Things that drive you to change the way you write...
So, since my head hurts this morning and I can't string together two coherent thoughts, I thought I'd think about this instead. (Ever have days where you're just sure you're going to wake up at 70 and realize that you pretty much daydreamed your entire life away?)
But I got to thinking about what it is that motivates me to attempt to drastically change the way or the style or the things that I write. (Well, drastic to me, anyway. I imagine that they're hardly noticeable to other people since other people aren't likely to fret, reread and over analyze the stuff I write the way I'm prone to because I wrote it.)
Or, maybe, this is just a huge example of how I'm incredibly over sensitive and need to learn exactly when to take a chill pill. Still.
First example: When I first started writing fanfic, I paid absolutely no attention whatsoever to paragraph length. I'm not a person who likes to break things up. In school, I'd manage to write a ten page paper, and it would only be five paragraphs long. Then, I got an email off of one of the stories that I'd written that offered some constructive criticism. The reviewer basically said it was a decent story, just that the length and the size of the paragraphs made it difficult and awkward to read. I'd love to say that I took the criticism in stride, but I'd be lying. I was pissed. (Oh, to be 19 and stupid again. >_>;;) And then, after obsessing about it for a couple of months and paying attention to how long paragraphs were in the stories I liked, I realized that they were completely right. My paragraphs were horrendously long and to a very bad effect.
To this day, I'm still hyper conscious about how long/short my paragraphs are and get frustrated when I flip between the 15" laptop screen and the 19" computer monitor because it makes the story look entirely different sometimes. ^_^;;
Second example: I read a post in cairnsy's journal about first person. At least, I'm pretty sure it was there. (Although, I just spent and hour looking for it and came up empty handed, so possibly I'm imagining it entirely.) But the general gist was that first person was a rookie POV. It's what you used when you first started out writing because it was the easiest to write (notice, I said write. Not write well.).
At that point, I'd had a load of first person fics that I'd written and got a little self concious. But I could see what she (if it was even her, it's possible I read this in someone else's journal and just can't remember...) meant. First person was easy to write because I didn't have to worry about descriptions too terribly much, and it was a quick straight shot to the stuff I liked to write: the emotional goodies. I could voice the characters thoughts at the same time I was getting dialogue out while keeping the description scenery part which I know I'm crap at to an absolute minimum. Third person was harder, much harder, for me to sink my teeth into. There's something about writing third person that makes getting into the main character's head and showing what he's thinking/how he's feeling a great deal more difficult. And I can only seem to manage limited third person. Forget omniscient. That's completely beyond my grasp. But, with the exception of certain authors in original slash, I like reading third person much better than first person.
Third and last example: Epithet. This was something macteague linked to here. And I haven't been able to get it out of my mind since. This is definitely one of those Pandora box things. Until you realize how much of a problem it is, you don't notice it and for the most part, you don't care. Or, maybe that's just me. Now that I notice them? Dear god, they drive me batty--whether I'm reading them or writing them. And in all honesty, I have to say that even though I was really, really reluctant to stop using them, I think it's been to my benefit that I, well, not completely stopped necessarily, but certainly cut back drastically on using them. When I use 'em now, I try to make it for some kind of effect. Mostly when one character is referring to another as the Idiot King every time he thinks about him. It's a bitch though when there are scenes where the character is not yet named and I don't want to go through the whole "Hi, my name's...what's yours" POS dialogue. X_x So I obsess about epithets now.
I'd obsess about my grammar, but I already realize that's a pretty hopeless endeavor. I try to pick up good habits where I can, but I think my bad habits still outshine my good ones in that arena. I write like I talk. Which is a good way of saying that they're both fucked six ways to Sunday when it comes to grammar. Although, I'm now semi-obsessed with sentences ending in prepositions and not being able to figure out how the fuck to stop that. -_-;;
But I got to thinking about what it is that motivates me to attempt to drastically change the way or the style or the things that I write. (Well, drastic to me, anyway. I imagine that they're hardly noticeable to other people since other people aren't likely to fret, reread and over analyze the stuff I write the way I'm prone to because I wrote it.)
Or, maybe, this is just a huge example of how I'm incredibly over sensitive and need to learn exactly when to take a chill pill. Still.
First example: When I first started writing fanfic, I paid absolutely no attention whatsoever to paragraph length. I'm not a person who likes to break things up. In school, I'd manage to write a ten page paper, and it would only be five paragraphs long. Then, I got an email off of one of the stories that I'd written that offered some constructive criticism. The reviewer basically said it was a decent story, just that the length and the size of the paragraphs made it difficult and awkward to read. I'd love to say that I took the criticism in stride, but I'd be lying. I was pissed. (Oh, to be 19 and stupid again. >_>;;) And then, after obsessing about it for a couple of months and paying attention to how long paragraphs were in the stories I liked, I realized that they were completely right. My paragraphs were horrendously long and to a very bad effect.
To this day, I'm still hyper conscious about how long/short my paragraphs are and get frustrated when I flip between the 15" laptop screen and the 19" computer monitor because it makes the story look entirely different sometimes. ^_^;;
Second example: I read a post in cairnsy's journal about first person. At least, I'm pretty sure it was there. (Although, I just spent and hour looking for it and came up empty handed, so possibly I'm imagining it entirely.) But the general gist was that first person was a rookie POV. It's what you used when you first started out writing because it was the easiest to write (notice, I said write. Not write well.).
At that point, I'd had a load of first person fics that I'd written and got a little self concious. But I could see what she (if it was even her, it's possible I read this in someone else's journal and just can't remember...) meant. First person was easy to write because I didn't have to worry about descriptions too terribly much, and it was a quick straight shot to the stuff I liked to write: the emotional goodies. I could voice the characters thoughts at the same time I was getting dialogue out while keeping the description scenery part which I know I'm crap at to an absolute minimum. Third person was harder, much harder, for me to sink my teeth into. There's something about writing third person that makes getting into the main character's head and showing what he's thinking/how he's feeling a great deal more difficult. And I can only seem to manage limited third person. Forget omniscient. That's completely beyond my grasp. But, with the exception of certain authors in original slash, I like reading third person much better than first person.
Third and last example: Epithet. This was something macteague linked to here. And I haven't been able to get it out of my mind since. This is definitely one of those Pandora box things. Until you realize how much of a problem it is, you don't notice it and for the most part, you don't care. Or, maybe that's just me. Now that I notice them? Dear god, they drive me batty--whether I'm reading them or writing them. And in all honesty, I have to say that even though I was really, really reluctant to stop using them, I think it's been to my benefit that I, well, not completely stopped necessarily, but certainly cut back drastically on using them. When I use 'em now, I try to make it for some kind of effect. Mostly when one character is referring to another as the Idiot King every time he thinks about him. It's a bitch though when there are scenes where the character is not yet named and I don't want to go through the whole "Hi, my name's...what's yours" POS dialogue. X_x So I obsess about epithets now.
I'd obsess about my grammar, but I already realize that's a pretty hopeless endeavor. I try to pick up good habits where I can, but I think my bad habits still outshine my good ones in that arena. I write like I talk. Which is a good way of saying that they're both fucked six ways to Sunday when it comes to grammar. Although, I'm now semi-obsessed with sentences ending in prepositions and not being able to figure out how the fuck to stop that. -_-;;