I’ve noticed that a lot of beginning writers either view these problems as “a sign I shouldn’t be doing this” or a big personality failing. Well, since I have been doing this since some of you were born, I’m here to tell you that’s not true at all. Everyone has these issues starting out. They are absolutely bog standard, and they smooth out as you practice and learn, and sometimes when you try this “one easy trick.” So in no particular order, here are issues that plague newbies:
You have trouble having story ideas.
This is not actually true. Or rather, you only think you have trouble having story ideas. What you’re having trouble with is coming up with big, earth shattering story ideas no one ever thought of before.
You’re having trouble coming up with those, because how do you even identify stories no one thought of before? And if you come up with something that completely out of the ordinary, why would anyone else be interested.
The dirty trick of writing stories — particularly short stories, but novels too — is that you don’t need huge, amazing stories. You just need character, setting problem. Or three words. Or something anything that sparks an idea.
Open up your favorite news aggregator. Look at a headline. Move it a hundred years in the future.
Okay, you have an idea, but you can’t get to a story from there.
That’s because you aren’t thinking of ideas as action items. You’re thinking of them as airy fairy stuff. No, seriously, I’ve been there.
Take it you have a story idea that’s “In a future world they found a drug that allows humans to live 500 years.” That’s not a story. That’s a paragraph. or maybe an interesting essay about the pros and cons of near immortality. What you need is: who does this discovery affect the most? The girl whose father is dying of old age? The man who discovered it but who is being pursued by population-reductionists? The man who is trying to figure out a way to make this available to the world at large, instead of the rich and powerful/politically connected.
Once you have the character, you have to think of who would try to stop him, and how he (or she) would overcome that and then you can write the story.
I can start stories, but I lose interest and it all dies within a few paragraphs. Or at best halfway through.
Completely normal. That’s because the idea in your head is beautiful and multi-colored and amazing.
But each decision you make limits the choices you can make, so it makes the story less exciting in your brain.
This is a “in your brain” problem. It’s not real. If you push past it, eventually it will stop telling you the story is dead. Better. Once the story is done, you won’t be able to find the place it “died.”
I never finish anything, because I keep getting new ideas.
Okay, this is a variant of the thing above. You made the first story less exciting, so now your brain is looking for the exciting again.
Sorry. There’s no way out but through. You have to stay with it till you finish the story, even though your brain is telling you it’s no longer interesting. Your brain lies. You stick with it, you finish it, it will work. And if you misstep somewhere, you can always fix it in post. No one will know it wasn’t right the first time. That’s the beauty of writing. We don’t have to reshoot scenes, it doesn’t cost us money, it’s all just words on the screen. And again, afterwards, no one can tell.
Now stop thinking you’re a terrible person, or that there is some huge personal failing on your part, and write. Just write. Practice will solve a multitude of sins.
Mad Genius Club 
23 responses to “You Might Be A Beginning Writer IF”
Truer words/never spoke, etc.
I agree with most of this but with the following caveats, based on my own, comparatively limited experiences:
-“Dies partway through” is about half what Sarah describes here – brain getting bored with the story hardening into shape and wanting something more malleable – and half “back up, you took a wrong turn somewhere.”
-“Dies early on” can be a version of “have an idea, can’t get to a story from here,” especially if you’re a pantser/casual plotter. Maybe the wrong set of characters; maybe the wrong conflict; something like that. So, arguably “back up, you took a wrong turn somewhere” again.
Sure. Sometimes you made a mistake. I didn’t mention that because…. meh. Brain was only partly functional.
I hear you, and sometimes there just isn’t time to fit in all the Late Scholastic nuancing/hair-splitting 🙂
My main issue is that I like to write the good parts of a story. The exciting, profound, glorious parts. The moment some incredible cosmic secret is revealed, or an evil sumbitch finds out the hard way that he just honked off the wrong people. The Great Battle between Good and Evil, or just between the protagonist and an enemy.
But the good parts don’t make up a complete story on their own. A lot of ordinary, mundane stuff happens in between the good parts, and without those all you’ve got is a collection of unconnected vignettes featuring the same characters. However great they might be.
I call those mundane parts the ‘mortar’ that holds the bricks and rocks of the story together. You can’t build a castle out of just mortar, but you need it all the same. The plot, well, I guess that would be the rebar that reinforces your story edifice.
Even pantsers need some idea of a plot. Where is your story going, and what are you trying to say? Where will all those characters end up? How do they get there?
There’s certainly no harm in trying to write the good parts first and then filling in between – for me it ends up making a lot of extra work in the rewriting process, but it’s all a matter of what works for your personal mental wiring.
I can’t speak for all pantsers, but the stories I’ve pantsed generally had a somewhat clear end-state for the characters and sometimes a clearcut climax as well. I have to assume that most writers of popular fiction have an end-state for the characters in mind when they start writing, whether it’s “survived the adventures, denied a HEA with the girlfriend, because more room for sequels” like what Tarzan and Princess of Mars end with, or something more definitively bad or good.
I’m a write forward type of gal. if I jump around it messes up my feel for it.
I can write bits somewhat in advance of where the draft as a whole is (not a lot in advance), but mostly I’m like you. Next book in current series (not the one I’m currently writing) keeps shoving bits from the Darkest Moment/Climactic Battle stretch of the story at me, and I may end up having to write that first. Fearsome thought.
Dwight Swain divided the parts of a story into “scenes” and “sequels.” Scenes are the “good parts,” as you say, the moments of conflict where you want to experience every section of the action. Sequels are the places where your characters react to what happened in the scenes, figure out what they’re going to do next, and make preparations, the parts of the story where hours, days, or even months can be condensed into a few sentences.
You might check out Swain and see if any of his advice about writing sequels would be helpful to you.
Kid’s bound to succeed as a writer, with that extra finger.😉
look, it’s not worth it fixing the ai pic for a psot.
What she said. Getting the girl down to five fingers is probably either two hours of postwork or ninety minutes of telling Midj to “Vary Region.”
I thought the picture looked so smooth that I stopped and counted the fingers. ~:D Sure enough.
Meanwhile, everyone is telling us AI is the future and its going to take over the world. Uh huh. Suuuuure it is.
Yes, it is more than good enough for a blog post. But yes, we’re also going to give you a hard time. Because of course we are. ~:D bwaha!
Oh, I know; I just thought it was funny, and even more so that I was apparently the first to notice it. It seems that AI has a “thing” for extra body parts…😊
It’s the label on the pencil that impresses me.
Didn’t notice that; it looks sort of like a flag.
AIQ – 3!😁
I didn’t know Count Rugen had a daughter… 😀
Question is, did he?
Wl- b- She’s got six fingers on her right hand!
Now if only she doesn’t obsessively take up fencing for 20 years and then go hunt down Inigo Montoya.
“Hello. My name is Katrina Rugen. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”
Squirrel!!
Moose!
You can also lose interest in the story idea because
I love how it turns a numeral into a list and then loses the list.