Story Genres You Found You Were No Good At Writing

[RetroFan]

Have you ever started writing a story and then found about halfway through that you were no good at writing that type of story?

I had that type of experience a few weeks ago. I thought I had a good idea for a Romance story a few weeks ago, a category I have never published in before and made good progress - or so I thought. It always was going to be a sad story designed to tug at the heartstrings, but when I got to the midway point and read through what I had written, it was so depressing.

If I had watched a movie marathon consisting of 'Beaches', 'Step Mom', 'My Sister's Keeper', 'Lassie Come Home', 'Old Yeller', 'The Notebook' and the second half of 'Click', I could not have felt more depressed than I felt reading my half-completed work, which I have since abandoned.

I mostly write comedic stories, although I will at times include serious elements in stories depending on what I am writing. However, I was shocked that I wrote something that depressed me as the author. I haven't given up on writing a Romance story, and in fact am planning to write a Christmas story in that genre, but my first attempt will probably never see the light of day.

Have you ever had a similar type of experience to me?

 

[Kantarii]

I usually steer clear of writing in certain categories for one reason: based against my morals. Other than that, I write in categories based on personal experience. I don't think my writing ability/ skill or creativity would hinder me from writing in a specific category

Additionally, as a personal note, try to lose the self-defeating perception associated with the words "I can't" or "I'm not good at". They will forever hold you back from achieving something you desire. Put your work back and let it sit. Then, come back when "you" are ready. Kant

 

[NOIRTRASH]

I start by knowing what I'm doing.

There are no genres, just genre. Genre is the depiction of ordinary life.

 

[CyranoJ]

Have you ever started writing a story and then found about halfway through that you were no good at writing that type of story?

I've tried my hand at sub-genres that were way harder than I thought they'd be. Sleuth stories are the big recent example for me. Pacing and revelation of information in a mystery thriller is way harder to do effectively than I expected.

(I'm writing one of these at novella length later this year, so my recent experience was a good warm-up. Hopefully I'll have time to get better at this the next time out.)

 

[sr71plt]

I can't--or at least don't--write complex-worlds sci-fi. All the background construction isn't the meat of the theme or action of what I like to write. If there are "beyond this world" elements I want to build a story on, like semen-milking labs in my "Roswell's Frontier Motel," or humans being enhanced to serve the monster sexual requirements of extraterrestials, like in my "Pleasure Giver," I avoid as much as possible needing to give detail to any sci-fi element other than the ones central to my story.

 

[AwkwardMD]

I first started writing at 16, back in 1996. I wrote for almost 16 years without sharing any of it with anyone because I hated what I was writing. Didn't matter what genre, POV, or style I was experimenting with. It was all junk.

Eventually I turned a corner, and felt comfortable sharing.

 

[Nezhul]

I haven't tried a lot of the genres.
I generally think that I'm no good at comedy - I'm a fun guy in life, but I can't really include it in a story as the main element. I can write good jokes, but most of my humor is spontaneous, so I can't make an entire story where you would be smiling and giggling all the time.

 

[My I]

Don't know that I'm no good at them but I have no interest in writing, Gay Male, Loving Wives, Hardcore BDSM, Group sex, How to (unless maybe how to do a trigger job for a 2# trigger on a 1911), Incest/Taboo....

Ok maybe the categories I do and/or will write would be a much shorter list.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Don't know that I'm no good at them but I have no interest in writing, Gay Male, Loving Wives, Hardcore BDSM, Group sex, How to (unless maybe how to do a trigger job for a 2# trigger on a 1911), Incest/Taboo....

Ok maybe the categories I do and/or will write would be a much shorter list.

Youre my liberal inspiration.

 

[HandsInTheDark]

I've had a long (and non-erotic) sci/fi novel on a back burner for years. What I have so far doesn't suck, but I think I just don't handle three novel-length stories well. Really slow arcs just don't seem to be in my nature.

I did a non-erotic here that I think came out very well, but it was very hard. Erotica really is easier...

 

[LeandraNyx]

Deleted

 

[NOIRTRASH]

While not impossible, it's difficult for me to write in genres that don't personally peak my interest. If I haven't read a lot of content in a particular genre, that means I have less experience with it--with what works and what doesn't--and am thus, less likely to effectively write in that genre, too. Not to mention that nearly all stories require some baseline level of research and if the research bores me, I'm less likely to really try. Theoretically, I could put out something halfway decent, but it would take a lot more effort. I actually do occasionally write about kinks I don't have--just for the challenge of it all--and I'd say those stories are the hardest to write and likely score the lowest, but I always learn from the experience.

Have you ever looked up the definition of GENRE?

Most on this thread make shit up as they come to it? Do you?

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Genre (N).

Whatever PILOT says it is.

(archaic) 1770, "particular style of art," a French word in English (nativized from c. 1840), from French genre "kind, sort, style" (see gender (n.)). Used especially in French for "independent style." In painting, as an adjective, "depicting scenes of ordinary life" (a domestic interior or village scene, as compared to landscape, historical, etc.) from 1849.

 

[LeandraNyx]

Deleted

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Genre: a category of artistic composition, as in music or literature, characterized by similarities in form, style, or subject matter.

Cite the whole definition. You remind me of a priest on my sex offender caseload who told me HIS PENIS WAS NO BIGGER TAHN MY THUMB, AND SINCE WHEN IS SUCKING A THUMB A CRIME!

 

[CyranoJ]

Now, now, Ruprecht. If you keep banging your pots, you won't have any pots to bang.

 

[Handley_Page]

I'm at one point in a story which I am having great difficulty with.
It's an assault on a Lady by a particularly rude and over-bearing Duke who seems to
think that hygiene is for somebody else and every woman owes him a fuck.

Her struggles get her falling out of the coach to the ground and thence into the assured arms of a passing woodsman.

I just cannot get it right.
Anyone here knows about these things, I'd value some help.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

I did more research of GENRE.

At best its a cluster fuck no one can recognize or point to as the object of the definition. It has no corporeal or sensual aspects. Its a bag of stuff in which all agree what the stuff are, but a different bag is genre when filled with different stuff. Manure comes to mind or vomit.

 

[ChloeTzang]

I'm at one point in a story which I am having great difficulty with.
It's an assault on a Lady by a particularly rude and over-bearing Duke who seems to
think that hygiene is for somebody else and every woman owes him a fuck.

Her struggles get her falling out of the coach to the ground and thence into the assured arms of a passing woodsman.

I just cannot get it right.
Anyone here knows about these things, I'd value some help.

I have never fallen out of a coach but I imagine you'd have to work hard to avoid the wheels. It never happens in Georgette Heyer novels, there the heroine lifts the duke's pistol or the coach breaks a wheel or an axle.

 

[LeandraNyx]

Deleted

 

[NotWise]

I'm at one point in a story which I am having great difficulty with.
It's an assault on a Lady by a particularly rude and over-bearing Duke who seems to
think that hygiene is for somebody else and every woman owes him a fuck.

Her struggles get her falling out of the coach to the ground and thence into the assured arms of a passing woodsman.

I just cannot get it right.
Anyone here knows about these things, I'd value some help.

What is the time period for the story? Location? Is the Lady actually noble? Is she married?

The story I'm working on now is set in Spain about 1540 with clashing Dukes, a courtesan and her handmaiden, and a Count and men with swords dashing across the Castilian countryside. No bodices have been ripped. I've needed to do a lot of research to get my head around the setting.

The coach would stop and the attending guards/drivers/footmen would see to the situation. The capable woodsman would set the Lady down and high-tail it out of town. Absolutely nothing good could come of it for him.

But maybe she could get the woodsman's name and find him through the local church and...

Whatever happens, she's probably going to have to overcome his expectation that common folk never get a fair shake when dealing with nobles.

 

[sunandshadow]

I wanted to write surrealism at one point, because I love reading it, but I turn out to be way too analytical and literal-minded to be able to create good surrealism.

 

[Handley_Page]

What is the time period for the story? Location? Is the Lady actually noble? Is she married?

The story I'm working on now is set in Spain about 1540 with clashing Dukes, a courtesan and her handmaiden, and a Count and men with swords dashing across the Castilian countryside. No bodices have been ripped. I've needed to do a lot of research to get my head around the setting.

The coach would stop and the attending guards/drivers/footmen would see to the situation. The capable woodsman would set the Lady down and high-tail it out of town. Absolutely nothing good could come of it for him.

But maybe she could get the woodsman's name and find him through the local church and...

Whatever happens, she's probably going to have to overcome his expectation that common folk never get a fair shake when dealing with nobles.

Time: not specified but probably when crinolines were the height of fashion.
She's a real princess. (the story centres on her noted reluctance to be treated like a brood mare just for the sake of her Daddy's kingdom). The King selects a possible candidate and she ain't 'appy. Cue confusion and so on.
But one selected 'Duke' is a real troll.
These days, his assault would constitute an attempted rape.

Of course, the Hero has been right under her nose all the time.

 

[likehotstorys]

Striggling

Her struggles get her falling out of the coach to the ground and thence into the assured arms of a passing woodsman.


Well first you need to establish how she got past the door. Head first. Hip first. Feet first.
Once you have the way she went out the door, you have your trajectory, and the rest will follow.

 

[Handley_Page]

Her struggles get her falling out of the coach to the ground and thence into the assured arms of a passing woodsman.


Well first you need to establish how she got past the door. Head first. Hip first. Feet first.
Once you have the way she went out the door, you have your trajectory, and the rest will follow.

That's not the problem as I see it.
It's describing the Assault by the ill-kempt Duke, as he grabs her bosom and so on.
She'll fall out feet first into the mud.
Before the Duke can say anything, up pops the hero.