How do you know? (ARGH)

THis is a sliding curve. The more acceptance you get the more you need.



At first, finishing a novel makes you great.

Then, having your mommy like it is enough.

Then, having betas like it is enough

Then, getting an agent to look at is great!

Then a request for a partial

Then a request for a full

Then, having an agent sign

Then, having an editor pick it up

Then, seeing your name in print

Then having another book published

Then, having a best seller

Then, having more!

The bar keeps getting higher and higher.


If you are writing because you think its fun, they you are great. No one can write that fun for you. No one can give you that joy, that accomplishment.

If you are writing primarily to sell, the market will be the judge of what is marketable, so get on the ladder and start climbing

As to what is great...that's a whole nother kettle of worms. Barrel of fish. Monkeys. WHatever.

How do you know you're getting nowhere? Why not send a few stories out there; see what happens? Enter a few competitions. That's always a fairly non-threatening way to get your stuff read. You might even win.

All you can do is keep trying. Keep practising. With practice, you'll get better. And one day you'll read something you've written and you'll say "that's really good!" (It happens to me sometimes....)

Oh, come on - you know if you're good or bad. If you've shown stuff to other people you know it wasn't that bad or you wouldn't have shown it, would you? How did they react?

Beyond that all you can do is as suggested above - the same as everybody else who starts writing - keep reading and learning, and keep writing.

Happy writing, friend.

You know you are good when people who matter say you are. You know you are good when you can objectively compare yourself positively to what is being accepted. You know you are good if you are beyond talent and a true genius, aka "inner directed".

But you do not always have to be good to succeed. Luck , which includes timing, and whom one knows often leads to commercial success.

www.donaldmichaelplatt.com

I am the Great Writer. You must all bow before me.

Seriously, this is a question only you can answer at the moment. If you're writing stuff and then picking at it over and over without anyone else seeing it, you're probably not going to develop or be happy with writing. Eventually, you'll associate writing with feeling miserable.

Write one piece, tidy it up and show it to your friends or post here in SYW. Then repeat with a new piece. And again.

Eventually, you'll find the beat of good writing.

Personally I cannot judge if what I've written is good or bad. I simply have no idea. At this stage in my career, the best I can do is assume that the stuff I write is good, because people buy it, read it and generally seem to enjoy it. But I have to say...when I pick up one of my published books from time to time and have a go reading it, I cringe, wail and laugh out loud at what I perceive to be the most awful hackneyed prose.

So...my point is, you simply can't judge your own work, in fact, you are probably the least qualified person in the world to judge your own work....because you're contaminated with a hatred for your own narrator's voice (I liken it to hating hearing back your own voice recorded on tape. I certainly hate mine). You need to hand it over to someone else to read. Preferably not a friend, nor a family member - ideally a stranger who really won't care how brutal the feedback he/she gives is.

Ageless Stranger:
I keep finishing stories then going back and re-writing them from scratch without letting more than one or two people read them (Due to current situations mostly.) and it's driving me round the bend.

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That right there is where your problem is (and incidentally, I don't mean that in a nasty way!).

If you're serious about making it as a writer, then at some point you're going to have to share your work with people who won't necessarily like what you're doing - whether that's by submitting your work to a critique group (whether on line or in RL), or submitting a short story to a magazine or submitting a manuscript to an agent or publisher. You'll only get an idea for what you're doing well or badly by getting feedback from other people and whilst you don't have to listen to or abide by every piece of feedback (you might think that some of it is crap, for good reasons), it will give you an idea of what you need to focus on, so that you can move on with what you're doing.

There is absolutely no point in writing and re-writing pieces ad infinitem on your own. That's the fastest way not only to discouragement but also to eventually writing out whatever it was that gave the piece worth in the first place. Finish a piece, get it to a stage where you're reasonably happy with it, then give it to someone (or some people) you can trust (e.g. the SYW Forum here) and tell them what you're concerned you're not doing well and ask for any other comments they might have. Whilst that's going on, work on your next piece. Rinse and repeat and submit any pieces that you've amended and think could be possible sales to the relevant markets.

As a writing tutor told me very early on (and with apologies for the crudeness of the language): you need to shit or get off the pot. And I know that's tough (I'm submitting short stories at the moment, with no success so far despite having been tantalisingly close a number of times (according to the personalised rejections!)) but it's all part and parcel of being a writer - you put yourself out there and see what comes back.

MM

I know what it feels like to be so invested in your writing, you honestly can't tell if it's genius or complete trash.

If you need to renew your sense of perspective, I recommend joining a critique group or taking a writing class. Seeing what issues other people struggle with, plus getting other people's comments on your writing, can give you a much fuller sense of yourself as a writer, even when you feel you've lost all objectivity.

Or, if you just want to reassure yourself that you're not the *worst writer in the world* (an occasional fear of mine), just troll the web for amateur poetry, fanfic, erotica, etc. You'll find some stuff that will make you feel like Faulkner.

Practice. Take a break from your work. Return weeks or months later to look at it fresh. You can be more objective then.

In the mean time, keep writing, keep reading, check out the SYW forums to see what kind of feedback people are getting from their work. You can learn a lot from that.

I know I can use language. Whether I've strung it together well enough to tell the story the way I want to is another matter. It's in progress. I do know past works have won me scholarships, gotten me published, and made people cry, so I do it well at least some of the time.

You're right.

You are going nuts.

And you're going nuts about nothing. Don't worry about it. Have a good cup of tea, a nap, watch some TV, then get back to writing something. And when it's done and it's the best you can make it -- or you're sick of looking at it -- then send it out to someone who might be inclined to give you money for it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Either way, just keep writing new things.

If I ever get published -- Good!

Until then -- Bad.

Shadow_Ferret said:

If I ever get published -- Good!

Until then -- Bad.

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That's good enough for me.

Never worry about whether or not you're a good writer. Instead, focus on how you can become a better writer. There are always ways to improve.

We writers much prefer going insane together, in a large group, all pointing and laughing at one another's insanity, yes.

They're right - you'll never know if you're good or bad. Some really bad stuff gets published, that didn't make it good. Loads of really good stuff doesn't get published, that doesn't make it bad. You write, you polish, you edit, then you set it free into the big wide world and hope it doesn't do one of those loops and smack you in the ass while someone's filming.

Sharing it with a stranger for a beta read helps show you if you at least have the basics down, if you can tell a story and entertain. The rest is hard work and sweat.

It's a wonder we do it at all, eh? But we do. Lather, rinse, rewrite.

Doodlebug said:

Never worry about whether or not you're a good writer. Instead, focus on how you can become a better writer. There are always ways to improve.

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Have you ever read something and a light popped on in your own head? Like a revelation? THIS was is for me! I, too, spend too much time worrying if my stuff is good or not and not enough time trying to get better...thanks, doodlebug!

You have to show it to someone else.

If I hadn't shown my WiP to my husband, I am absolutely certain that I would have edited it so much as to deaden it--all out of fear that it's not written well enough. Sometimes I don't trust myself. And I'm wrong.

On the other hand, two chapters were kind of experimental, and he told me that they didn't work. So I rewrote them. Again, I was wrong.

I needed those outside eyeballs on my work, to recognize both the good and bad.

BUT, does your husband be honest with his critiques? I know my wife thinks my stuff is awesome, she really does, but I bring it here and its crap. I think you should let someone else set their eyes on it. Someone who doesnt have an emotional attachment to you. knowwhatimean?

If your name is scarletpeaches, you're the bastard love child of Charles Dickens and Jane Austen.

If your name is not scarletpeaches, you're the bastard love child of Dan Brown and Laurell K. Hamilton.

scarletpeaches said:

If your name is scarletpeaches, you're the bastard love child of Charles Dickens and Jane Austen.

If your name is not scarletpeaches, you're the bastard love child of Dan Brown and Laurell K. Hamilton.

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Damn and all this time I thought if your name was scarletpeaches you were the bastard love child of Jim Morrison and Grace Slick...

Are you asking if you are good writer or a good storyteller?

Garpy said:

Personally I cannot judge if what I've written is good or bad. I simply have no idea.

.

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Same here.

As many have stated, it'll be nice to get some outside opinions of your writing. When I used to write short stories, I posted some at zoetrope and got a good idea of what some people thought of my writing. Of course, SYW is another place to post.