Writing Challenges

This is a discussion on the challenges that you, as a writer, struggle with.

Let me clarify this; it is NOT about managing an RP, or finding a compatible partner that won't vanish on you. In fact, it may have nothing to do with RPing.

This is about writing. What aspects of creative writing do you find yourself needing to improve in? Character building, story progression, descriptive writing, visualizing, character diversity, writer's block, etc..

If people are feeling nice, maybe someone can help you work on something you'd like to improve on. Well, assuming you were asking for help, that is.

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I personally feel comfortable with my descriptive writing and narration. What I greatly struggle with, however, is the language of conversations. I feel that all my characters sound exactly the same. That's not to say their personalities aren't diverse, au contraire, I enjoy diversity in my characters but they all use the same words when talking. So, no accent difference, and no difference in the choice of words they make or the way they'd structure a sentence. That's not realistic. In everyday conversations, people sound unique because their minds go for different verbs and ways of articulating their thoughts. I feel it happens because I don't dive in my character's point of view sufficiently, so all my characters speak the same way I personally do despite them having different personalities than mine. I'd appreciate any help with that.

Another issue is consistency in character building. I've improved on this in my last few RPs but I still think I sometimes lack consistency in my posts. What I mean is that my character could jump between two extremes within a few posts. One post she's into the sex, and another post she's begging to be left alone (Okay not that extreme, but you get the idea). In a way, I feel this emerges from how I feel at the time of writing my post. A good remedy I found is to re-read the last few posts before writing up a new one just to get myself in the right 'mood'. Sometimes I can't do that because of time constraints or excitement.

I've never been approached by any of my partners about any of those two points, but it is a flaw I see in my writing (the first more so than the second).

I know I struggle with visualization. I love crafting this big epic tales, but if I had my way, there would be little to no information on the setting. Thank goodness I have amazing partners who are good developing the setting. I started saving imagery pictures on my pintrest, so I can use a visual to assist in describing the setting I have in my mind, but often I find I just don't care about that all that much.

Things I think I do well is character development and justifying the actions my character takes. Granted I only have a couple stories that lasted long enough for my character to grow and develop, but I am proud of the character arcs I have developed when given the chance.

Xana, you pretty much stole the words right out of my mouth with your entire post, but especially in regards to setting and the 'often I find I just don't care about that all that much' comment. Visualisation, imagery, and descriptions of the external environment, not directly relating to what's happening in the story or between the characters, are my biggest writing challenges.

In my non-visual mind, a door is a door, a lamp a lamp, a chair a chair, and unless there's a reason to do so, describing them further is pointless. So, because I can't conjure visual memories to work from, where those details can have an effect on the characters, serve a purpose to the story, or even just to try and add description to my posts for more visually-oriented partners, I need to put a lot of thought, for example, into what a room might contain, where objects are placed, what they might look like and be made of, and how everything fits in with the rest of the environment, and ensure it all makes sense in the context of the scene/setting.

Another struggle is getting the flow right between character dialogue and action, it always seems to come off clunky when I move from one into the other.

Where I think I do well, are in character development and consistency, dialoguing external thoughts and emotions, and, again in line with Xana, being able to justify their actions through a logical progression.

Yeeeeeup put me on team scenery construction. It's the thing I have to work hardest on. The trick is to think a lot about how your character feels about the environment (at least for me) and choosing environments that have something to say.

And you know, my prose can be a little sparse. I was trained to keep things as short as possible. A lot of people in RPing get salty if you have a 500 word post and they're writing 800-900. But I'm thinking "okay we covered the same amount of ground but I did it in half the space, how am I not the better writer person guy?"

I do good dialogue & good scenes though. My stories usually don't get boring halfway through.

I always feel as though everything I write is horribly rushed. It's as if I could expand on whatever it is that I'm writing. I lose sight of what is enough, and my motivation wanes when I start to think that the paragraph I have could have instead made a compelling two or three paragraphs. It isn't as though I aim to make whatever I write lengthy, but rather I feel as though I'm missing information that could elevate my text to a level that is more enjoyable.

As November wrote, I guess my prose can be a little sparse. I fully agree with the idea of brevity, and how it should be used over making your writing a bloated, dull mess. I don't want to go over every detail of any particular facet of a scene, but I still feel like something is always missing. Sometimes it feels as though I'm just not putting enough effort into what I'm writing, or that I'm cutting corners. It's funny that I feel this way, because when I'm posting my thoughts I often get very meandering.

What a lovely topic! Thanks for this addition, Fruit! <3

I think I'm pretty damned good at the descriptive writing, managing to paint pictures with my words by including visual descriptions of people and environment. I'm also known for including the senses when I write. Meaning, I like to really get the scene across by not just describing what you see, but what you could taste, smell, hear or touch as well. I'm also very good at both world building and character building. Character building is something I've become especially good at over the years and love to do. I'm an epic tale writer, so characters are very important to me and thus something I've spent a lot of time on.

Where I do have issues and could stand to improve is in serious action sequences. As in, say your characters are surrounded by zombies and now they have to fight them off! I love writing these stories, but making the actions sound smooth and understandable is difficult. I think it can be hard to ensure that those reading truly understand who is doing what and how. It can get convoluted and then the intensity gets lost as does what might be going on in detail. And it might very well matter as to who did what. XD I'm also working on weaponry with my characters, making them work well with such things as guns and knives. Even their fists. I want them to come across believably. I think this would also allow me to increase my character types, which would make me happy.

I tend to be compact in my descriptions, and occasionally I’ve had a writer say I was being a little too sparse. In modern settings, the writing usually depends more on the archetypes and assumptions of the reader because the setting is familiar. We don’t have to describe setting much beyond the anomalies. More fantastical settings demand more description because that’s part of the fun of the story. I don’t have to describe the mechanism of an exercise bike in a modern setting, but in a steampunk setting, that could be a lot of fun to describe and to read.

RP dialog is the biggest frustration because MC and YC can’t ever have a real snappy back and forth like they would in real life. Those kinds of conversations have to happen with secondary characters.

I actually have more problems writing individually than I ever do with a good partner, I can go forever if I have someone that is fun to talk to, keeps me engaged in the idea. By myself? It's like pulling teeth.

Although Dane, snappy back and forths are very possible, except nobody wants short posts to make the dialog more engaging...I don't usually roleplay with those people.

For me its my vocabulary, since English is not my first language, it is quite limited compared to that of you Americans.

Often I have a cool scene in my mind, I start writing it out, but then I forget a key word, and I have to change the wording and such. My dictionaries help sometimes, but I often find myself sitting and trying to recall certain words that I had in mind just a few minutes earlier. It can be extremely frustrating.

Second to that, I would agree with Dane's thought on rp dialog, especially when people tend to write really long posts. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but it means the chat will never flow as it does in real life. You always have to backtrack and reply to a series of things, rather than make a comment, then wait for a reply.

In regards to dialogue, you can indeed have it flow well. Longer or shorter posts. The key issue is NOT getting hung up on post count. The moment you do, the flow will die. I've managed very wonderful back and forth dialogue where posts have been a bit shorter or longer depending on whether I've felt a need to include thought perspective or other environmental descriptions. But yeah. It's flowed well. So things to keep in mind. : )

I'll be honest, when I opened this page I was more expecting challenges for people to write to. Not what challenges them.

My biggest issue is keeping on track. I'm not the most long winded of writers, but I do a lot of background work that might never get covered because that's just how I am with my world building. And I'll readily become lost in them. Another flaw is that my muse will wander from idea to idea.

darkangel76 said:

Where I do have issues and could stand to improve is in serious action sequences. As in, say your characters are surrounded by zombies and now they have to fight them off! I love writing these stories, but making the actions sound smooth and understandable is difficult. I think it can be hard to ensure that those reading truly understand who is doing what and how.

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Two things that made me better at this:

1. An action scene is exactly the same as any scene. The underpinning is always emotions and decisions. So sit down and think, okay, they're escaping these zombies, but why is this happening? Are my characters going to betray each other trying to get away? Is one of them going to snap and adopt more brutal methods? Is this guy we didn't like going to risk his life to help someone he hates because he hates zombies more?

Whatever that actual emotional point of the scene is, start building your action around that. It really helps you take out unneeded detail.

2. Pay close attention when you watch an action movie or see them in a book. They do a good job of setting up the scenes to be easy to follow.

You might be used to tight POV stuff in your writing, but there are broad shots in action scenes - establishing shots - where we can see a wider view of the battlefield. Make sure your character is in position to do this too.

Also, write these kind of things in like... an inside outside format when you can.

1. What just happened?

2. How do they feel emotionally and mentally?

3. How does the body respond?

4. What do they say?

Or just find a partner that's good at that stuff