Something weird happened just now. (I might need some advice.)

Blue, I've said these things gently. So have other people. So I'm going to be blunt.

1) If you don't want to write by committee, stop asking questions until the story is done.

2) If several of your characters are the same person, you need to work on characterization.

3) Short stories are not easier to sell than novels. They may be harder. You are not going to write a story in a week and sell it to a reputable market. It's just not gonna happen. Aim for reasonable goals. Write the best story you can. Post some on SYW, and take peoples' advice. Edit it as well as you can. Then write a better one. Meanwhile, send the first one out. Be prepared for many rejections along the way.

4) I meant #1. Really. Go write. Stop asking about writing.

Ditto everything Shweta said.

*coughIsaythistoyoueveryweekcough*

What Shweta said.

You're just gonna have to take the plunge and DO IT. We give you permission to stink on ice, we really do. But a finished piece that stinks is still better than a partial that stinks. Ergo, write, finish, edit, write, etc.

Stop listening to everyone? Stop trying to please your readers? Author is a word that stems from "Authority." The buck stops here. You are the decider.

One thing that I think that is a total crock of poof, and will probably not last long is the idea that your character has to be likable. That is twaddle. Your character has to be understandable that's all. Her actions have to logically follow some motivation. Take for instance "Natural Born Killers" and such. Those were horrible people, but understandable.

My best advice here is "don't take advice from people you meet on the street." The internet is a very big street.

You've gotten some really great advice in this thread, Blue. I hope you'll take it all to heart. Good luck with your story.

Another piece of advice, Blue -- I think you should consider getting a self-ban till you have a draft written. Just so you can prove to yourself that you can do that.

BlueLucario said:

That pic is hawt btw. Looks exactly like my MC.

And no I haven't heard of any e-zines. I was thinking anthologies, but that's probably more difficult to publish anyway.

I thought character profiles create only cardboard characters, so I've heard. I guess it comes in handy when you already know your characters.

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If you write a character profile for yourself, and then plot it into your WIP as the character's description, yes, it's going to be cardboard, at best.

Character profiles are for YOU, the author, not for the reader. They help you set up what your character is and isn't, so you can stay true to them as you write, so you can catch it when you do something out of character unintentionally, and so you can be sure when you have a character do something out of character intentionally, that it'll work. They are NOT for the reader's consumption.

Until you have a story completed, honed, revised, edited and polished beautifully, you can stop worrying about where you'll submit it. Seriously, the 'cart before the horse' mentality doesn't get WIPs finished. Ever.

Think e-zine. Try duotrope and ralan to find the places you want to submit to. Anthologies are very difficult to get into.

No, a profile won't make you characters cardboard. They need to be real people to you before you can make them alive for your audience. This takes time and patience.

You have trouble sticking to and writing a full length novel right now. Shorts may be just the thing for you.

I encourage you to try your hand at flash fiction, a story under 1,000 words. Write one. Polish. Polish some more. Post it in SYW. Polish more. Then submit. Meanwhile, start reading lots and lots of short stories and study how they work.

Good luck.

Shweta said:

1) If you don't want to write by committee, stop asking questions until the story is done.

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Blue, if you keep asking questions you are going to end up having the exact same problem that you are having with your novel. Everyone is going to give you feedback and you are going to get confused as to who your character is. It will just turn into a short story by committee.

At some point, you will need to learn that no matter how many people give you advice about your story, it is still YOUR story. You are the one changing who the character is. You do not have to listen to any feedback that you do not like (especially when you don't even have a first draft finished). Everyone will answer your questions because they care, but we can't give you the self-esteem to write your own story. You have to find that yourself.

Turn off your internet connection and just write the story that you want to tell. You can ask for feedback and worry about publication later. After you have written your story and edited it on your own a few times.

I hate to (a) potentially sound cruel and (b) point out what might be the obvious, but if you're sincere about wanting her to pull away and get some real writing done and stop asking for feedback... stop giving feedback.

BlueLucario said:

For now, I decided to put my book on hold and write a couple of short shories. It's going to be a fantasy story. If I can finish this in a week, I could do some editing and get it published. Right now, my book has turned into a writing committee,(So I think.) and my story completely change based on how readers see it or based on the feedback. And feedback upon my character caused her to change so rapidly and erratically, and I can't write what who she really is anymore.\

And I started writing my short story just for kicks, a character came to me, and she had this really sassy attitude. And I noticed that she shares the personality of the MC of my current W.I.P, a personality that I couldn't write anymore. I couldn't flesh out my character anymore. And the vampire in my second WIP, she shares the characteristics, like some sort of twin. The vampire isn't the MC, but more of her partner. I had a name for her, and her backstory, but it constantly changes every five seconds. It got so frustrating, I stopped writing and went to bed.

That was the weird part. Any type of advice would be greatly appreciated. Especially on my book which has turned into a writing commitee.

Thanks everyone!

This is pretty weird.

By the way, can short stories make a series? Because I'm planning to make mine one of ten.

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For awhile, we had this thing going on AW called 'Write the D@mn Book.'

Well, instead of trying to please all of us, or trying to figure out what everyone else wants, write the d@mn story. Just write it. Don't ask for so much advice all the time. If you ask questions, you will get a myriad of answers, and each one of those answers will differ depending upon individual opinion.

If you love your story a certain way and someone else hates it that way, this is not the end of the world. Give your story your best, and write it the way you, its author, want to write it.

In other words, you need to make your writerly decisions yourself. Best wishes to you, and like I mentioned above, 'Write the D@mn Story.'

Most of all, have fun!


EDIT:

BTW, Blue, I just want to second what Shweta said about possibly giving yourself some time away from the board. A self-ban helps a lot of writers around here to get back into their beloved Craft. If you ask Mac to give you, say, a week or two where you won't be able to come onto the board, she'll be more than happy to help you out in that. She does it all the time for lots of other writers.

BlueLucario said:

I thought character profiles create only cardboard characters, so I've heard. I guess it comes in handy when you already know your characters.

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You drag a character from the mire of your soul. Character profiles as a way to "create" a character do create mundane cliches, but it is reasonable to use them as a tool, for your personal notes. I think the problem comes when people feel that through making lists they are doing something more than making a list. I personally do not because an ever-changing nebulous or ephemeral character who does not follow the patterns of the mundane stereotype are usually so effortlessly changeable it is noticeable. Real people are not unchangeable. The more unchangeable you make a character, the less real he seems, so creating concrete reactions is practically inviting a cardboard character.

Adding my own footprint to the blue butt -- come on, write a story. Then write another story. And another story. Then ask yourself some questions. Then write another. Write until you get whatever it is out of your system. It's you that you need to get to know, and we don't have the answers to that. We have our own questions.

Shweta said:

Blue, I've said these things gently. So have other people. So I'm going to be blunt.

1) If you don't want to write by committee, stop asking questions until the story is done.

2) If several of your characters are the same person, you need to work on characterization.

3) Short stories are not easier to sell than novels. They may be harder. You are not going to write a story in a week and sell it to a reputable market. It's just not gonna happen. Aim for reasonable goals. Write the best story you can. Post some on SYW, and take peoples' advice. Edit it as well as you can. Then write a better one. Meanwhile, send the first one out. Be prepared for many rejections along the way.

4) I meant #1. Really. Go write. Stop asking about writing.

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Quoting this for truth.

5) Though I may risk offending you, I am going to be even more blunt: FINISH WHAT YOU START! I don't care if the magic no longer moves you, if the Muse has up and ran off with the hot vampire next door, or if every friend you have in the Universe tells you to write something else. FINISH WHAT YOU START! It doesn't matter if it just winds up in a drawer. This is how you learn to be picky about what projects you start, how to build focus, and how to build discipline. If you start a dozen projects and never see a single one through, then what do you have? A basket-load of half-finished crap that no one will want. FINISH WHAT YOU START!

6) Writing is not a team sport. Stop treating it like one. It is you and a page/screen. YOU are the audience. You ever see the movie The Last Samurai? Specifically, the part where Tom Cruise is getting his butt kicked practicing with the other samurai. Young Nobutada (?) runs out and tells him "too many minds". He's caring too much about what others might think and not allowing himself to feel the process of fighting. You're doing the same thing. STOP! Don't show these short stories you're writing to a soul until they're finished. Don't talk to anyone about them, don't mention them. When you do this you're allowing others to dictate your creative process for you. Write a story for you, or don't bother writing it at all.

My two cents' worth . . .

Good luck to you, Blue!


Scott

Memnon624 said:

5) Though I may risk offending you, I am going to be even more blunt: FINISH WHAT YOU START! I don't care if the magic no longer moves you, if the Muse has up and ran off with the hot vampire next door, or if every friend you have in the Universe tells you to write something else. FINISH WHAT YOU START! It doesn't matter if it just winds up in a drawer. This is how you learn to be picky about what projects you start, how to build focus, and how to build discipline. If you start a dozen projects and never see a single one through, then what do you have? A basket-load of half-finished crap that no one will want. FINISH WHAT YOU START!

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Still, there's nothing wrong with putting something on hold while you practice in a different form. It's sure helped me, at least.

I find that if I know the Main Charactor as well as I know myself then the rest of the story comes alot easier. Maybe doing a charactor outline is silly but that way you know your MC better, you'll know what she woould do in any situation you put her in and your story will flow better.
Don't worry so much about what your readers will think, if you can't get the words on paper the way you want them your readers won't have the chance to read them

dempsey said:

I hate to (a) potentially sound cruel and (b) point out what might be the obvious, but if you're sincere about wanting her to pull away and get some real writing done and stop asking for feedback... stop giving feedback.

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I agree with this. Perhaps if we all stopped feeding this young lady's AW addiction with dozens of responses, she'd take her pen and go write. Time for and intervention, perhaps?

c2ckim said:

I find that if I know the Main Charactor as well as I know myself then the rest of the story comes alot easier.

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However, knowing and being too close (and thus being too attached) to your MC can be a bad thing, which I think is a recurring problem here.

c2ckim said:

I find that if I know the Main Charactor as well as I know myself then the rest of the story comes alot easier.

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I'm COMPLETELY the opposite. For me, the work of the story, and the function of the work as a whole, is the gradual revelation of the characters. I don't start off knowing everything about them; little more than the basics, actually. Then I sit back and watch what they do.

In BIW, for example, I was stunned when Simon ran to his mistress in the hours following the accident (this isn't a spoiler, it happens in the first 15 pages). Stunned. I knew he was having an affair, but I didn't expect him to leave the hospital to be with this woman. When that happened, it opened an unexpected door into his character, and into the novel as a whole.

I was surprised when he did it, but I understood it -- eventually. And the challenge to writing that thread of the novel was having the readers understand it, too. A bit of an uphill battle, that -- I still get emails from people I know when they hit that scene. Man, they hate him at that point. But that's because they haven't gotten to know him...

I agree with this. Perhaps if we all stopped feeding this young lady's AW addiction with dozens of responses, she'd take her pen and go write. Time for and intervention, perhaps?

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Sounds like a good plan.