Young Writers Society

I wrote my story. I sucked it up and write. I knew it was going to suck terribly, and I was right. I wrote THE WORST STORY EVER!!!!! It's incredivly terrible! You don't understand how bad this story is. It has horrivl characters. Terrible dialogue. It lacks detail in every spectrum. It's not even a story!!!

But I finished it. i sucked it up and wrote crap. Complete, utter crap. It sucks so much. I'm embarrassed to have written it. I'm honestly concerned that I will never ever be a good writer. Every thing that could have gone wrong went wrong. I didn't even enjoy it. I wrote 14.5 pages of pure crap and felt relieved to finish it. In fact, I ended it up abruptly because I hated it so much.

This story doesn't just need editing, it needs total revamping!!!!! This story does not deserve to be refereed to as part of my series. IT IS PURE CRAP!!!!! I'll probably post it later just so you can see how much it sucks. This story sounds like I wrote it terrible on purpose and put extra effort to make it bad(which I didn't)!

So, now that I wrote the worst story of all time, what do I do?

Good. Now learn from your mistakes, and keep writing!

Woah, woah, woah. First of all, I'm sure it's not as bad as you're making it out to be. You are your worst critic, so I'm sure you think it's worse than anyone else will. I would love to read it-although I understand if you're not planing to post it-and I'm 95% sure that if I read it, I would be right about it not being that bad.

Second of all, congrats on sticking with it! That can be really hard to do so that's something to pat yourself on the back about. Now as for what you should do now... If you want to move onto something else, that's fine. Move on. If you want to edit it, I would suggest putting it aside for a day or two to get away from it and then come back to edit it.

You said it had horrible characters and lacks detail? Those are two things that could totally be changed. What makes your characters so horrible? Figuring that out is the first step to being able to change them to characters you like. And as for lacking detail... That's not something you even have to change! When/if you go back through it, add more detail as you go. There's a famous quote that says "The first draft doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be written." And you've done that. Now you can go through and make it better and better until it's something really great. I'm sure every writer has felt they have done "the worst story ever written" at some point and you know what, they probably, 99.9999% of the time haven't. So don't beat yourself up about it and try to figure out what you can do to make it better. And know that you've come out a better writer from it in the end. Congrats on finishing it!

Yay! Congrats on finishing! That's the absolutely positively most important part.

Now! What to do next:

Put that story aside and go forth to write the next absolutely terrible story!

Seriously— write another terrible story. Write another three dozen terrible stories. Keep writing and don't stop.

Writers get better by volume. So now that you've got one story down, get another story down. And another. And another. And another. Get yourself a veritable portfolio of absolutely terrible stories that you cringe upon when you look back.

All writers go through this.

It's frustrating! But you're getting words out. So keep getting words out. Write the next story. Set all work aside for a few months before going to editing it, because we are never good critics of our work when it's still mostly in our head. Let yourself forget the story by writing another few dozen more. Try out new things with the next story to see if it's any less terrible. Keep hacking at the same things to try because practice makes better. Keep finishing! Keep getting angry at it to level up!

You can't make "meh" stuff until you've made lots and lots of terrible stuff. And you can't make "okay" stuff until you've made lots and lots of "meh" stuff. Keep stacking up and eventually, you'll make great stuff! But not until you've got a bunch of stuff you cringe at the mere thought of it. So keep writing terrible stuff and eventually it'll get better!

Dare to suck.

LeftyWriter wrote:Woah, woah, woah. First of all, I'm sure it's not as bad as you're making it out to be. You are your worst critic, so I'm sure you think it's worse than anyone one else will. I would love to read it-although I understand if you're not planing to post it-and I'm 95% sure that if I read it, I would be right about it not being that bad.

Second of all, congrats on sticking with it! That can be really hard to do so that's something to pat yourself on the back about. Now as for what you should do now... If you want to move onto something else, that's fine. Move on. If you want to edit it, I would suggest putting it aside for a day or two to get away from it and then come back to edit it.

You said it had horrible characters and lacks detail? Those are two things that could totally be changed. What makes your characters so horrible? Figuring that out is the first step to being able to change them to characters you like. And as for lacking detail... That's not something you even have to change! When/if you go back through it, add more detail as you go. There's a famous quote that says "The first draft doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be written." And you've done that. Now you can go through and make it better and better until it's something really great. I'm sure every writer has felt they have done "the worst story ever written" at some point and you know what, they probably, 99.9999% of the time haven't. So don't beat yourself up about it and try to figure out what you can do to make it better. And know that you've come out a better writer from it in the end. Congrats on finishing it!

Thank you for congratulating me!!! As for the inner critic, I wrote a two page scary story in December. I admit that that story was okay. In fact, I thought it was good for a first draft. This story, however, is just TERRIBLE. I don't even want to edit it. I want to write a better story with my idea. After all, I am writing a series.

I'll let you know when I upload it.

Oh, that's also a very good idea. If you feel like you could take the same idea and do something better with it, definitely do that. Sometimes things just don't come out quite right and they come out better if you do it a little differently or just try it again. It seems like I read about an author who rewrote the ending of his book, like, 32 times? Anyway, I think that's an awesome idea. But if you're a bit frustrated or tired of the story I would suggest taking a couple days away from it or work on something else for a little bit before coming back to it. That way you won't get sick of the story. I was working on my novel and was trying to push through a tough spot (felt like trudging through quicksand) and I ended up completely getting creative burn out. So if you need to take a few days away from it, do that. Take a walk, watch a movie and come back to it once you've taken a little break. Best of luck!

Rosendorn wrote:Yay! Congrats on finishing! That's the absolutely positively most important part.

Now! What to do next:

Put that story aside and go forth to write the next absolutely terrible story!

Seriously— write another terrible story. Write another three dozen terrible stories. Keep writing and don't stop.

Writers get better by volume. So now that you've got one story down, get another story down. And another. And another. And another. Get yourself a veritable portfolio of absolutely terrible stories that you cringe upon when you look back.

All writers go through this.

It's frustrating! But you're getting words out. So keep getting words out. Write the next story. Set all work aside for a few months before going to editing it, because we are never good critics of our work when it's still mostly in our head. Let yourself forget the story by writing another few dozen more. Try out new things with the next story to see if it's any less terrible. Keep hacking at the same things to try because practice makes better. Keep finishing! Keep getting angry at it to level up!

You can't make "meh" stuff until you've made lots and lots of terrible stuff. And you can't make "okay" stuff until you've made lots and lots of "meh" stuff. Keep stacking up and eventually, you'll make great stuff! But not until you've got a bunch of stuff you cringe at the mere thought of it. So keep writing terrible stuff and eventually it'll get better!

Dare to suck.

Thank you for replying!!! I really want to write a better opening story, though!

Of course you do!

But would you rather stay stuck on rewriting it over and over and over again, or would you rather go off and explore your skill, develop your voice, learn new things, stick your characters in new situations, generally learn more about the setting by writing in it, then go back to it once you've gotten better?

Expecting yourself to get better by rewriting the same thing over and over again is like expecting a whole sword to get sharp when you've only honed the first inch. You’ve got to hone the whole blade before you can get it sharper in the next pass.

Rosendorn wrote:Of course you do!

But would you rather stay stuck on rewriting it over and over and over again, or would you rather go off and explore your skill, develop your voice, learn new things, stick your characters in new situations, generally learn more about the setting by writing in it, then go back to it once you've gotten better?

Expecting yourself to get better by rewriting the same thing over and over again is like expecting a whole sword to get sharp when you've only honed the first inch. You’ve got to hone the whole blade before you can get it sharper in the next pass

So maybe I after I write some other stories for the series? (I had no idea what I was doing with the story I just wrote, and The Vest of Knowledge was poorly written as I still know nothing about it.)

Besides writing more(which I will do), how else can I improve?

Yep! After you write other stories for the series, you'll have a better grasp of what's going on and who everyone is, and it'll be easier to start. Even then, the more you write in between stories, the better your beginning will be. You can't truly know where to start and where to finish until you've written everything between the start and finish.

As for how to improve, there are two big ways:

1- Write
2- Read

But, honestly, there's only one way: write.

Reading helps. Reading gives you a huge base of ideas to pull from and opens your mind and teaches you new things and generally just gives you inspiration. I'd read everything but writing advice. Read what interests you. Read nonfic. Learn new things, but don't make them writing specific.

However.

All that inspiration, all those facts, all of this learning you do? It's absolutely nothing if you don't have something to apply it to. If you don't get words on a page, you have nothing to rewrite later on. You can't improve something that doesn't exist.

So, yes. Your next dozen stories will be terrible. Your next million words will be terrible.

That's okay.

You're going to be better for the next million.

Rosendorn wrote:Yep! After you write other stories for the series, you'll have a better grasp of what's going on and who everyone is, and it'll be easier to start. Even then, the more you write in between stories, the better your beginning will be. You can't truly know where to start and where to finish until you've written everything between the start and finish.

As for how to improve, there are two big ways:

1- Write
2- Read

But, honestly, there's only one way: write.

Reading helps. Reading gives you a huge base of ideas to pull from and opens your mind and teaches you new things and generally just gives you inspiration. I'd read everything but writing advice. Read what interests you. Read nonfic. Learn new things, but don't make them writing specific.

However.

All that inspiration, all those facts, all of this learning you do? It's absolutely nothing if you don't have something to apply it to. If you don't get words on a page, you have nothing to rewrite later on. You can't improve something that doesn't exist.

So, yes. Your next dozen stories will be terrible. Your next million words will be terrible.

That's okay.

You're going to be better for the next million.

Super true! I can't improve something that doesn't exist!

So I should keep writing terrible characters? The characters I wrote were TERRIBLE. Jacob was supposed to be very smart like he is in real life. My character acted nowhere how I wanted him to.

Yep! Keep writing terrible characters!

You'll learn more about them the more you write them and they'll develop into their own people and eventually you'll figure out who your characters are!

Characters often don't start fully fleshed out (past very rare cases). You flesh them out by writing! So the more you write these terrible characters, the better those characters get developed!

Keep writing!

Rosendorn wrote:Yep! Keep writing terrible characters!

You'll learn more about them the more you write them and they'll develop into their own people and eventually you'll figure out who your characters are!

Characters often don't start fully fleshed out (past very rare cases). You flesh them out by writing! So the more you write these terrible characters, the better those characters get developed!

Keep writing!

How do I have fun this time? I hated writing the story I wrote today. I was eager for it to end!

Ask yourself what would make it fun.

Seriously! It works!

Whenever I'm bored with my writing, I ask myself what would be fun to write. It's how I get most of my ideas. I ask myself what I'd just love to write next then I go off and write it. These are often my best instincts for what the story should end up with, and I get a story with far more depth. How do I decide between two plot options? Ask which one's the most fun!

The next thing I do is not care about quality. I'm going to rewrite it anyway, so why worry about how bad it is right now? It's so freeing to throw out your ideas about quality because then you can just get whatever words you want out on the page. Get whatever you want to have fun with out, and the less you worry about it, the more fun it becomes.

However, it doesn't remove all the boring parts of writing. Because here's a painful truth: It's not always going to be fun.

A lot of writing is very fun! It gets more fun the less you worry about it. But editing, rewriting, the process of learning? That can be and often is extremely painful. You have to love other parts of writing, like the coming up with the ideas and the raw creating, but not every part is exactly what you'd call "loveable".

Now, you can take the bull by the horns and decide to love everything about writing. This takes a lot of pain away. I hold onto the end result and the fact I love my stories so I want them to be the best, which is how I've stuck with the story for so long. I adore my setting and characters and the moments I want to capture. But that doesn't mean I haven't hated it at multiple points in time.

You can make writing far more fun if you forget about quality and ask yourself what'd be the most fun to write. But that doesn't mean all writing will be fun all the time, at least, if you're trying to improve your own writing.

I'm here to offer the rebel perspective.

Don't write any more terrible stories. Don't write any more terrible characters. Don't write any more terrible dialogue.

Get better at writing instead, and write good stories. Then decide you don't want to write good stories any longer and write great ones.

It's a conscious decision.

Now, that doesn't mean you can just become fantastic by willing yourself to be so. And trust me when I say that sitting down to write a fantastic story doesn't work very well--performance anxiety kicks in and you get all self-conscious and self-critical.

Writing takes a lot of practice. So much practice. It's like learning to play an instrument. But that doesn't mean you just saw at Twinkle Twinkle Little Star for the next century.

Identify why this story was terrible. In specifics. What notes did you miss? What parts did you rush? Why, exactly, in specifics, were your characters terrible? Why was your dialogue terrible?

Answer those questions clinically. And then don't do those things.

Also identify what you did well. It's important to know what you're doing well, too, so that you can continue to do that.

Linguistics and Dialogue, Intro
Character Development Workshop: Unlocking Your Characters
Character Development Workshop: Complex Modes of Development

Learn. Ask questions. Practice actively.

And:

1) When in doubt, blow something up. [aka if you're bored with your plot or not sure where to go next, blow things up, metaphorically or literally.]
2) Plot holes are made for filling. [use 'mistakes' and apparent disadvantages to your advantage]
3) Do what you're afraid to do. [even if it terrifies you, yes. Even if it means killing off your main character.]
4) Write the story you don't think you can write. [nothing like a challenge to make you excel faster]

I'm a PM away if you need anything. And I'm a fantasy guru. And a ninja. Just sayin'.