the case with my latest story. Makes me cringe. I'm pretty good with grammar, spelling, and punctuation, but when I write my fingers sometimes type things my brain doesn't intend them to do, and I don't always catch the mistakes. Drives me crazy.

Continuity errors. I did this, too, in my latest story, making me kick myself.

But in the scheme of things, I guess it's not so bad, because I'm not getting paid and I get far more complimentary responses than critical ones.

 

[WritingwhatIlike]

I don't actually have an ending to any story. I write my stories off the cuff according to what I think is hottest. Multichapter stories are going nowhere and have no satisfying closure.

The upside is I never paint myself in a corner to achieve a preconceived ending.

 

[purvis2]

What's wrong
My characters talk too much.
My stories are slow and empty.
My plots are misshapen.

Why it's okay
My characters like to get to know each other.
My stories are peaceful and uncluttered.
My plots go with the flow.

WRONG
Overall, I am autistic (high level) and dyslexic. It does make writing difficult. I can write a paragraph and read it the next day and honestly
Not remember it sounding that way when I wrote it.

Limited sexual experience - which does make writing about sex somewhat difficult.

Okay
I do put a lot of effort in world building and character development.

 

[Ian_Snow]

As much as I'd love to, I can't do a frigging slow seduction for the life of me. I'd love to be able to draw things out the way some writers can, but oh no, my characters want to hump each other in about three seconds. That's fine, because by and large, I think the sex feels real - within the fantastical worlds I'm creating, anyways (no, a pair of hot teachers aren't really going to make a pair of hot college students scream "FUCK ME DADDY!" on the phone with their actual dad, and I know that, thank you).

I'm also running dry on ideas about how my characters might actually be attracted to each other past the point of getting over their taboo feelings for one another. This is particularly becoming problematic with my MILF and teacher-student stories, but it's okay because it's freeing me up to work on other types of subgenres within erotica. And that's been fun!

 

[ofbuttons]

My chapters are short while also not progressing much in the way of time. My first four-part series covers one evening, and so could probably have been a single story, and my current series (which is planned to play out over weeks) begins with a single play session that has been stretched over three separate parts. I'd like to focus up a little better and confine play sessions and solitary sexual encounters into a single chapter without compromising on length or detail, and progress the flow of time a little faster to tell more complex stories.

But it's also fine because this pace ensures these scenes get plenty of attention, and also makes it easier and therefore more likely for me to produce and publish at all. My first series was just me getting the hang of it, and I've given myself a 5k word minimum per chapter for my second series.

 

[Dearelliot]

I take too long writing a story. I often go back, rewrite, and make changes...
I think it takes me a year to write a story