Can a good writer feel sucky?

[Renfaery]

So, I'm working on the first draft of a novel. I like the idea, I like the story, but I don't like a lot of what I'm actually writing.

Is this because its the first draft and it will get shiny with re-writes, or does it mean I probably suck?

[mab]

I think most first drafts are pretty bad....as you say, you polish it up and make it lovely in subsequent drafts. But yeah, its disheartening when you look back over a draft and want to delete the whole thing. Don't keep stopping to edit. You can always put square brackets around words/sentences you know you want to change, just to keep your momentum going, like this:

The [cat] sat on the mat and [put on a hat].

Just so you keep going, so you have something to edit, no matter how seemingly bad, it will improve!

I just realised i never follow any of this sage advice myself. Damn!

[dempsey]

Self-doubt is common.

I'm reminded of that story of the boy violinist. Skip if you've heard this one.

Little boy plays his violin for a world-class violinist. The violinist, after hearing the boy, grumbles a bit to himself and says, "You don't have the fire."

The boy, disheartened, puts away his violin and moves on to business. He becomes a successful businessman and, years later, meets up with the old violinist.

"I played for you once as a boy," he said. "You told me I didn't have the fire. I guess that was good advice, because I've gone on to do great things with my life."

"I didn't even hear you play," the violinist said. "I tell everyone that."

"What? But I could have been a great violinist! Why did you tell me that?"

"If you had the fire, it wouldn't have mattered what I said."

Do with that what you will. I say, keep writing. First drafts always suck.

[shannonmac]

I thought my first draft was great... then I beat the crap out of it with a pen this weekend...

so... I think everything needs a little polishing! You have an idea, that's half the battle!

[stormie]

If you want to be a writer, keep writing. Read everything you can on writing. Don't give up. And no matter how seasoned a writer is, there are always those times of self-doubt. You tell 'em to go away. Fast.

[scheherazade]

I think it was Margaret Atwood who said that every time she starts a new first draft she's terrified that she might die before she gets a chance to revise, and someone will read it over and think that she'd lost her gift if she was reduced to writing such drivel these days. As in... everyone writes lousy first drafts.

[Renfaery]

I do skip editing while I'm actually doing the writing, and I have a lot of places where people/things are named XXXX until I think of something, so I don't stop just to make up names.

I just look back at what I wrote this morning and yesterday and think "Ewww. This is absolutely putrid", so I was wondering if that happens to good writers also.

Thanks for the advice so far.

^^

[Danger Jane]

Self-doubt is common.

I'm reminded of that story of the boy violinist. Skip if you've heard this one.

Little boy plays his violin for a world-class violinist. The violinist, after hearing the boy, grumbles a bit to himself and says, "You don't have the fire."

The boy, disheartened, puts away his violin and moves on to business. He becomes a successful businessman and, years later, meets up with the old violinist.

"I played for you once as a boy," he said. "You told me I didn't have the fire. I guess that was good advice, because I've gone on to do great things with my life."

"I didn't even hear you play," the violinist said. "I tell everyone that."

"What? But I could have been a great violinist! Why did you tell me that?"

"If you had the fire, it wouldn't have mattered what I said."

Do with that what you will. I say, keep writing. First drafts always suck.

QFT.

[Renfaery]

What does QFT stand for, Danger Jane?

[Fillanzea]

I've heard Sherman Alexie (winner of the National Book Award for YA with "Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian") say that he often thinks his writing is terrible.

My littlest sister had excellent grades all throughout high school, volunteer experience at the hospital, lots of extracurriculars. She was jumping up and down with joy that any college accepted her.

The suck monkey has nothing to do with real life. Nothing at all.

[BenPanced]

What does QFT stand for, Danger Jane?
Quoted For Truth. A step or twenty beyond "I totally agree".

[Shweta]

Yes.
I'll quote some of the (excellent, award-winning) pros :)

Elizabeth Bear (http://matociquala.livejournal.com/1414524.html) on making a story "not suck."

Delia Sherman (http://deliasherman.livejournal.com/39535.html) on novel plot falling apart.

And while I'm not finding other good quotes, Neil Gaiman (http://journal.neilgaiman.com/search/label/writing) has some thoughts on things in stories being broken and not working on early drafts, too.

[dempsey]

I hadn't seen the one by Delia Sherman, Shweta. Good link! :)

[Tiergan]

Yes. We all have self-doubt. At least I believe we do. My chapter 6 was made up on the fly, no outline. While I liked the concept and the scenes, I didn't feel it held up to the previous first 5. My beta readers loved it. So, yes, I think we all have doubts, sometimes they are justified, every sentence we write can't be deathly prose on the first draft. Other times we are just too close to the writing to be objective.

[Renfaery]

Again, thanks everyone for the wonderful advice and quotes. You're all motivating me to just keep writing until I get to the end, and then worry about making it not suck when I get there.

I can't wait until 8am when I can get to it again!

[virtue_summer]

Usually when I have that experience I continue writing. When I go back later I find out one of two things:

1) The writing isn't as bad as I thought it was.
2) Even the parts that really are bad suggest their own fixes. By identifying what's wrong, I'm then able to figure out what I need to do right.

I say just keep going and worry about scrutinizing the writing later. Get the story down for now. That's usually most important.

[Mumut]

I think the main thing is to make sure you have the right characters and the best location. After a few re-writes it will sound good.

[Jenifer]

Gosh, I hope so. :tongue

At least as much as sucky writers can feel FULL OF WIN.

Both tragic.

[Cybernaught]

Can a sucky writer feel good?

[Jenifer]

Can a sucky writer feel good?

You should see what I'm trying to help someone with at the moment. *headdesk*

[Teena]

Bad writers, good writers, excellent writers...all think something they have written sucks at some point. I'm so bogged down in re-writing what I've written that I can't get my first novel actually completed in a first draft. What I have is a 23rd draft that is still incomplete. :Shrug:

But I keep trying because novels 2 & 3 are screaming at me from the desk drawer and I haven't written them either. That's what you have to do -- keep writing. Stephen King has said that some of what he wrote he thought at the time was drivel. Some drivel gets published. Go figure.

[Jenifer]

A lot of drivel gets published. Gives me hope for my own drivel. :D

[Teena]

A lot of drivel gets published. Gives me hope for my own drivel. :D

Aye, me too, lass!! ;)

[CreativeDreamer]

Hmm, when you think your writing sucks, take a field trip down to your local bookstore. Start picking up random books off the shelf and read a couple paragraphs. 2/3 you will go "Wow, and I thought I sucked. If this can get published, so can I!"

It works for me. Every time!

[MelodyO]

I've heard Sherman Alexie (winner of the National Book Award for YA with "Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian") say that he often thinks his writing is terrible.



I love Sherman Alexie SO MUCH, and you don't know how heartening it is to hear that even he has doubts about his writing. It certainly inspires me to keep going, even when I think I can hear my WIP sucking all the way from the other room. :D

[Birol]

Can a good writer feel sucky?

Yes.

Not only can they, most likely they will. The surprising thing would be if a good writer never felt sucky.

As a writer, you can expect to alternating between feeling like the biggest fraud on the planet and the greatest gift to literature since <insert whatever name you feel like>, in the space of a paragraph, or less. You can expect to go back and forth several times in the space of one novel. Get used to it and learn to ride both extremes out.

[Nakhlasmoke]

Heh, just wait til you start revising and with every pass through you're more and more convinced that everything you've ever written is complete drek, and this novel even more so.
It's natural, roll with it.

[Shweta]

Heh, just wait til you start revising and with every pass through you're more and more convinced that everything you've ever written is complete drek, and this novel even more so.
It's natural, roll with it.
Why do we do this, again? :Wha:

[Jill]

1) The writing isn't as bad as I thought it was.
2) Even the parts that really are bad suggest their own fixes. By identifying what's wrong, I'm then able to figure out what I need to do right.

It's when you have the ability to look back over what you've written (preferably with a timescale of at least two weeks) and judge it that you know that you are on the way to becoming a writer.

That doesn't eliminate self doubt, though. We all suffer from that - it's par for the course.

[Shara]

Who was it who said "The first draft of anything is sh*t"? Might have been Ernest Hemingway, but not sure.

Like everyone else has said, the first draft is allowed to suck. I never show anyone my first draft (neither does Stephen King, which is advice he passed on in "On Writing"). Neither, it seems, does Margaret Attwood.

Don't be afraid to allow yourself these moments of "I'm a crap writer". You will amend, you will revise, you will work out how to fix the problems and you will realise you're not a crap writer after all.

It is my experience that those writers who have talent are the ones who go through these cycles of self-doubt. The only writers who believe themselves to be literary geniuses are those who actually aren't very good at all!!

Shara

[Charlie Horse]

Here's one of my favorite quotes from Ann Lamott. I almost have it memorized and I use it often, but it is particularly relevent here:



Now, practically even better news than that of short assignments is the idea of shitty first drafts. All good writers write them. This is how they end up with good second drafts and terrific third drafts. People tend to look at successful writers who are getting their books published and maybe even doing well financially and think that they sit down at their desks every morning feeling like a million dollars, feeling great about who they are and how much talent they have and what a great story they have to tell; that they take in a few deep breaths, push back their sleeves, roll their necks a few times to get all the cricks out, and dive in, typing fully formed passages as fast as a court reporter. But this is just the fantasy of the uninitiated. I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts. All right, one of them does, but we do not like her very much. We do not think that she has a rich inner life or that God likes her or can even stand her. (Although when I mentioned this to my priest friend Tom, he said you can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.)

[regdog]

Nothing's perfect on the first try. The problem is we want it to be and doubt ourselves when it isn't.

[Birol]

Why do we do this, again? :Wha:

We're masochists.

[tehuti88]

So, I'm working on the first draft of a novel. I like the idea, I like the story, but I don't like a lot of what I'm actually writing.

Is this because its the first draft and it will get shiny with re-writes, or does it mean I probably suck?

I feel I'm a moderately decent writer, and unlike you I actually like most of what I write. I often feel sucky, even about the stuff I like. So I think that can happen.

If you're seriously disliking what you're writing, it might be one of two things--your inner critic being too--well, critical, like with many writers--or perhaps a warning sign that you need to take a hard look at what you're writing and how. I'm afraid only you would be able to tell which it is. Since it's the first draft, maybe you should cut yourself some slack and just keep at it and see where it goes before getting too hard on yourself. It might just be your annoying inner critic after all.

Sorry that this isn't very useful! :o

[Cranky]

My inner critc almost never shuts up. It's the biggest writing hurdle I have, and so far I haven't found a way to squelch it long enough to finish an entire novel. A novella is as far as I got, length-wise, before I had enough.

When I figure out the trick to shutting her up so I can just write for long periods, I'll be sure to pass it along to anyone who wants to hear it. :D

[Bubastes]

I'm only 2 pages into my sixth novel attempt (my first at 3rd person POV) and I'm already feeling the suck. I suspect it's normal.

[Renfaery]

Hmm, when you think your writing sucks, take a field trip down to your local bookstore. Start picking up random books off the shelf and read a couple paragraphs. 2/3 you will go "Wow, and I thought I sucked. If this can get published, so can I!"

It works for me. Every time!

I did this today, and you know what? You were right! I feel chock full of win now. ^^

[Phaeal]

The Inner Editor will always tell you you suck. If you didn't, he might lose his job!

Keep him locked in the closet through the first draft, feeding optional.

[MelodyO]

The Inner Editor will always tell you you suck. If you didn't, he might lose his job!

Keep him locked in the closet through the first draft, feeding optional.

Drinking mandatory. :D

[scheherazade]

In my experiences with writers workshops, the best writers tend to express feelings of doubt about their own work - some acknowledge that they would never share a first draft, and others go so far as to feel insecure about sharing what turns out to be one of the strongest pieces in the class.

In a workshop, the writers who are most confident about their pieces are often the weakest writers in the class. To some extent, I think this goes hand-in-hand. Yes, when you know you've written something strong you can feel pride and confidence in it, but I think we're all a little uncertain about how that will be perceived (though some people will express that insecurity as cockiness). However, writers who feel no doubt about their works are the ones who will reject feedback, claiming that their peers don't know what they're talking about or are jealous. So if they don't feel insecure enough about their work to accept that someone else could show them how to improve it, then they are probably never going to become a better writer.

So treasure your insecurity. It shows that you are open to improving your craft! Just don't let the insecurity scare you away from writing...

[sadron]

Yes, a good writer can feel sucky. I feel sucky too when I start to read my story.

[Deccydiva]

Insecurity scaring you away from writing... yes that's a threat I recognise but luckily I have been able to bounce back - so far.

[Kiltinator]

It's the apocraphyl story about the party full of writers where everyone is kvetching about how difficult writing is but there's one writer off in the corner who doesn't know what anyone's talking about. Invariably, that's the worst writer in the room.

Part of the knack is recognising where your story isn't working on some fundamental, structural level and where it's just first draft blues.

[writersprite]

When I read my novels as I edit and find that I hate everything, I tuck that project away before I start hacking it apart like a fiend. Then I move onto one of my other novels awaiting editing/rewrite or initial draft completion. I find that it's simply safer for my novel to survive if we're separated for a while.

[Gray Rose]

I don't think I'm a good writer. It occurs to me daily that my writing sucks. But I keep at it because I have stories to tell, and they burn. It helps very much that my friends not only tolerate my whining, but talk back.

Sample exchange.
Rose: "I suck."
Shweta: "You don't suck."
It's profound. Trust me.

Thing is, you don't know if your writing sucks until you've completed your first draft, edited, sent to betas, edited, edited, sent to some more betas, queried, rewritten per agents' specs, lather, rinse, repeat.

If your book finds an agent, and even sells, your writing doesn't suck.

Even if you won't find an agent, and/or your first book won't sell, you'll learn a lot from the process, and your next project will suck less.

Good luck!
Rose

[akiwiguy]

I wonder if the "I suck" sense of ones writing sometimes has to do with the stage we're at in developing our skills. You often hear people say, and I went through it not that long ago, "The more I write and learn about writing, the worse my writing feels".

I'm starting to think it has to do with the classic four stages of learning....
- Unconscious Incompetence
- Conscious Incompetence
- Conscious Competence
- Unconscious Competence

That second stage, "Conscious Incompetence" can be living hell. When you started out you thought your work was Nobel Prize winning material. But that's from a position of ignorance, and once better informed you realise it wasn't. So you're trying to deliberately learn all the technical side of the craft, and things just don't immediately get better.

But point is, you are progressing.. it just doesn't feel that way yet. Instead everything seems more complicated, and your work if anything seems worse. Mainly because you're now aware of the fact that it isn't perfect, and you're going through a lot of learning curves in trying to improve it.

Not sure if this is directly related to the thread's original question... but I know for sure it explains the seventh level of hell I at some point found myself (well, I might still be at about the fifth level) and I think it explains that "I suck" sense some writers get from the things I hear them saying.

[Renfaery]

akiwiguy, that is incredibly insightful, and because it is insightful, I find it helpful as well.

I suspect that my feeling of suckiness is partly a side effect of learning, and partly due to the fact that this is the very first draft.

haha There are even places where, rather than stopping to name things, I write XXXX mountain, or the (color) dragon roared.

[Teena]

The '(color) dragon' has always been my favorite! :D Seriously, just keep writing. I put a thought or series of bulleted thoughts in the middle of the page highlighted in yellow and know there is an area I have to come back to and write or flesh out. If we were perfect the first time we wouldn't be writers....heck, we wouldn't be people!!

"The best writing is re-writing".....Me & maybe somebody famous, I'm not sure.

[Renfaery]

Oh I agree! (Color) dragons are totally the best kind!

[rubarbb]

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