Young Writers Society

Geez. I'm reading my older writing and I think I've actually gotten worse. What's going on here? My older stories are fun and interesting, and my newer ones feel bland and tasteless. Has anyone else had this happen to them? What should I do about it?

Oh, how I've been hoping someone would ask this question, or more specifically notice this in his/her writing. Why? Because it's something that every writer actively trying to improve his/her writing needs to be aware of, and as 'actively trying to improve his/her writing' applies to quite a number on YWS, it's probably one of the most relevant topics I can think of. It's also pressing, because it's dangerous and ends in one of two things. One of those things is something I never want anyone on this site to do--give up writing.

Thankfully, it can end another way, and that's with the writer beating it and going on to become an awesomesauce writer. I'll get to that later, though, because for now I think I need to explain what the heck "it" is.

For that, I need to tell a little story.

Once upon a time, there was a young girl, eight years old, who decided she might like to be a writer. So she whipped out a notebook and wrote and wrote. At first all she wrote were copycat stories of her favorite stories--Nancy Drew, Harry Potter. As she got older, that changed, and gradually she stopped rewriting those stories and started writing things that came from her own head. They were cliche things, really, about elemental magic swords and the power of friendship with plenty of cheesy, melodramatic dialogue, so in a lot of ways it was terrible writing. But in more important ways, the writing was wonderful.

Because she wrote with passion, with love, and she didn't spare a thought to whether it was bad writing or good writing, whether her dialogue was strong enough, her characterization delicate enough, her plot involved enough. She just wrote because it was what she loved.

This didn't last forever. Eventually she thought she might love to be a published writer, so she queried a finished novel to agents, and agents, with surprising kindness, informed her that there was such a thing as good writing and that hers wasn't that, and that her ideas were cliche and silly. Stubbornly, ever so stubbornly, she tried to fix her ideas, fix her writing, but eventually the weight of what the agents said sunk in.

And gradually she uncovered a world of rules, a lot of which contradicted the others. Flat and round characters, good and bad dialogue, good and bad writing. Showing and not telling. Not starting chapters with dialogue, varying sentence length, eliminating adverbs.

Eventually, in trying so hard to be good--so hard to be perfect, awesome, wonderful--she strangled the most important thing out of her writing, the love and energy she had for it.

And that, Shinobi, is what "it" is. What the heck happened to your writing? How did it go from being fun and interesting to bland and tasteless? Strangulation is what happened. Trying Too Hard is what happened.

The easy answer to your "what should I do about it?" is to stop trying too hard, but that just gives you another rule to mangle. You'll be writing along thinking, "No, I'm trying too hard! I need to relax!" But that doesn't do any good. If anything, it makes it worse.

You can't return your writing to that naive, innocent stage it was once in, where you wrote without considering if something were bland, so it's important to look forward. It's easy to say, "Oh, I used to be good but now I suck," but the reality is that's self-defeating and probably untrue--because your energy is what was once good about your writing, and your writing of a few years probably sucked for a lot of other reasons, reasons YWS probably helped point out one way or another.

Strangulation or Trying Too Hard ends in one of two ways. One, the writer gives up in frustration and never writes again except for in picking at it. Two, the writer decides that instead of letting the Writing Rules and Drive To Be Awesome rule him/her, he/she will rule the Writing Rules.

So here's what you do. Remember why it is you got into writing. Remember why you love it. Hold onto that feeling. It's okay if you don't feel it right away, or in a week, or in a month. Give yourself time and patience.

The neat thing about writing is that there's always a way to improve. Instead of setting intangible goals for your writing, set practical ones. Instead of saying, "I want this to be awesome and get 100 Likes on YWS," say, "I want to work on varying my sentence structure."

Goals like that turn YWS and other tools into an incredibly helpful tool rather than an instrument of Strangulation. Then you look at the comments you get and see if you were successful in varying your sentence structure.

Most importantly, do it with love.

And, as a closing note, know that the fact that you've reached this stage is wonderful. It's a bit of a crossroads, and you come back to this stage often in your writing where you have to remember why it is you got into this business.

Sally forth with love, bravery, and courage.

Thank you Rach! This was very helpful and inspirational as well!