Getting bored easily..with your writing..

I think that finishing a story normally required sometimes writing when it isn't much fun--but planning so the plot evolves from beginning to end might also help.

I'm like that too, maybe it's something about been 16, though. I sure hope it is, lol.

Doesn't matter where on the Writer-Totem-Pole you are, you can never know if it's good or not. I have a gut feeling that keeps me going or stops me dead on a story or scene when it's bad, but that's only for me. I can write a story with a good-gut-feeling all the way through, and I won't know what to think of it 'til the readers have it.

What can you do. Just keep writing, don't look back.

What tells you if you're good or not is the sound of rapidly turning pages.

When your beta-readers start asking you for your next.

When your beta-readers' friends start asking you for your next.

Then you have a pretty fair idea that you're good.

I am starting to get pissed off at the novel I am writing now, but luckaly I am about 50 pages max from finishing it. I think I am just antsy to start something new.

I get like that in the last few chapters too. By that time, I've figured it all out, I want to get on to the next one that I haven't figured out yet. It takes some learned discipline to stick it out until the end and then... the edits.

Don't feel bad, I've got a trunk full of unfinshed stories from when I was 16 that in 12 years, I haven't fullfilled my promise of going back to.

SpAm said:

but i was wondering how do u know when ur story is good or not...?i mean i dont know what im good at

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Welcome to the wonderful world of writing, Spam. And welcome to AW! The only advice I can give is write what you're interested in. There'll be that added passion in what you write because you enjoy it instead of forcing yourself through something you hate.
The best way, I found, to find out if your story's any good or not is let other people read it. Preferably not family, they'll say it's really good no matter what just out of support. Not a bad thing. But it doesn't help you improve.

Good luck!

Learning grammar and how to spell would be a good start. It's not a good idea to write a novel in text-speak either.

SpAm said:

mean i dont know what im good at..like subject (romance, horror, fantasy etc) the book i finished is about an indian girl i love writing about that out dorrs survival...

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For a start, congratulations at finishing anything at all! It's not easy. There are plenty of writers - me included - on this board with dozens of first three chapters moldering on their harddrives.

Your plight sounds horribly familiar. I suspect your problem is twofold:

1. Craft
There's obviously some stuff you're good at, e.g. story ideas, but perhaps you get bogged down in other areas, get bored and want to move on. You can fix this by hanging out here - read through the uncle jim thread if you have a spare week - and by reading good how-to write books. The latter are 90% rubbish, so check the author's credentials before wasting your money. (HINT: What you're looking for is something by somebody who makes a living mostly out of writing, rather than creative writing teaching) The Stephen King book is a good place to start

2. Playing catch-up
Most people seem to write books about where they're at in their lives. Even if it's SF/fantasy, the themes are relevant to them as they write. If they move on in terms of personal development, the book can fall flat and seem not worth writing.

This is fine for old farts on their late 30s (when most established writers seem to make it) since we don't change that much year to year. You're 16. You'll be a different person in 6 months, and almost unrecognisable in 12. Your also very very busy.

So what I think's happening is that you get great ideas but can't finish them before they become irrelevant to you. Even if you could knock out a novel in 6 months, you'd still lose interest by the end unless, perhaps, it was a simple rip-roaring adventure yarn driven by physical peril.

So my advice - casting my mind back more than half a lifetime: try some of the following:

• Short stories - you can complete one of these in a matter of days
• Adventure stories - you're unlikely to ever not find physical peril engaging.
• Role Playing Games - exercise your creative muscle by becoming a games master.

Are you giving up in the first few chapters? A lot of people do that because it doesn't feel like the story is working right, it doesn't sound right, etc. I have a co-worker who starts the first chapter, says it's no good, and gives up to try another project. So I'll tell you what I told her.

The early part of the book is very, very hard to do and equally hard to get started--especially since all of the book lies ahead. You virtually have to get at least 100-150 pages into the story before you can see that it's working, that it's starting to come together. Then you can look back and also see how much you've accomplished getting that far.

So the early part of the book doesn't have to be perfectly written, or even work very well during the first draft. If you need to wander around or do an info dump to get you started and going, then do it with the understanding that it's going to have to come out in the revisions.

What you want to avoid is going back right away and making revisions because it doesn't feel like it's working right. Co-writer and I spent a long time rewriting the first couple of chapters over and over, trying to make them work right. We got to the end and realized that it didn't start in the right place and threw that chapter out. And it's been thrown out twice since. But we didn't know what it needed until we got to the end of the story.

So, no matter how it doesn't feel like it's working, keep writing. Get yourself past page 150.

so yea what do i do with the writing NOW????

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Uh...run a spellchecker ;-?

You may save a lot of time in the end by getting the grammar and punctuation requirements of prose clear in your mind and having them aspproximately correct from the beginning. My first book took a few months to right and a year to get in a respectable, error free form. By that point I *loathed* that damn book.

SpAm said:

also is it bad to write like i talk? like slang and sorting of words how do i say this um....not being proper...

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For dialogue, you can certainly have characters use slang. But for description? Well, you can occasionally. But the closer you can get to proper grammar, the better. Slang can be regional, age, sports or even income-bracket oriented, so "sick" to a 16-year-old snowboarder (meaning "terrific") won't come across properly to a 40-year-old banker who's reading the same book. Does that make sense?

SpAm said:

is it bad to write like i talk? like slang and sorting of words how do i say this um....not being proper...

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No. But it IS bad not to recognize exactly what you're doing. Know the rules, inside-out, before you elect to break them. Spelling and punctuation are your tools of communication, not some enemy dragon to be defeated. A house-builder might find mortar to be an icky thing to work with, but won't be very successful in sticking those bricks together without knowing how to use it.

caw.

spam- you mention you are 16, which explains a lot of your concerns and the sometimes confusing nature of your posts (i.e. text-speak).

i know it is easier to fall into text-speak when posting on sites, emailing, msn'ing etc., but i would highly suggest you try to write in proper english for at least another year or two- at least when posting and emailing. the only way to learn the basics of grammar and spelling is to apply them.

this probably sounds terribly old-fashioned to you, but since you are a young writer with lots of ideas that need to get out, it is really important that you develop these boring grammar and spelling skills now. it will become extremely difficult to break these habits of "y" for "why", "u no" for "you know" and "hole" for "whole" later on if you continue to repeat them again and again in your formative years.

don't stop writing! oh, and have you read "pride and prejudice"? if you liked the movie so much, read the book and get a sense of what it is to describe all those emotions and landscapes. trust me, it is worth it, you'll enjoy it immensely and will barely notice you are learning about writing from a master.

Cathy C said:

For dialogue, you can certainly have characters use slang. But for description? Well, you can occasionally. But the closer you can get to proper grammar, the better. Slang can be regional, age, sports or even income-bracket oriented, so "sick" to a 16-year-old snowboarder (meaning "terrific") won't come across properly to a 40-year-old banker who's reading the same book. Does that make sense?

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And if you are writing a first-person story, the narration is still a sort of dialog. So if you're writing a story in first person where the narrator talks like you do, it should be written like you talk. Of course, even then, spelling counts. And other characters should ideally have their own unique voices.

this probably sounds terribly old-fashioned to you, but since you are a young writer with lots of ideas that need to get out, it is really important that you develop these boring grammar and spelling skills now. it will become extremely difficult to break these habits of "y" for "why", "u no" for "you know" and "hole" for "whole" later on if you continue to repeat them again and again in your formative years.

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Boy, ain't that the truth. I had a tendency to abuse commas when I was younger, and it was a miserable habit to break. Hell, I'm still breaking it. I was mostly self taught (A writer's group like this would've been a blessed haven when I was younger) and so I wind up spending a lot of time these days trying to undo all those really awful writing habits I developed when I was younger.

Thanks for correcting the title of this thread. It made me cringe every time I read it.

henriette said:

this probably sounds terribly old-fashioned to you, but since you are a young writer with lots of ideas that need to get out, it is really important that you develop these boring grammar and spelling skills now. it will become extremely difficult to break these habits of "y" for "why", "u no" for "you know" and "hole" for "whole" later on if you continue to repeat them again and again in your formative years.

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No joke. I had a teacher in college who was a fantastic speller when he was growing up. Then he got into broadcast journalism, and in the interests of speed, spelled things phonetically. So completely destroyed his ability to spell that he was still struggling with it some 20-30 years later.

Spam, it is always good to establish the good habits all the time and get things reasonably right. What you don't want to end up doing when you're revising is fixing spelling errors and "u" when you should be enjoying the process of revising. Message boards are a great opportunity to practice.

Don't stop writing until you reach "The End," even if you're convinced the novel's turned to utter crap.

If you never practice writing middles and ends you'll never learn how to do 'em.

SpAm said:

i mean i dont know what im good at..like subject (romance, horror, fantasy etc) the book i finished is about an indian girl i love writing about that out dorrs survival.

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If you like outdoor survival stories go with it. Everyone has their favorite subject. My fetish is distopia.

Akuma said:

If you like outdoor survival stories go with it. Everyone has their favorite subject. My fetish is distopia.

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Did you mean 'dystopia?'