My ideas feel stagnant and my writing flat.

If your subject matter is something you're really passionate about / immensely interested in, then I honestly think it's very unlikely that all of your writing would be flat and boring.

Maybe part of the problem is that you know / research too much about the subject, so you can't believe you're capable of saying anything new? If you think this could be the case, keep in mind that most people don't know that much about Normans in Italy or mercenaries during the Thirty Years War, so there's a good chance that you are saying something new and possibly interesting to them. I don't mean that the purpose of writing fiction, even historical fiction, should be just to regurgitate historical facts, of course, it's the execution what matters, but the facts are a starting point in HF (I believe). And again, if you're really intrigued by the facts, the setting, the period, you have a good basis for creating something that can intrigue others.

Secondly, I can definitely relate to what you say about being inexperienced (my WIP, and that's the first piece of fiction I've ever "seriously" started, doesn't have many more pages than yours at this point) and feeling inadequate (I am still struggling with the notion that my words are worth anything). However, you've started to write for a reason, or several reasons, so don't forget or dismiss those just yet. You'll never know what you can do unless you really try, and one of the few things I've learned about writing so far is that in this field, "really trying" must mean more than a couple of weeks / pages.

Lastly, has anyone read what you wrote, and are you getting any feedback? I know (trust me, I know) how hard it is to let someone read your stuff when you don't believe in it, but I still think it might be very helpful. Even if the reader doesn't quite love it, I'd be very suprised if they turned out to be as critical as you are. I don't think you can expect (or perhaps even need) real constructive criticism right now, but just knowing that someone else has formed an opinion on your writing might help you continue. JMO, of course.

Hang in there, and good luck.

MoMo...can I call you MoMo?

If I may make a suggestion or two?

Stop analyzing what you've written. Stop trying to compare a first, rough, draft to the polished fiction available out there. Those places are, for many, worlds apart.

Do a brain-yak onto the page. Just get it down in all its rough beauty with run on sentences and sentence fragments and talking heads of dialogue with no tag attributions of who's talking and aside notes to come back and fill in details later. Commit it to the page in all its messy glory. Save it, read over it only far back enough to get a sense of where you stopped the writing session before, pick up the thread and keep yakking. Get to the end. Put it in a drawer/folder and let it sit for a few weeks.

You would be surprised in looking back to see how much better it is than it appears right now. Very few writers are able to produce golden prose the first time out. For some, the edit-as-you-go writing works. For some, it doesn't. Consider that you may be the writer for whom it doesn't work.

I would also suggest that until you have a finished piece, stop sending it to betas (if you are). Your mind will be focused on fixing the problems they see and not on getting the story down.

Brain-yak it.

bearilou has some great advice. I have a lot of problems with beating up my own writing too, but if there's anything I've learned over the decade or so that I've been pulling stories out of my brain, it's that if I go back an try to edit before my first draft is finished, I'm never going to finish it.

There are a few things I've found that have worked for me:

Keep writing. Write, write, write. It doesn't matter if what you write is flat, boring or jibberish. The bumps can be smoothed out later. What's important is that you have something to revise in the first place.

When something absolutely sticks out in your mind as being unsatisfactory, leave yourself a note. I use Scrivener, so it's ridiculously easy to leave myself hundreds of scathing notes to wound my writer's ego later on.

When you have enough passive and not so passive aggressive notes, give yourself some time to stare into space. Don't try to think about them, just have them in mind.

If you draw a blank with that (or fall asleep) kidnap another writer and ask a few questions. "So hey, I have this character, and -he's all right, I guess- but he doesn't feel very interesting you know? This is his current motive / opposition / sinful obsession and -hey! Could you stop struggling against the ropes to give me some advice here?" (Ok, maybe kidnapping isn't the best idea.)

Finally, don't know if you do this already or not (if you don't, I swear I'm not crazy!) but let your characters talk to you. Whatever it takes to get you into a relaxed mood, just put your character up on a box and see what they have to say. In my experience, it's a lot. Like, a LOT. Sometimes I can't get them to shut up again.

And if all of that still fails, go back to the basics. Who is your MC? What do they want? What is in their way?

I guarantee your writing is better than you think it is.

I can't tell you how many times I stopped working on a piece because it was just too awful for words, only to go back in a few months and realize just how much of my writing sang.

So get it all out and onto the page, let it sit for a little while, start something else... and then pull it out and see how bad it really is. I bet you'll find it's not half bad at all. Better yet, you'll see where you can improve it.

I'd like to offer two things that helped me. 1) finish everything you start. 2) write you first draft in pen or pencil. If your handwriting is hard to read you have the added benefit of not being able to read what you've written, and thus being prevented from being to critical of it.

First, I'm intensely critical of my own writing. I don't feel like I have good points in my writing. I feel inadequate and inexperienced compared to even small-time writers. I feel like I can't compare to them.

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All writers had to start somewhere, and I'm sure many of them felt inadequate and inexperienced at some point. The only cure that I know of is: keep writing.

Ignore the Evil Inner Editor who whispers doubt and push forward. It might take some time, but with each story--whether novel, novelette, or short--you gain experience. And with that experience comes confidence.

A writer might never completely overcome self-doubt--I still feel it every time I start/complete a new project--but at least I know with each story I complete, I am working to polish my craft. And that has done wonders for my confidence.

Second, nothing I do feels original or interesting. Any dialogue I write feels hackneyed, any setting I write feels "blah" the moment I put it down to paper, the settings I have written down keep coming back to my brain despite my lack of interest in finishing them, my characters feel flat, and overall everything seems stagnant.

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To be honest, I think it is your job as a writer to make the story you're creating interesting and original. Yes, I know that most themes have already been written, but it is your job to put a spin on an old theme to make it yours. That's what we do.

If you're having issues with creating setting/developing characters/dialogue/etc., read more in (and outside of!) your particular genre to see how other writers are doing it. Analyze their writing with a critical eye. Ask yourself questions like: "why do I like/empathize/dislike their characters," or "how did the writer ground me within the story," or "what did this author do to make the dialogue realistic?" And these are just some examples of questions you might ask.

Third, I know what I like (history, religion in fantasy, crumbling empires and multitudes of cults, magic systems, medieval settings, narratives that give a sense of history and granduer) and I know what I find enjoyment in researching (history in general, with out-of-place-seeming things like Normans in Italy, Mongol Christians, iron-handed mercenaries during the Thirty Years War, or Muslims in Russia in particular), but I don't know how to put it all together in a way that satisfies me, or at least doesn't begin to bore me before I even put word to paper (and not even the manuscript; the worldbuilding paper is when I get bored). Nothing fits together well.

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I enjoy researching flower gardening, but I don't write about it. I enjoy researching cooking tips, but I don't write about it. Researching for the pleasure of gaining knowledge and writing are two different things, IMHO.

If the subjects you're writing about bores you, find something you really want to write about.

bearilou said:

If I may make a suggestion or two?

Stop analyzing what you've written. Stop trying to compare a first, rough, draft to the polished fiction available out there. Those places are, for many, worlds apart. ... Brain-yak it.

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Well, pretty much what Bearilou said!

This is something I struggle with as well - I need to learn how to draft something, I always edit as I go. I usually write 2-3 sentences per hour, which makes writing anything long pretty much impossible.

We both need to learn how to draft and how to write quickly, then go back and edit that work. Argh!

MormonMobster said:

Well, part of my problem is that I am intellectually interested in many subjects, but I can't get myself to emotionally invest in my characters, plot, or setting. At best, I mentally say "Oh, that's cool", rather than "that's gripping any emotional".

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My answer to that would be this:

L. Y. said:

If the subjects you're writing about bores you, find something you really want to write about.

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Only change something to someone. Find a character who fascinates you. Look at the ones you have again. Do you really know them? What they want more than anything in the world? What would they sacrifice to get it? What wouldn't they sacrifice? Then make their heart's desire totally unattainable unless they sacrifice that one thing they wouldn't, to get it.
What choice do they make? And are they interesting to you at that point?

Canotila said:

Find a character who fascinates you. Look at the ones you have again. Do you really know them? What they want more than anything in the world? What would they sacrifice to get it? What wouldn't they sacrifice? Then make their heart's desire totally unattainable unless they sacrifice that one thing they wouldn't, to get it.
What choice do they make? And are they interesting to you at that point?

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This. She's so right!

I knew I was going to be writing high fantasy. I knew it. And I have -- some -- it's in suspension right now though.

This character horned in, took over my writing and now I'm hared off on a totally different road and it works. I don't know why I'm writing this, it's not what I set out to do at all. Not even remotely, but there you go.

Canotila can attest to how different it is from my other work -- and that it's what I'm supposed to be doing now, not what I'd planned.

Open up and invite the Awen and then be quiet and listen

Here's my two cents:

1) Ask yourself why you love writing. Think about it, make a list of reasons why. What is it particularly that you love? Maybe it's the words and the images, so you might try poetry. Maybe it's the facts and the research, so maybe you want to try non-fiction or journalism. There are a million different types of writing out there and if you are dedicated to writing, I'd say maybe try some different things to stir it up.

2) Ask yourself what you want to say. I'm reading Stephen King's book On Writing and he says: just start with one true sentence. If you can't think of a story or a character maybe you need to think of a point. What do you believe in, what do you care about, what do you want the world to know?

3) Explore your own experiences, you might think they're boring, but other people want to read about other people. You can find endless stories within yourself that can easily be translated into an epic tale!

4) Choose something and don't look back until it's done. Learning takes time and people tend to expect a lot from themselves. If you make it about fun and passion, then nothing else matters except the process and if it's rewarding. And if it's not...well then why the heck are you doing it in the first place?

Good luck!

MormonMobster said:

I don't have much experience with writing (my longest writing attempt is about 12 and a half pages long), but I still have a few major problems.

First, I'm intensely critical of my own writing. I don't feel like I have good points in my writing. I feel inadequate and inexperienced compared to even small-time writers. I feel like I can't compare to them.

Second, nothing I do feels original or interesting. Any dialogue I write feels hackneyed, any setting I write feels "blah" the moment I put it down to paper, the settings I have written down keep coming back to my brain despite my lack of interest in finishing them, my characters feel flat, and overall everything seems stagnant.

Third, I know what I like (history, religion in fantasy, crumbling empires and multitudes of cults, magic systems, medieval settings, narratives that give a sense of history and granduer) and I know what I find enjoyment in researching (history in general, with out-of-place-seeming things like Normans in Italy, Mongol Christians, iron-handed mercenaries during the Thirty Years War, or Muslims in Russia in particular), but I don't know how to put it all together in a way that satisfies me, or at least doesn't begin to bore me before I even put word to paper (and not even the manuscript; the worldbuilding paper is when I get bored). Nothing fits together well.

I don't know if this is the right forum to put it in, but suffice to say, I have major writer's block and feel stuck in a rut.

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Welcome to the club, MormonMobster!

1 -I feel ya
2- I feel ya
3 - I feel ya

Fight through it, ya pansy!!! (and I mean that to make you get tough skin not as a true insult)

I fight everyday with myself, crits from SYW can make you feel like a worthless dungpile, but you have to keep fighting it if this is truly what you want. Fantasy stories are expected to have a new take on things, not necessarily a reinventing of the genre. (And, that's not to say it can't be done, but it's not expected). Plots are done and redone all the time in movies, doesn't mean you don't watch 'em!

Sit down, write, and let the words flow without worrying about originality. If it's any good by the end, someone will pick it up and read it.

MormonMobster said:

Another problem I have is that my characters don't fascinate me, or at least not beyond how they fit in my setting. I can't bring myself to care about the goals of my characters.



I don't think anyone has read the stuff I've written; I'm very private with my writing, mainly because I am ultra-critical and my writing seems like it was done by a teenager (and not a teenager who writes compellingly, at that).

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Characters - You're probably not getting into their head then, close your eyes (as cliche and fung-shui as that might sound) and imagine yourself as your character. In fact go read this thread even. Characters should be alive and you don't have to be fascinated by them, you just have to BE them throughout the story.

Share your work - I haven't been here too long, but my writing has changed so drastically because of the help of others within AW. Crits are tough to swallow, but you can't have a totally objective approach to your work. You don't see plotholes because you know everything about your story. Let others help you, let others get mad because you've left information out... they're only getting mad because they WANT to know more and you haven't given them enough! (at least that's how I see it)

It's good to be ultra-critical, but you can only do so much by yourself.

Be confident. This is your first attempt isn't it?I'm pretty much in the same boat. Once you are confident your writing will improve. Try the Share your work here. That place has helped me a lot.The critiques and a few gems of of praises in them helped me raise my self confidence. I'm sure it will do the same to you.

MormonMobster said:

I feel inadequate and inexperienced compared to even small-time writers. I feel like I can't compare to them.

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Oh my goodness, never do this. You're comparing your rough draft to everyone else's final product. You couldn't possibly be more unfair to yourself!

Easier said than done, I realize. I slip into that mindset constantly. Lately I've taken a lot of inspiration from certain TV series (thank god for Netflix) and some of them are so well-written that by the end of the episode I can't help but feel horribly inadequate. I just have to remind myself that the reason that episode is so awesome is that an entire team of writers knocked out tens of drafts and rewrites to get it there. The first draft was probably as awful as anybody else's in the history of ever.

Regarding originality: there are no new ideas, only new perspectives. Your perspective is unique by virtue of the fact that you're a distinct person from all the other people on the Earth. It's possible that it feels unoriginal to you because you've been living with your own perspective for your entire life. Have you gotten feedback from anyone else?

As far as your ideas not fitting together: I'm of the opinion that the quality of the fit is less important than what you do with it. Among your interests you listed religion in fantasy, magic systems, and Mongol Christians. What if you made the miracles and powers that permeate Christianity into a literal magic system, used by a slightly-fantastical version of those Mongol Christians? I don't know of any stories about that, so I have no idea what such a story would/should/could look like. That might make it seem like an awkward fit, but if you really dig into it and execute the concept faithfully, you can make it fit. At a certain point it'll go from "bizarre idea" to "fresh, creative idea".

In fact, I think the awkward fits can be some of the most fruitful, as they provide lots of interesting "what ifs". Take what you know about Mongol Christian culture, and then explore how that would be changed if the "magic" in their religious traditions was real, literal magic. What would daily life be like? What would growing up be like? How would their politics and relations with other cultures be affected? Somewhere in there, I'll bet there's an awesome story.

You've already received a lot of great advice (go AWers!). So I'll keep this short. One of the best things I have done for my fiction writing is to read Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Browne and King.

Before I read this book dialogue was a serious weak point for me. I hated writing it because I knew I was terrible at it. Then I studied the chapters in Self-Editing and used their advice and now I rock at dialogue. It's not that hard once you understand a few keys.

You can do this!

MormonMobster said:

I don't know if this is the right forum to put it in, but suffice to say, I have major writer's block and feel stuck in a rut.

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Things you can do:

1) Keep writing. You get better with practice.
2) The only person you're competing with is yourself.
3) Get and read a copy of The Unstrung Harp; or, Mr Earbrass Writes a Novel by Edward Gorey.
4) Try the Evil Overlord Plot Generator (with the Murphy's Laws of Combat complication) and/or the Lester Dent Master Plot.
5) Remember: Everyone was an unknown newbie once.

I was going to link you to an amazing essay by John Perry about procrastination, but apparently he's got a publishing deal and you'll just have to buy the book to read it Anyway, the jist was, he had a book review to write for a collegue, and kept putting it off. Why? Because he'd built it up in his head to be this Enormous Thing: he was going to write the best damn book review ever, people would rush out and buy it, it would become a best-seller, it would win the Nobel prize. His review would be the making of this guy's career, fortune and life's happiness. So crikey, he better get the review right! Which meant he kept avoiding the task in case he couldn't meet this wildly unrealistic expectation...until finally, in a panic with an hour to go, he scribbled off the best review he could manage in that time, and it was ok. It did the job.

The point? It's easy to put pressure on yourself about these things. Instead of sitting down to write whatever you can manage in the next hour, you're setting out to start Your Definitive Work, the best thing you ever write, a multi-million-selling epic that will turn you into a publishing phenomena... and eek, that's a lot to live up to. It's a paralysing kind of pressure.

But it doesn't have to be perfect first time. Just write the best you can do in the next five minutes, you can polish it later, you just have to start somewhere.

MormonMobster said:

Well, part of my problem is that I am intellectually interested in many subjects, but I can't get myself to emotionally invest in my characters, plot, or setting. At best, I mentally say "Oh, that's cool", rather than "that's gripping any emotional".

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Then why are you writing, mate? I have a day job as a lawyer and then come home to write (when I can) because I love it. I'm writing the books that I want to read. Even my first novel, which may not be all that good, I still reread on occasion because it's so much fun. (At least for me. But a couple of other readers really liked it, too, so it can't be all bad.)

I'm not trying to attack your work here. You may well be a better prose stylist than I. I'm just asking why you're writing in the first place. Me, I have a bunch of hobbies that I would really enjoy working on, but I just love writing more. What about you?

MormonMobster said:

First, I'm intensely critical of my own writing. I don't feel like I have good points in my writing. I feel inadequate and inexperienced compared to even small-time writers. I feel like I can't compare to them.

Second, nothing I do feels original or interesting. Any dialogue I write feels hackneyed, any setting I write feels "blah" the moment I put it down to paper, the settings I have written down keep coming back to my brain despite my lack of interest in finishing them, my characters feel flat, and overall everything seems stagnant.

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Hi there. I had the same problem. Even though I have been wanting to write for decades, I never had a story I felt passionate about. After having the lightning bolt strike, I couldn't stop writing. Once down on paper, I read through the draft and felt the same as you. Questions of "who would want to read this?" haunted me and I felt the story was flat and boring, that my characters were average at the best. I gave a few snippets to friends and was shocked to hear the replies. Some claimed to be brought to tears.

What I am trying to say (or encourage) is for you not to be so judgemental of your own work. You have admitted to knowing what you like, so then write it. After all, we can't reinvent the wheel. Trying to create a world or situation that outplays all that have gone before is a true goal, but that will cloud your passion for writing. An example I often use, especially for couples in real life when they say they will get married 'when they have enough money', guess what? You will never have enough. If you are struggling to write because you feel you don't have enough, you will battle endlessly.

Take what you have and write it to the best of your ability.

Hope this helped.

Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.

~ Ira Glass

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Maybe this will help a bit?

MormonMobster said:

Another problem I have is that my characters don't fascinate me, or at least not beyond how they fit in my setting. I can't bring myself to care about the goals of my characters.

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Then perhaps the story you're trying to tell isn't the one you need to be telling. Use another/different one as the mc. Change the genre. Do something different and switch things up.

MormonMobster said:

I don't think anyone has read the stuff I've written; I'm very private with my writing, mainly because I am ultra-critical and my writing seems like it was done by a teenager (and not a teenager who writes compellingly, at that).

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You're not saying anything any different than a lot of us have already been through and go through sometimes on a daily basis. Seriously, ArcticFox posted a great excerpt from Ira Glass. Read it again. Better yet, watch it on youtube.

MormonMobster said:

Oh, and when I try to adapt my historical knowledge to fantasy settings (changing needed details, of course), it feels inauthentic.

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Okay, so try this. Don't 'adapt'. Just write it straight out. Like I mentioned above. Yak it out. Get it down in all its messy glory. Mix and match history with fantasy. Smoothing it out, making it feel authentic, will come in your edits.

Quinn_Inuit said:

Then why are you writing, mate? I have a day job as a lawyer and then come home to write (when I can) because I love it. I'm writing the books that I want to read. Even my first novel, which may not be all that good, I still reread on occasion because it's so much fun. (At least for me. But a couple of other readers really liked it, too, so it can't be all bad.)

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While this is a good point, I still feel like it can be damaging if its not remembered that not everyone feels the same 'flush of excitement' when writing. Some are giddy and can't wait to get to the keyboard. Some take a while to get warmed up to writing and only feel it when they finally get past the starting of it and are in the groove. Some never feel it during the writing and every word written is like nails in their scalp, but feel it during the editing phase.

Many don't like writing, but they love having written.

When I sit down to write, I'm not all a twitter with excitement to sit down and get immersed in my writing world. I'm not covered under in emotions and feels for my characters and what they go through. When I write, I'm actually quite detached from it all.

Where the emotion really hits me is in the editing, when I'm reading over what I've written after having let it sit and marinate for a few weeks and realizing that 'hey, this is actually better than I remembered'. That's when my attachment for my characters hit me and I really start to care what happens. What their goals and dreams are.

Quinn_Inuit said:

I'm not trying to attack your work here. You may well be a better prose stylist than I. I'm just asking why you're writing in the first place. Me, I have a bunch of hobbies that I would really enjoy working on, but I just love writing more. What about you?

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So this is a good thing to sit and suss through, at least once. Is writing what you want to do? Is creating worlds and characters something that does interest you enough that you will want to work to improve (because you will need to improve, just like with any other skill)? Once you determine it is, understand that you won't feel the same way about it that someone else does and that's okay.

And that it's okay if you decide that writing isn't working for you at all. You're not a failure.

Bearilou brought up some excellent points there. I agree completely.