The hardest thing about writing?

[Nicole Wilson]

Been away for a while, testing the waters and see that people still take stuff personally.

I put out there that the hardest part of writing is finding my voice and someone says voice is nonexistent. That kinda irritates a guy so I say something kind and sensitive like you don't know your craft, which I should have reworded but my inalienable voice is grumpy.

What happened next is what happens on every online forum,

The outrage
The acusations
The obligatpry correction
The backlash
The back peddle

Been on and off at Litopia since day one. Nothing has changed. That's neither good nor bad, but it does make me recall the real hardest part about writing: not taking other people's opinions personally.

Dudley, I believe the issue was with the way you said it, as if no one else's opinion could possibly be correct. As anyone who has been on this site for a while can vouch, we are all very opinionated, but we try to keep it civil on here and respect each other's opinions.

 

[Karen Gray]

I was thinking about this thread again today, and I was thinking perhaps the actual worst thing about writing isn't the writing at all. Perhaps the worst thing is our own internal editors. They nip at us and makes us doubt our decisions and question our resolve.

Maybe that's the worst part. And maybe that little editor just sits there during the writing process trying to delay their own job a little further by pushing a big fuzzy button labeled 'procrastinate.'

Hmmm.

 

[Monique GOLAY]

A need, a desire, a driving force within ... and let's be honest, if we didn't enjoy it (even the tortuous days) we wouldn't write.

That's right. I believe you must write especially for the pleasure of it, and certainly not for any money you may hope to get from your books. There are (many!) published and known authors whose economical life is a disaster.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

Been away for a while, testing the waters and see that people still take stuff personally. I put out there that the hardest part of writing is finding my voice and someone says voice is nonexistent. That kinda irritates a guy so I say something kind and sensitive like you don't know your craft, which I should have reworded but my inalienable voice is grumpy.

Welcome back. It isn't like Litopia for there to be crossness, not at all. Tea and cakes all round? Bags I the one on the far left.

Everyone's right about voice, it is the magic and it requires crafting. Voice like body language is a natural expression of self, absolutely, but also, singers and dancers and actors train these, and writers are of that ilk. Written voice is an artifice, a simulation of reality just as Martin Luther King almost certainly didn't talk the same way at home as on a podium. Voice isn't an absolute, in writing, we all have different voices for different jobs, intrinsic in social exchange and barely give it any thought, not because we're being 'false' but because such adapting comes naturally. On the other hand favourite writers have a style, a distinctive voice if anyone wants to tease out the distinctions between style and voice.

In particular (the original question being what did people find hardest) detailed plotting - aaargh- then pitch and tone was something I had to really work at, in building and maintaining a pace and atmosphere appropriate to what was going on in the story, choosing words so as to make sure that feeling didn't degenerate into sentiment, for example. A first novel, I wrote in third person, the second I wrote first person, as a male narrator. Because 'I' was male I didn't want to use my own speech patterns. I must have felt I needed not to, to be convincing as a man, but neither did I want to move far away from my own speech patterns, needing to stay close enough to my narrator and look out through 'his' eyes.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

I was thinking about this thread again today, and I was thinking perhaps the actual worst thing about writing isn't the writing at all. Perhaps the worst thing is our own internal editors. They nip at us and makes us doubt our decisions and question our resolve.

Maybe that's the worst part. And maybe that little editor just sits there during the writing process trying to delay their own job a little further by pushing a big fuzzy button labeled 'procrastinate.'

Hmmm.

oh, God. Procrastination....don't get me started!

 

[Monique GOLAY]

I can guarantee that there are more adult non readers reading YA than there are teens and young adults.

Yes, well said. I'd like to say here what I remember reading from JRR Tolkien: fairy-tales, or Fantasy, is wrongly addressed to young people only. They're not to be taken lightly or non-seriously, contrarily to what one may at first believe.

 

[Monique GOLAY]

Perhaps the worst thing is our own internal editors.

Well found! He, my own internal editor, is the one with whom I'm indeed for ever struggling. As to tags, I have often come to change my story structure so as to have only two characters speaking, which enables me to avoid the repetitiousness of the word "said." Hemmingway has entire passages without tags where the readers tends to get lost as to who has said what.

 

[Karen Gray]

Well found! He, my own internal editor, is the one with whom I'm indeed for ever struggling. As to tags, I have often come to change my story structure so as to have only two characters speaking, which enables me to avoid the repetitiousness of the word "said." Hemmingway has entire passages without tags where the readers tends to get lost as to who has said what.

Hehe, there's other ways of having several people speaking and not have to use "said"

I'm terrible for having three to six people in a conversation, sometimes more (during meetings when there are 20 people at the table. Not everyone talks but then they still could, and often a big number of them do.)

I combat the overuse of "said" in several ways.

1. Have the person speaking directly interact with the next speaker by name... i.e. 'I shall have to keep an eye on these new troops. I bet Patricia can tell us a thing or two about them.'

2. Note what the person does just before they speak... i'e' "Randall ran a hand down his face and sighed. 'I honestly don't see what the problem is.' "

3. Name the person after the speech. i.e.
" 'I think we should send them all to basic training and be done with it.'
Mòrag thought about Randall's statement a moment before offering her opinion..."

Gosh there's loads of ways to do it The key is to intersperse them so there is a good break between repeats of the same technique

 

[Nicole Wilson]

Hehe, there's other ways of having several people speaking and not have to use "said"

I'm terrible for having three to six people in a conversation, sometimes more (during meetings when there are 20 people at the table. Not everyone talks but then they still could, and often a big number of them do.)

I combat the overuse of "said" in several ways.

1. Have the person speaking directly interact with the next speaker by name... i.e. 'I shall have to keep an eye on these new troops. I bet Patricia can tell us a thing or two about them.'

2. Note what the person does just before they speak... i'e' "Randall ran a hand down his face and sighed. 'I honestly don't see what the problem is.' "

3. Name the person after the speech. i.e.
" 'I think we should send them all to basic training and be done with it.'
Mòrag thought about Randall's statement a moment before offering her opinion..."

Gosh there's loads of ways to do it The key is to intersperse them so there is a good break between repeats of the same technique

These are great Something I've seen in other people's stuff that I highly don't recommend is saying their name repeatedly. "Sammy, blah blah blah." "Why yes, Sammy, I agree." "Oh, Sammy, that's a great idea." People just don't say names in conversation that often.

 

[Karen Gray]

These are great Something I've seen in other people's stuff that I highly don't recommend is saying their name repeatedly. "Sammy, blah blah blah." "Why yes, Sammy, I agree." "Oh, Sammy, that's a great idea." People just don't say names in conversation that often.

Thanks @Nicole Wilson Its all about the shuffle isn't it? change the character labeling the next character each time, or the method used if we are having the same character talk again straight away. I think in book 3 I have at least 6 or 7 people having a meeting (more at the table but that many adding their points and as long as you are conscious of the methods used to make it clear who is talking without repeating each method too much or specific names, it works great. After all... life doesn't hand us one person at a time now does it

 

[Jason Byrne]

These are great Something I've seen in other people's stuff that I highly don't recommend is saying their name repeatedly. "Sammy, blah blah blah." "Why yes, Sammy, I agree." "Oh, Sammy, that's a great idea." People just don't say names in conversation that often.

Very true. And while dialogue is an interpretation speech and not a faithful recreation of it, everyone take a moment and ask yourself — when was the last time you addressed your significant other directly, by full name and not any form of pet name? I'll bet it's been a very long time, if you can even remember at all...

 

[Katie-Ellen]

Writing is Art imitating Life, making a model of it, not reproducing it.

 

[Meerkat]

Very true. And while dialogue is an interpretation speech and not a faithful recreation of it, everyone take a moment and ask yourself — when was the last time you addressed your significant other directly, by full name and not any form of pet name? I'll bet it's been a very long time, if you can even remember at all...

Heh, I pretty much only call my husband by his Christian name. But I call my animals "baby" and "honey" and all manner of nicknames. I wonder what that means.

 

[Meerkat]

I also agree that voice comes naturally. Looking for and trying to "invent" a voice won't get you anywhere.

 

[Meerkat]

Here's a blog post I wrote about voice a while ago.

http://kateedits.com/?p=212

 

[Katie-Ellen]

“I found I was repeating myself. It is the beginning of the end when you discover you have style.”
― Dashiell Hammett

Pretty funny, coming from the creator of the wonderful Sam Spade

http://www.theguardian.com/books/20...n-dashiell-hammett-sam-spade-raymond-chandler

 

[Karen Gray]

Writing is Art imitating Life, making a model of it, not reproducing it.

Only in certain genres. Non fiction and articles should be reproduction and accurate don't you think? Unless the goal is to fictionalise fact and even then it still has to be life-like enough to be believable.

In fact now that I think about it, I disagree when it comes to fiction too.

I see writing in the same way I see photography or graphic design. We are reproducing life, but we are doing it from a different angle, or with a different filter on which can produce an infinite number of results, but what makes it relateable, is the fact that it is, or has been, or could be, or will be real. If the reader cannot put themselves in the place of the main character then we aren't doing our job right.

Even when writing mythical beasts, when we attribute their behaviours to something real; like a cat or a dog or a coo or some such, then immediately it makes that artistic filter of reality relatable because the attributes are familiar to the reader. To me, this is more like embellishing the reproduction. Chinese whispers of reality. Each stage is a reproduction of the last but it gains a new angle or filter the further it goes toward being a finished work.

Gary my tutor said to me on Wednesday that it's not the elements of the piece that make something outstanding. It's how the designer puts them together, they can take anything normal and create something people want to look at and that is why they are paid to do what they do. And I thought, wow, that's exactly the same as writing. We take reality and we put it together in such a way that it is fantastical and amazing, but it's still reality. And perhaps the ability to do that is what really makes us writers