What Do You Struggle With?

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

What part of writing gives you fits?

 

[TxRad]

Finding the time to do more of it.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I suffer from I COULDA HADDA V8! eruptions.

My plot bunnies multiply like rabbits, and I'm always in a rush to put pencil to paper. Consequently, better stuff gets left out of the stew due to haste.

 

[oggbashan]

Plots that start off well then divert into dead ends or lose the way completely.

 

[hoo_hoo_boo]

What part of writing gives you fits?

I struggle with most things around language. I struggle most with disjointedness and it takes months to see it as others do.
I find though I have some positives. I'm patient and have a good imagination. I also think it's positive I don't resort to stuff like incest. I like to think there is a nobility in that.

 

[DwellerDark]

A lack of confidence in my writing, and distractions.

 

[SecondCircle]

Hmm. I guess with my writing at Lit, I struggle with brevity, or shortness of the story.

Usually some of the better ideas I put into writing wind up taking off and stacking up pages. I'm kinda long winded I guess, in case anyone hasn't noticed. If there's one thing I'd like to do is write a few shorter more simplistic stories.

 

[oggbashan]

Hmm. I guess with my writing at Lit, I struggle with brevity, or shortness of the story.

Usually some of the better ideas I put into writing wind up taking off and stacking up pages. I'm kinda long winded I guess, in case anyone hasn't noticed. If there's one thing I'd like to do is write a few shorter more simplistic stories.

You could try writing 50-word stories. I write them in sets of 15 to get to the minimum Lit story length of 750 words.

If you can't manage 15, you could submit them as 'Poetry'.

Even if you find writing 50-word stories too difficult, trying to write them encourages brevity.

 

[RichardBacula]

What part of writing gives you fits?

Research. Sometimes it's fun, but often it's a chore.
If I'm writing about an 18 year-old Japanese girl in America as one of my characters, for example, my ability to flesh out the character is pretty limited, simply because I've never personally BEEN a Japanese teenage girl living in America. I don't know enough about the culture she's coming from, and I don't know enough about the culture that she's going into (i.e., teenage girls in America).
So I have to try to brush up on the subject, and that takes time. It's also a non-specific enough subject that research is tricky, and often unproductive.

(OR I can just write around the gaps in my knowledge, which is faster, but ultimately very dissatisfying.)

 

[RichardBacula]

Hmm. I guess with my writing at Lit, I struggle with brevity, or shortness of the story.

Usually some of the better ideas I put into writing wind up taking off and stacking up pages. I'm kinda long winded I guess, in case anyone hasn't noticed. If there's one thing I'd like to do is write a few shorter more simplistic stories.

One thing that I try to do in order to deal with my own verbosity is to write stories that are only about ONE thing, especially with erotica.
One of my first self-published stories, An Innocent Haircut, for example, was something that I went into with the notion of writing a quick, one-scene story, just a few paragraphs of setup, then the sex, then the story's over.
But it ended up being over 9,000 words anyway, simply because I zoomed in on so many details.
If I tried to write something with a lot of characters, multiple plot twists or threads, and so forth, there's no telling how long it would take to tell the tale.

Even when writing more complex stories, I try to make the story primarily about only one thing, like a key decision, or an important moment, or a single scene. Then I try to write only as much as I need to in order to get to (and through) that single point.

One of the pieces of advice that I got in a creative writing class is that if something doesn't either establish character or advance the plot, it should be discarded. There are exceptions, but it's a pretty good rule to follow.

 

[RichardBacula]

Plots that start off well then divert into dead ends or lose the way completely.

Try working backward. Think of the ending first, then work your way backward until you figure out where the beginning is, before you write it out.

 

[sunandshadow]

Plots that start off well then divert into dead ends or lose the way completely.

Yep. Or devolve into semi-plotless soap opera and navel-gazing. Plot has been my nemesis for as long as I've been writing fiction. Though recently, motivation is a more immediate problem; I just have no urge to put words on paper and give them to other people to read anymore.

 

[heartofdixie1992]

I struggle with being satisfied with the subjects that come to mind. What happens next? What should the character be like? What kind of story is this? Almost nothing is immune to my "No, that doesn't sound right" or "No I don't feel like writing about that"

 

[RoyceConnors]

My bane is writing a long series and having to keep developing the storyline and plot. I'm sort of writing the way a TV series would be written and now I see how hard it is to continually come up with twists and turns. The first 2 seasons of Redwood Nine (13 chs. ea.) weren't too hard, but the 3rd had me scrambling to advance years in the story and still have the same elements happening. Having to add and subtract characters isn't easy to do either. Every one has to have a history and that has to jive with everything written so far. After 400k words, it gets challenging to say the least, lol

Research is fun, as long as the subject matter is of interest. If it isn't, the reader won't give a shit how long I spent getting the details right. Blood of the Clans has ended up over 10k hours of research, but everything I looked up was interesting and germane to the story.

The history buffs like the factual parts and don't quibble over a little grandiose flair in the plot. The romantics like the usual flourishes and the drama lovers dig the intensity. The war mongers get off on the blood letting and dismemberment, so I did my best to appeal to as many readers as I could, but of course, we can't please them all and that's another bane of mine. It's always the style you write in for that type of story, that makes or breaks it.

Might have all the right parts and pieces of the story, but writing it in the wrong style will kill it, before the first page is even done.

 

[patientlee]

Brevity.

 

[SecondCircle]

You could try writing 50-word stories. I write them in sets of 15 to get to the minimum Lit story length of 750 words.

If you can't manage 15, you could submit them as 'Poetry'.

Even if you find writing 50-word stories too difficult, trying to write them encourages brevity.

It'd be a good exercise to do so. I've done things like this as just kind of toying around with ideas. If a good scene pops in my head, I put it into writing just for fun and see how well the scene reads. Not a whole story mind you, just snippets.

My only qualm with it is I guess maybe I prefer to write longer stories. I like for a reader to spend some time with the characters and fully immerse themselves in the world I've painted. Seems more real that way to me.

 

[SecondCircle]

My bane is writing a long series and having to keep developing the storyline and plot. I'm sort of writing the way a TV series would be written and now I see how hard it is to continually come up with twists and turns. The first 2 seasons of Redwood Nine (13 chs. ea.) weren't too hard, but the 3rd had me scrambling to advance years in the story and still have the same elements happening. Having to add and subtract characters isn't easy to do either. Every one has to have a history and that has to jive with everything written so far. After 400k words, it gets challenging to say the least, lol

Research is fun, as long as the subject matter is of interest. If it isn't, the reader won't give a shit how long I spent getting the details right. Blood of the Clans has ended up over 10k hours of research, but everything I looked up was interesting and germane to the story.

The history buffs like the factual parts and don't quibble over a little grandiose flair in the plot. The romantics like the usual flourishes and the drama lovers dig the intensity. The war mongers get off on the blood letting and dismemberment, so I did my best to appeal to as many readers as I could, but of course, we can't please them all and that's another bane of mine. It's always the style you write in for that type of story, that makes or breaks it.

Might have all the right parts and pieces of the story, but writing it in the wrong style will kill it, before the first page is even done.

I would certainly recommend that last bit to anyone who is writing. If it doesn't further the plot or characters, it isn't necessary and you can scrap it.

But... as with any wise advice, I feel like we often get carried away with that. It may be splitting hairs, but there's a difference between what is relevant and what is good to read... some of the time.

For me, a story written with absolutely only plot and character relevant supporting details feels like an anorexic beauty queen. Yeah she's pretty and could be viewed as perfect, but she feels skeletal and hollow. This is not a blanket statement, as many works are "relevance only" and feel fully fleshed.

And there are times when an author could just drone on and on about something not relevant, or get so damn wordy with descriptions that it leg sweeps the pace completely. I'm not condoning that either.

But as for my own writing, and what I like to read, I often don't worry too very much about "do I really need this." I trim the fat, but not so much as others. I was told once (not on this site, it was my wife's friend) that my writing feels like an action movie that uses phantom camera (think "Robert Downey Jr. and those slow motion punches in Sherlock Holmes). At first I kinda took this to mean I need to cut some of my fat down to help quicken the pace, not let it drag. But now I think I kinda like the idea. The fast parts blaze and read like a WWII beach invasion, while the slower segments read like a replay of a QB end zone dive in the fourth quarter. And many times the two interchange like a roller coaster ride.

But pacing is only part of that equation. Sometimes when I read and the author gives me an "irrelevant" snippet, if it's written well enough I hop in the stream and flow right with it, especially if it's interesting.

... and thus my long windedness. Well anyway, I think as long as I enjoy the stories I turn out, then long or short I guess it's not too big an issue.

 

[SecondCircle]

Crap, sorry Royce I quoted the wrong thing there. Meant to quote Richard. I mean... not that I wouldn't quote you or anything. Um. Be glad to quote you sometime.

 

[RoyceConnors]

Crap, sorry Royce I quoted the wrong thing there. Meant to quote Richard. I mean... not that I wouldn't quote you or anything. Um. Be glad to quote you sometime.

No probs SC, I think I was saying much the same in my post about putting things in and they don't matter to the story. Too much useless detail makes it muddy and boring.

 

[oggbashan]

Try working backward. Think of the ending first, then work your way backward until you figure out where the beginning is, before you write it out.

I always think of the ending first.

But getting from the beginning to the pre-set ending can go awry.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Depends on what you add.

A treasure map might work.

Miley Cyrus' cell phone number might do it too.


Directions to make your cock 12 inches long.

 

[RoyceConnors]

I always think of the ending first.

But getting from the beginning to the pre-set ending can go awry.

I have that issue too. I have a set beginning and a set ending point. I have a sketchy backstory to work from and I have to create a story out of it all. 99.5% is entirely from my head, but that.5% is enough to throw it all off if I don't get it right.

 

[sunandshadow]

Try working backward. Think of the ending first, then work your way backward until you figure out where the beginning is, before you write it out.

I don't really understand how people can think of the ending first in a useful amount of detail, though I understand why knowing the ending would be really helpful. I write novel-length, and there are usually huge changes between the opening story situation and the climax/resolution. I always know generally what kind of ending I want - I only write happy endings, and they commonly involve either a bad guy being executed or the typical romance wedding and a baby or victory at a political/social struggle resulting in success at founding a new organization (a school, a castle, a clan, a spaceship, a colony world, a hybrid species, whatever, they're all roughly equivalent). But the cleverness and drama of an ending is all in the details, the specifics of "how did they finally overcome the obstacles and win?"

 

[RoyceConnors]

I don't really understand how people can think of the ending first in a useful amount of detail, though I understand why knowing the ending would be really helpful. I write novel-length, and there are usually huge changes between the opening story situation and the climax/resolution. I always know generally what kind of ending I want - I only write happy endings, and they commonly involve either a bad guy being executed or the typical romance wedding and a baby or victory at a political/social struggle resulting in success at founding a new organization (a school, a castle, a clan, a spaceship, a colony world, a hybrid species, whatever, they're all roughly equivalent). But the cleverness and drama of an ending is all in the details, the specifics of "how did they finally overcome the obstacles and win?"

Seems you answered your own question. If you figure out a clever ending to it all, it's easier to go through the story to set it up and all the bells and whistles to make it work nicely

 

[RichardBacula]

I don't really understand how people can think of the ending first in a useful amount of detail, though I understand why knowing the ending would be really helpful. I write novel-length, and there are usually huge changes between the opening story situation and the climax/resolution. I always know generally what kind of ending I want - I only write happy endings, and they commonly involve either a bad guy being executed or the typical romance wedding and a baby or victory at a political/social struggle resulting in success at founding a new organization (a school, a castle, a clan, a spaceship, a colony world, a hybrid species, whatever, they're all roughly equivalent). But the cleverness and drama of an ending is all in the details, the specifics of "how did they finally overcome the obstacles and win?"

Stories come from different places, especially for different people.
When I was coming up with ideas for a Halloween story, I first came up with the concept "what about a girl/scarecrow sex story?"
Then I mulled over the details, and pondered "Scarecrows don't have the right anatomy. What can I use?"
When I came up with the answer to that question, I had my title AND my ending.
From there, all I had to do was to set up that ending, working forward to it.

With other stories, inspiration strikes differently. With "The Magician's New Box," one of my Kindle stories, I came up with the opening scene first, and had to figure out an ending from there.

With one of my other stories here on Literotica, "Twenty-One Percent," I came up with the character first- a cyborg with a incredibly limited range of sensations- and worked out the rest of the story from there.
With that story, I started off with the essence of the character's dilemma, summed up in one sentence:
Miguel wanted with all his heart to just be able to feel the warmth of her body, but that damned computer inside his head just kept telling him what temperature she was.
Then I kind of built the rest of the story around that, working forward and back, fleshing out the details that surrounded that one moment.

With Stephen King's story The Mist, I remember reading that he was in a grocery store, and he had a flash of a pterodactyl flying through the store. He built his entire story around that one flash of inspiration, that one moment.

Not to wax too philosophical, but I think that stories grow kind of like crystals- all you need is one small seed, and you can end up with something really beautiful.
Sometimes they grow one way, sometimes they grow another.

And each writer tends to have their own methods.
If you want to explore ending-first writing, I suggest that you think of an ending that you'd like to see that hasn't quite been done before.
Like if there's a movie or story that you read where the ending was really unsatisfactory, or simply cliche. Come up with a new ending for that story, then come up with a new story for that ending.

Example (non-erotic):
Say you're tired of horror movies where the killer is supposedly dead, but then jumps up for one final scare. You might come up with an ending where the heroes, when the villain is lying there looking dead, cut the villain's head off, then douse his body with holy water, and burn his head and body in separate pyres.
Then, with that ending in mind, try to create characters and situations that would cause that kind of reaction.

Or maybe you're sick of vampire erotica where a vampire who's hundreds of years old falls in love with a teenage girl. Maybe you think that would be the emotional equivalent of an 80 year-old dating a pre-schooler.
So instead of writing a "OMG, they're SO TOTALLY in love!" kind of story, you write a story that looks that way at first... but ultimately the vampire just kills her, chuckles about how gullible she was, and moves on with his day, because there's no real way he could be emotionally invested in a living person, especially one that young.
Granted, that's not the happy ending you seem to prefer.

Point is, find an ending you dislike, make it better, then come up with a path that will lead you there.
Might be a fun exercise.