Your Weakest Writing

Endings are my failing. Quite frankly, they never have the punch I want them to. Probably because every project I write wants to be a trilogy, and tying up book one so it can be a standalone work is difficult. It nevers feels true to the bigger picture I have.

My titles are pretty sucky, too, but I'm not as worried about them. A lot of titles get changed by publishing houses anyway, even if they fit the book.

Strength? Probably dialog. At least according to my beta readers.

My biggest problem is that I often have trouble finding clarity about what my characters will do and think in the next moment, even if I know what is supposed to happen in 5 minutes. (I hope that makes sense, but wonder if it actually does.) It is exacerbated by my depending on putting things in right words before I can go on to the next words.

I've worked pretty hard to get rid of anything I can identify as a weakness in my writing. At this point the only ones still hanging around are difficulties with pacing and total word-count. I love my details and this makes both individual scenes and whole books run longer than they really should.

My favorite part is action description. I love showing my character doing interesting things and communicating their feelings through description rather than actual thoughts.

My betas tend to cite my dialogue and humor as being high points as well. Those are two things I've always been good at, even back when I sucked at everything else.

My strength would probably be world-building, I have lots of fun with them and like going perhaps a little bit overboard >> But if it's interesting to the readers, then it's all good! I rarely have writer's block with that.

My weakness would be...describing reactions, expressions, etc. I come from an anime/manga background, as well as watch a lot of Korean dramas/music videos/etc where the 'aegyo' (acting cute) is really strong...so I tend to go really over the top with reactions to the point my characters could probably be a bunch of kids on sugar. Or in comedic skits where the point is to go overboard. Working on fixing that ><

I struggle with descriptions, but I don't know why through. It sometimes takes me a while to get going.

I've been told I'm good at descriptions (my theory? I more or less hate reading long descriptions of anything, so my goal is to make something as clear and evocative in as short a space as possible), believable/relatable characters, and keeping the reader interested.

Weaknesses... dialogue and not trusting the reader or myself.

Narratives!! Oi!! I struggle with the narrative part of my story and I have to really push to get them out. I'd rather stick with dialogue and inner dialogue, but writing what the character is doing while he talks makes me work. I've learned to overcome it, but I still have to push myself.

amschilling said:

Endings are my failing. Quite frankly, they never have the punch I want them to. Probably because every project I write wants to be a trilogy, and tying up book one so it can be a standalone work is difficult. It nevers feels true to the bigger picture I have.

My titles are pretty sucky, too, but I'm not as worried about them. A lot of titles get changed by publishing houses anyway, even if they fit the book.

Strength? Probably dialog. At least according to my beta readers.

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"Stunning visuals", via metaphor and simile, for the good part. I've been told I have voice (mine) down pat.

Overwriting and never getting to the point, clogging the scene, slowing the pace, like King oft times does. Sometimes using the dratted By the way, Bob, and info dump.

As for all of us, watch your damn humor. It's the most subjective writing of all.

tri

I think pacing is my worst problem. It has cost me an agent twice.

I tend to set things up nice and slow...slower...slowerrrr...

andtheneverythinghappensatonceandeverythingisrevealedanditssuperexcitingTHEEND!

I tend to have trouble with plots. Mostly the conflict part of them, really. I don't like writing about characters I really like being deeply upset--and I'm not good at writing strong negative emotion, either--so my plots tend to shy away from doing anything too devastating to characters I like.

It ends up needing a lot of wrangling back in order. "Nothing too devastating" might work if I were writing slice-of-life or light comedy, but when I'm trying to write adventure, the stakes need to feel real.

Strongest points:
Raising tension
Description
plotting

(Or so I've been told by writing buddies )

Weakest points:

being too wordy
characterization
dialogue

Strong points: dialogue. stringing coherent sentences together. overall premise.

Weakest points:
Description. Syntax, maybe? I always think my narrative sentences are less dynamic than my scene sentences. Plotting, which goes hand in hand with endings.

Weakest? Can I say everything? Seems like whatever I am writing at the moment is my weakest. LOL (That's what edits are for. ^_-)

However, I'd say there's been improvement in: description, character, setting, emotion, style...etc. over time. Still not good, but better than before.

Still no improvement in choosing titles!! T_T

Jessica_312 said:

Just wondering what everyone's strongsuit is when it comes to writing, and what you struggle with.

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Strong: characters.
Weak: plots, especially endings.

Strong points: dialog, world building/descriptions, and short sentences, oh.. and "smut"

Weak points: character building/descriptions -- several betas have said in the past that they can't understand what the problem with the MC is.

Action sequences -- I'm not good at them. The action runs so fast in my head that my fingers can't keep up. hahaha


I'm sure there are more...

I'm awesome at backstory.

I'm TERRIBLE at description. Horrible. I don't like reading description either (so that's probably why). I have to constantly remind myself that the reader has no idea the house I'm picturing in my mind, so I have to go back and add description.

I would say my weaknesses include, rambling/being wordy, knowing when is enough description and not insulting the reader's imagination by overdoing it, and also the flip side of that, not assuming that the reader can imagine what's in my head... also, I don't have trouble creating backstory for characters, but knowing how much and when to put it in the story is sometimes difficult.
My strong points... characters, descriptions... I like using similes and I like using what I call poetic prose in my descriptions, and narrative. I would say endings are also one of my strong points, since I usually come up with my endings first... or at least know generally how it's going to go.

Strengths: Description, setting the scene, dialog.
Weaknesses: Plot, tension (or lack thereof), endings, titles.

Characterization falls somewhere in between. I could probably use some work on it, but it's not as dire as my plotting problems.

My weakness is writing too much. I could just go on and on and on and on without a scene ever ending, and then I don't know what to cut.

Strengths? Well, I feel pretty comfortable with dialogue and characterization, but that doesn't mean I'm good at it.

Beginnings, endings, describing setting are all problems for me.
Dialogue, character description and interaction, so on and so forth are all fine.

WriteMinded said:

My weakness is writing too much. I could just go on and on and on and on without a scene ever ending, and then I don't know what to cut.

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Ah, yeah, me too. Then you cut stuff and the scene's pacing goes all to hell. It's so frustrating!

Strong: Humor/sarcasm, flow, turning up the heat level.

Weak: Those pesky adverbs. They're like roaches - once you find one, you know there's a million of them lurking in the nooks and crannies.