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Immature voice...?



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Wed May 04, 2016 4:23 pm
Holysocks says...



The title is dumb. Ignore the title.

So the main reason I have trouble writing these days, is because whenever I write, I have this terrible terrible knowledge sloshing around the back of my head that my writing is too... young. It sounds like I'm telling little Sally a story about a prince that forgot his magic jube-jubes at home.

While some of you might be saying "Well go write children's books then! Mercy sakes!" But I don't want to write children's books and I've always felt like children's books don't have to sound young in order to be aimed at children- so even if I were to write stories for children, I'd be faced with the same issue.

I used to get by just telling myself it was all in my head and that it sounded perfectly fine, but that's not working so good anymore. This kind of thinking leads me to thinking it's the story's fault or just plan makes me bitter towards my story and I move onto a different story/idea. In the past I'd try to stick with just one novel (I still never finished anything, but at least I got a ways into the novel before I'd quit), but now I have two (and a possible 'nother one on the starts) going. And I hate them all.

Additional tricks I've tried that don't seem to solve my problem:

Spoiler! :
-Not starting out with a MC's name (because that always makes it feel young to me)
-trying to add more to my character's depth-wise
-trying to build more complex worlds
-trying to use earth rules as much as possible (AKA less world building)
-can't think of anything else
-oh also I've tried forcing myself to write through a story that already went sour and I got really burnt out


Is it just a mindset thing or...? Any tips?

EDIT: This also causes me to get very anxious while I write.
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Thu May 12, 2016 5:08 pm
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Lightsong says...



Hmm, immature voice. Interesting. Perhaps you can give us a bit of an example of your writing that is deemed immature? Because immature in prose isn't necessarily a bad thing. YA fiction, I think, is the obvious genre that uses the immaturity in its teenage main character as a way to push the plot further.

Now, I want to talk about the tricks.

-Not starting out with a MC's name (because that always makes it feel young to me)


Yeah, I used to do this when I first started writing... before a lot of reviewers told me to introduce a character with a name. Unless you're using first PoV and the protagonist doesn't know someone's name, always use the name. Especially for MCs.

-trying to add more to my character's depth-wise


Hmm, it doesn't need to be deep. What you need to insert is just more thoughts and reactions the character. An occurring event that is entirely made by actions are two dimensional. Giving an insight to what the character's thinking would give, ah, more depth to the story. ;)

-trying to build more complex worlds


Huh? This one isn't really important. Giving us enough description of the world for use to imagine it is fine enough. You don't need to make the world more complex than it is, because most readers would give attention more to the plot and characters rather than the worldbuilding. The world just have to be visualizable enough. Maybe making a picturesque world would be an extra bonus, though, but it doesn't necessarily need to be complex.

-trying to use earth rules as much as possible (AKA less world building)


To contradict with my previous advice, nuu, don't stick to earth rules so much. Decide whether your story is held in fantasy world or not; if it is, then world-building is a must, if it's not, then you can base the locations in real life. You can even make up a location, but with real structures and all, if you tend to tell a realistic story.

-can't think of anything else


I don't think this is a trick. xD

-oh also I've tried forcing myself to write through a story that already went sour and I got really burnt out


Well, if it makes you burn out, stop. Go find another plot bunnies. It won't do to continue doing something that apparently doesn't give the desirable result.
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The subject is a catalyst, a character, but our responsibility is, has to be, to the work."

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Thu May 12, 2016 6:34 pm
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Dreamy says...



What is immature? A quick Google search brought these two things:

not fully developed

having or showing an emotional or intellectual development appropriate to someone younger.


Based on these meanings of the word, I'd like to add my views. Taking the first meaning to account, maybe you sound immature because you have underdeveloped plot lines. Maybe you just woke up with this new mind-blogging idea and went on to write the story without addressing them properly? And if so, all you need to do is align your plot. Decide what your plot is and what requires of your plot. The trick to not to sound too immature is when you know everything about what you're doing and how you're going to do.

The second meaning (this is crazy both the meanings seems similar to me, only that one is less offensive than the other): I would definitely not recommend you to write children's book because as you said, sounding immature is not what it takes to write a children's book.

I think what you should do though is free your mind of all this discouraging judgments that you do to yourself, and just concentrate on what the story wants. The style, the narrative techniques follows later. Once you have a clear cut idea of the what's, the why's and the who's, you will be encouraged to try out new narrative techniques.

I know and have heard people who say, "I just write what comes to me" and it will be the most beautiful thing a person has ever written, it's either they have planned thoroughly or born with the talent, the latter is never true, if it is then the DNA has failed us, let us not fail us once more.

No spoiler:

My favourite book is "The God of small things" by Arundati Roy, and the book after reading just few pages made me decide that this is going to be one helluva journey because the author never said a point directly. She had too many in-stories (stories within stories) Introductions of any new character would be for at least two complete pages, sometimes you'd feel like she's info dumping on you but the end made it all worthy. It was like telling the reader, how even the unlikeliest man was responsible to how the story ended. It isn't the story about the MC or the MC's mother, it was about a man whose life is an effect of a society. The man was her rock and she had him hid under the soil called society, we readers had to stumble upon the grasses, vines and weeds to find him. And after the discovery, you will want to hide him and revisit the vines and weeds again.

Find your rock and then you will know how to hide it, and how you want to hide it. 8)
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Thu May 12, 2016 7:43 pm
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GoldFlame says...



(I suffer the same paranoia and it's torturous.)

Echoing what Dreamy said: try rinsing away all conceptions of right and wrong. Spill mind-vomit onto the paper, toy around with language, disregard rules.

There isn't a binomial system of "sophisticated" and "juvenile"; writing's all about gray areas. You could say Author A's imagery would be idiotic in another context, but is perfect in this context. The awful-by-regular-standards stuff clicks with his style organically and transforms into beauty.

Plenty of authors exist who are able to pull off shallow plots because their style is unique.

You could say tropes and cliches are characteristic of juvenile writing, as well as melodramatic openings, unvaried sentences, overly long paragraphs, purple prose, description-barren prose, exclamatory sentences, rhetorical questions, cardboard characters, flat dialogue--but you also have situations where unvaried sentences, long paragraphs, and description-barren prose work.

In the end, immature voice is really subjective? Try taking a few risks, find out what works for you, and go from there.
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Thu May 12, 2016 7:49 pm
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Holysocks says...



Thank you @Lightsong, @Dreamy, and @GoldFlame! Uh, here's some examples of the things I was trying to write when I made this thread... they don't seem as bad now for some reason, so I think it is mostly psychological.

Spoiler! :
He was looking for something, something he’d never seen before - something he’d lost. Snow danced all around him, as though it were trying to keep him from seeing the path. Tiny spots on the white ground, like ants marching along, was all he had to go by… but with each flake settling, they were disappearing fast. Soon there were no little ants to lead him on his way, and the chill was finding it’s way into his soul, his spirit. He collapsed in defeat, letting the winter swallow him whole.

He was just a boy.

You’d hear that often. He was just a boy, Or, he was too young. People that didn’t even know him would see his picture over hushed murmurs of his story, they’d cluck their tongues and say, so tragic and so so young.


***

I’m in the ocean, tumbling around and around, my body being tossed this way and that, wave after wave bringing me to the surface and then back down into a muffled world. I can’t remember how I got here, I just try to breath when an opportunity arises, and then let the sea take me wherever it is it’s taking me.

I would be terrified- and I am terrified, but it’s so calm when you’re under the water and you’re being hugged by a wall of bubbles and blue. You can’t tell what’s up, because the sky and the ocean look the same from here, but up there is a mess of wind, rain, and waves taller than most houses. I need air from up there but I prefer it under here much better.

A/N: not sure why I used past tense with first person. I don't generally like that.

***

A man handcuffed me to my seat. I was in a plane and I was wondering if I was afraid of heights, when the doors shut and the man took a seat across from me, fastening his seatbelt. I decided against asking why he hadn’t put mine on, I would have done it myself but when I tried it was very hard to do it one handed, since there were two belts that crossed in an X over your chest and clipped in the middle.

The man was bald and he wore a military jumpsuit-type thing, and his eyes stayed fixed on the emergency pull.
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Fri May 13, 2016 8:02 am
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Dreamy says...



Oh, how much I'd like to continue reading the second story.

I don't want to stamp it up and say that it's all in your head, because I don't see it that way. Maybe you're expecting you to do better and well. And, that's good because we all have the tendency of expecting ourselves to do well in something that we like. It's all good, but try not to be too hard on yourself.
If any person raises his hand to strike down another on the ground of religion, I shall fight him till the last breath of my life, both as the head of the Government and from outside- Jawaharlal Nehru.
  





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Mon May 16, 2016 2:14 am
Kale says...



It might also help to remember that you're free to change anything and everything after you've written it. Just because you've already written it one way doesn't mean you're beholden to it forever. Rewriting and revision are very important parts of the writing and improvement process, and giving yourself the freedom to change things can really make a difference when it comes to finishing something or abandoning it in frustration.

So leave yourself the freedom to make mistakes or sound stupid or do whatever in your writing; you can always fix any issues in the next round of rewrites and revisions.
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Tue May 17, 2016 4:02 pm
Holysocks says...



Thanks @Kyllorac, that makes sense. c:
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