Teens Writing for Teens, the 5th

I want to write a MG fae story one day... and the video for "Somewhere Only We Know" by Keane has just made that urge worse. ><

Great Expectations soon!

I love Keane.

They are truly a great inspiration when it comes to writing.

I only really show my writing to a good friend of mine. I mean, apart from one story i sent Ally, the other stuff goes to her. She might not be the greatest, most indepth reviewer, or person for advice, but she tells me what's good or what's not (so far, it's all been good, but i know she's biased) but that's okay. Because encouragement is what I need. I'll deal with the naysayers when I've finished it, then work from there. But for now, someone saying "hey, it's great. keep it up!" is all i need to keep me going Hurray for spirit boosters!
Although, every now and then i long for someone more knowledgeable to tell me if it's okay. lol

I don't have any close friends who would be willing to read what I write, my mom always says no, and so...I'm left to my own devices when it comes to writing. I guess it helps I'm a perfectionist and my own worse critic haha.

That's the problem though i'm not going to move on. I've spent way too much time and energy on my series. I love it too much for it not to get published.

The two and now three people who have read it loved it. I love it, the problem for me is

1) 8 out of 10 (or on real statistics 22 out of 27) other writers dont like it because of the way I write. Now you would say change the way you write... but how i write is how i write, i dont write poorly i just use a different style and for the two people who werent writers themselves they loved the way i wrote and found that was what made the book.

2) there are few people to get past my poor grammar skills. Problem is i cant change my grammar skills because of my disability, and i cant change or fix my disability.

The more i think about it the more i find myself in a never ending spiral where i end back up at square one.

Elysium said:

I don't have any close friends who would be willing to read what I write, my mom always says no, and so...I'm left to my own devices when it comes to writing. I guess it helps I'm a perfectionist and my own worse critic haha.

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My mom was like that for 9 years, she just started reading my 1st book a week ago after i had a somewhat mental breakdown (long story involving school and life stuff) She's finally supporting me after all that time telling me to quite and that i was weird for writing. Her comments are actually helpful too surprisingly. I was expecting her to just read it and do the motherly "that great" routine. But she is writing notes down and giving me chapter by chapter longer explanations of her comments which i really wasnt expecting.

Besides that my boyfriend has read it. He tells me he loves my series and i do believe him because he also tells me when something sucks. Although sometimes i feel he's bias, he told me yesterday while reading something from my new book that really made me realize that he might not be as bias as i thought.

lisalulu09 said:

Me too, Ely!

Has anyone found "The One" - the novel that they is so unique it could be their breakthrough? There's a teeny part of me that thinks Sticks and Stones might be mine.

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Unique isn't always the name of the game. Be too original and no one will take you because they won't be able to guess the book's marketing potential.

amlptj said:

I've written 9 full books am a third done my 10th and a little over half done my 11th. I have if we count how many times i've written the first book then technically i've written 17 books. In almost 10 years i've truly accomplished nothing.

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You haven't accomplished nothing! You've written nine books. NINE. Do you realize that the majority of people say "I want to write a novel someday" and never do? Just finishing one book is an accomplishment in itself.

amlptj said:

That's the problem though i'm not going to move on. I've spent way too much time and energy on my series. I love it too much for it not to get published.

The two and now three people who have read it loved it. I love it, the problem for me is

1) 8 out of 10 (or on real statistics 22 out of 27) other writers dont like it because of the way I write. Now you would say change the way you write... but how i write is how i write, i dont write poorly i just use a different style and for the two people who werent writers themselves they loved the way i wrote and found that was what made the book.

2) there are few people to get past my poor grammar skills. Problem is i cant change my grammar skills because of my disability, and i cant change or fix my disability.

The more i think about it the more i find myself in a never ending spiral where i end back up at square one.

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1. Is it really that people don't like your style or is it that you're writing skills need work? Everyone can improve on their writing, everyone. Go read the Harry Potter series and Rowling's writing gets better with every book.

2. You can't fix your disability, but you can work on getting better grammar skills despite of it. How do you know you can't if you don't try?

I've been thinking a lot about the publishing industry lately. I've had days where I wonder if seeing my book on the shelves is even worth the trouble that I'm going to have when it does.

Ally, what I did manage to read of your series, was really good. And the fact I didn't finish the first book, isn't a reflection on your writing skills, it's more my concentration skills when reading off a computer screen. Trust me, if it was in paper form, i'd be all over it like a good piece of chocolate cake! lol

Ely, my mum's more a "maybe later" kind of person when ever I ask her, or even suggest her to read some of my writing. Oh sure, she's read my short story and called it "nice" which OMG i HATE it when people use that word for something I love.
Like, I'm into my singing, okay. Years ago, at school, I'd be in the choir, I'd have singing lessons, etc, and I'd take it seriously. And what would my mum do? She say I had a "nice voice" a "sweet voice" and I was always like *enter frustrated expression* because I'd rather someone say it's either bad or it's good. "nice" or "sweet" always seems really insincere, or just patronising. Well, to me it does.

I guess in a way I'm fine if my family don't want to take an interest in my career/hobby/craft, that's their problem. Not mine. The only thing I can say is "Well, you won't be getting an acknowledgement from me then." HAHA

But would you really rather someone tell you it was bad?

I'm not saying it is. I don't really know. But would you prefer for someone to say it was bad?

If someone told me something was bad, half way through my story being written, i'd..yeah, i'd be gutted. But then I'd ask them to give me reason WHY it was bad. If no one's willing to actually read it and say whether it's bad or good (a proper opinion, that is), I'd take someone who would read it and still encourage whether it's good or bad, any day.
Still, I'd rather wait for the real critics once it's finished because then I know it's done (the first draft, that is) and can work on it from what the bad or good say about it. i have logic here, I do, I promise! lol

Horserider said:

1. Is it really that people don't like your style or is it that you're writing skills need work? Everyone can improve on their writing, everyone. Go read the Harry Potter series and Rowling's writing gets better with every book.

2. You can't fix your disability, but you can work on getting better grammar skills despite of it. How do you know you can't if you don't try?

I've been thinking a lot about the publishing industry lately. I've had days where I wonder if seeing my book on the shelves is even worth the trouble that I'm going to have when it does.

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Yes its my style. You see I self insert myself in my own books, which i quickly learned from others here is like the biggest rule you can break. I also write my fiction books like a non-fiction book. I'll explain why...I want them to be believable.

Ever read Series of Unfortunate Events? Lemony Snicket often says he follows the kids and learned about them and even puts his name on the cover. As a child that was like the coolest thing ever... knowing that the guy telling the story actually wrote it. For the longest time i thought the books were really real. Then as i grew up i realized there was no Lemony Snicket. It just really pissed me off. Yes i understand pen name and such but at the age of 12 i vowed that if i was going to be in my books (It all started off as a epic daydream I stared in while in class and during free time) I was going to put my real name in the book and be the author. Might sound silly to most but I'm not changing it.

Next I have Oh GOD have i tired to improve my grammer skills, its 9 years of trying. Intense trying. If you were to enter my room you would find 7 very worn grammar rule books. I use them alot, I've read each more then once. Problem is my disability doesnt allow me to put them into effect. You see I have a reading disorder and its very severe, infact less then .1% of people my age have it as bad as I do. Reading and writing is a task in and of itself for me. The big problem is spelling. I technically have just about a 2nd grade spelling ability. I pretty much have to sound out every word i write just to spell it right. Then there are still problems with mixing letters up like "P" and "b". "m" and "w" "v" and "u" that i have to make sure i constantly get right. So by the time that is all done and finished it takes so much energy just to write it all out i forget about grammar. Plus when i read i dont read comma or punctuation. Part of the reason my reading out loud is so horrible. Ever hear a 5 year old read out loud? That choppiness that happens... how they always seem to miss little words like "a" "or" "the" "an"? Yeah that's like me and same thing happens with commas semicolons and such.

Ok this is becoming a really really long explanation. but yeah grammer proofreading is a big problem for me to do on my own. I've read over my 1st book (this newest version) about 4 times in total. Its 125K words and reading takes me 3-4 times the longer then the average person. I tried to catch all i could but even in those 4 times I missed ALOT

Allaboutwords13 said:

If someone told me something was bad, half way through my story being written, i'd..yeah, i'd be gutted. But then I'd ask them to give me reason WHY it was bad. If no one's willing to actually read it and say whether it's bad or good (a proper opinion, that is), I'd take someone who would read it and still encourage whether it's good or bad, any day.
Still, I'd rather wait for the real critics once it's finished because then I know it's done (the first draft, that is) and can work on it from what the bad or good say about it. i have logic here, I do, I promise! lol

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No i get what your saying. Thanks by the way for the nice comments!

Recently a beta responded to me. Every comment she had was bad. SHE HATED THE BOOK! Hated the way i wrote, hated the characters, hated pretty much everything about it. I read all of her comments and honestly couldnt make heads or tails of them. infact half of them didnt even make sense to me. Stuff she was asking was of stuff that was already explained previously. Most of the stuff she asked questions on were later resolved in the book because of the twist... yet she still kept complaining about them. At the end she seemed to have no idea what i was tying to get at, and didnt see the purpose of the book at all. It was like she missed everything.

I was torn to shreads by her comments. Actually had me crying. The big thing was she hated my characters. Now I've gotten alot of bad crits mostly about my grammar, but out of all 10 people who partly responded to me as betas, everyone said the one strength i had was my characters! She hated all of them! She hated my monsters and everything. It broke my heart.

Rereading the comments I realized several things. She kept having inconsistencies in her questions as i mentioned before... I realized i wasnt going to take her comments seriously because she couldnt have actually read the full book, it was like she skimmed through the whole thing. A friend who read the comments agreed. She hadent even read the book but from all the talking i do about it she was like, "Hell i could answer these questions she had!"

Point of this is good crits are great and bad crits are hard but in the end at least someone is telling you what they think. Which is alot of the time better then nothing at all.

Yeah. I understand what you're saying, Ally.
Sometimes, you can't please everyone (no matter HOW much one tries -.-) *sigh*

amlptj said:

Yes its my style. You see I self insert myself in my own books, which i quickly learned from others here is like the biggest rule you can break. I also write my fiction books like a non-fiction book. I'll explain why...I want them to be believable.

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1. Author self-inserts are advised against because their one of the major characteristics of a Mary Sue. Do you know how many times SMeyer has been ripped apart because she and Bella share such a resemblance?

2. You don't have to write a book like a memoir for it to be believable.

Ever read Series of Unfortunate Events? Lemony Snicket often says he follows the kids and learned about them and even puts his name on the cover. As a child that was like the coolest thing ever... knowing that the guy telling the story actually wrote it. For the longest time i thought the books were really real. Then as i grew up i realized there was no Lemony Snicket. It just really pissed me off. Yes i understand pen name and such but at the age of 12 i vowed that if i was going to be in my books (It all started off as a epic daydream I stared in while in class and during free time) I was going to put my real name in the book and be the author. Might sound silly to most but I'm not changing it.

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No, but it does make me think of I Am Number Four which follows a similar concept. I hated that book (for unrelated reasons) and the whole thing with the author just felt like a big gimmick to me.

Yeah clearly my story just wasnt for this girl, and i didnt mind. It's not for everyone. The thing a wise person told me was your story is ready (to be read or published) whenever it satisfies you. If you feel that everything you wrote is exactly how you planed it out in your head, then its ready no matter what others say.

Grammar aside, i feel mine is ready. Would just like to see others opinions on if anything is confusing or whatnot. Because i know how it ends i know the twists, so reading it i know why i write some things i do earlier on, just want to see what others think of it you know.

I don't think self inserts is always a bad thing. The Darren Shan saga... was written by , you guessed it, an author named Darren Shan. He didn't get any stick for it. So I think, in some instances, it's wrong to say it can't be done. Because it can. Maybe it's more a sexist thing in that, like with many things, men can get away with certain things women can't. Sad, but very true.

Horserider said:

1. Author self-inserts are advised against because their one of the major characteristics of a Mary Sue. Do you know how many times SMeyer has been ripped apart because she and Bella share such a resemblance?

2. You don't have to write a book like a memoir for it to be believable.

No, but it does make me think of I Am Number Four which follows a similar concept. I hated that book (for unrelated reasons) and the whole thing with the author just felt like a big gimmick to me.

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I stay far away from Twilight so i really wouldnt know. Mary Sue I've taken the test but fail because well the character is me and that is like an instant fail. But my character isnt perfect, she doesn't say all the right things, she isn't from a rich family or constantly live in the spotlight, she's not a genius, shes not the only one with abilities, and she not the most important in the series. In all reality Pip would probably be the most valuable and the weakest all that the same time. Oh and she doesn't see her ability as a curse, in fact she loves it. She also doesn't have the coolest ability either. Nyles does/did, but he's dead.

And i dont really write them like a memoir really. My thing personally i hate "showing" always have. I hate reading stupid line after line of metophoric "showing" when it come to descriptions and such. The biggest pet peve i have when reading book is when it take the author chapters for the reader to finally get a description of the character or to find out the age. Honestly alot of "showing" turns me off as a reader because i just find myself really bored. That's why i write my books like i'm just telling someone a story or writing it all down in a journal. So I slightly tell more then average. I tell the descriptions of the characters, why? Because i want it all out in the open that clear picture from the first page. And i tell there outcast why? because i dont have time to "show" it in the first book.

Tonight, I'm going to see ow close I can get to the end of Chapter Three...

amlptj said:

Yeah clearly my story just wasnt for this girl, and i didnt mind. It's not for everyone. The thing a wise person told me was your story is ready (to be read or published) whenever it satisfies you. If you feel that everything you wrote is exactly how you planed it out in your head, then its ready no matter what others say.

Grammar aside, i feel mine is ready. Would just like to see others opinions on if anything is confusing or whatnot. Because i know how it ends i know the twists, so reading it i know why i write some things i do earlier on, just want to see what others think of it you know.

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It's writer nature to constantly want to make changes to try to make the book better. There are authors who won't read their published works again because they'll think about things that they want to change. It's not really about being satisfied. It's about making your book the absolute best it can be in every way and then taking the leap.

And I'm sorry, Am, but you're going to have to face your grammar problems eventually. Whether it's figuring it out on your own or letting someone help you with it, you can't have a book full of grammar problems. If an agent or editor was to read it like that, they would assume that you didn't bother to revise. They don't know about your disability and, frankly, they don't care. If they have to go through all your grammar and spelling and fix it, that's time they're taking away from their other clients and time they're taking away from fixing other problems with your book. It also means that every time they make changes to your book, they're going to have to go back through and fix your grammar all over again.

I can't even offer to beta-read for you because my strengths lie with copy-editing. If a draft is full of spelling and grammar mistakes, I can't enjoy it because I'm too busy concentrating on the surface issues rather than the story.

Sometimes I prefer telling, too. Showing can become a little too dragged on. I know it's like "the rule" but seriously? Why does there even have to be a rule book for writing. There isn't for singing, or for dancing or game design. Personally i think there should only be rules for careers that involve the law. Lawyers, retail businesses, the government.. ecetera. haha

Allaboutwords13 said:

Sometimes I prefer telling, too. Showing can become a little too dragged on. I know it's like "the rule" but seriously? Why does there even have to be a rule book for writing. There isn't for singing, or for dancing or game design. Personally i think there should only be rules for careers that involve the law. Lawyers, retail businesses, the government.. ecetera. haha

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There is no rule book for writing. The rules of writing are guidelines on how to write a good book. You don't have to follow them all the time or even some of the time. The trick isn't following the rules, it's knowing the time and the place to break them.

It's true, telling is better in some instances. But if you write an entire book without showing anything, the book reads flat, like you're reading an instruction manual.

I think "Undisclosed Desires" by Muse may find a place on the Sticks and Stones soundtrack one day...

Gotta love ya, Lisa. Here we all are having a discussion over rules and guidelines, and you pop in every now and then to update on your story. *high five* *giggles*

*high fives*

Ally, the way you responded to HR was rude. Possibly thinly veiled rudeness, but rude all the same. She was doing as so many of us have done multiple times: offer advice, opinions, and the fruits of our research and observations. It feels to me like it's all falling on deaf ears. You're insistent that they way you're doing it is the only way; that there's nothing else you can do about your disability; that it's okay for you to break these (widely accepted and acknowledged) rules of writing.

While I'm normally of the opinion that a person should do what works best for them, and that the only "rule" of writing is to do what works for the individual, there are still boundaries. If you want to be able to publish, you need to accept the fact that the style you use just. Doesn't. Work. A Mary Sue/Gary Stu doesn't have to have the perfect most important life. That's a misconception a lot of people have. In today's world, a character whose life sucks is just as likely--if not more so--to be labeled as such.

Oh, yeah, and while online tests to see just how Mary Sue-ish a character is may be a good place to start, they're really about as reliable as the tests in magazines for if you're compatible with your boyfriend/girlfriend. They may have some basis in accuracy, but don't trust that and that alone.

ETA An update on a playlist isn't an update on a story. ...Just sayin'.