Never been much of a writer but I wanted to try learning some creative writing. I have tried writing multiple first chapters and posting them in the writing and the webnovel thread but they were all complete dogshit. I read a lot of good literature and I've watched a lot of videos/read a lot of material on creative writing, but I guess I just don't "get" it. I can't really tell what I am doing wrong and what I am supposed to do instead.
start by reading good shit not trash and diagram sentences down into clauses and phrases then look at how sentences and paragraphs work together in larger units
>>25629085>start by reading good shit not trash and diagram sentences down into clauses and phrases then look at how sentences and paragraphs work together in larger unitsLook at this OP he told you to just draw the rest of the owl. Funny guy.
>>25629079Read more, read widely, and read things that challenge you. Try to pay more attention to what makes what you're reading good (or bad), and try to identify what the author is trying to accomplish (the author's intent). The more you can identify, the more you can apply to your own writing; don't expect to be original right from the start.Expect to write badly, but just writing at all is still practice. Even if it's just a journal, writing frequently (if not daily) is good, and the better a reader you get to be the more honestly you'll be able to appriase your own writing.
Copywork.
>>25629079Some of the craft interviews in the Paris Review might help you see how other people do it. Hemingway's interview with them is the most widely read one. Reading these things won't make it so you can write though. It just gives kind of a distant idealized view of how it has been possible for others.Maybe the most famous line from the Hemingway interview is him saying you need a "built in, shock proof shit detector." That has a lot of implications, but one of them is that you will be required to throw out at least some of what you write because it will be shit. The writers you respect wrote a lot of awful dogshit too, you just don't see it.
>>25629079You become a writer by writing. There is no other way. All human art is a principle of doing, failing, then doing again but differently, until improvement. By writing a lot, you will develop a taste for what you like and what you don't like. That taste is your writer's voice, and it's through your writer's voice your writing will become good. Looking for a shortcut will only delay what you need to do. Go do it, anon.
>>25629079just do whatever bullshit you want and say you're experimenting or that it's your style. many famous writers have done that throughout history
>>25629079just write and accept part of the process is discarding most of what you write, don’t try to obtain perfection from the starti’ve thrown out over 200 pages of writing in cultivating my voice, but it’s been worth it now that I have it
>>25629222There are free courses on YouTube on syntax, constituents and shit, but watching those takes more effort than picking an object that is not like others, which is not ideal.
>>25629858I’ve scrapped hundreds of pages of writing. This is truth. Copywork and reading are also good.
>>25629085does it sound nice? no. then burn it
>>25629079I'm not a writer but I've been making music and art for ~25 years so I'd like to think some of my moves are translatable.People here rag on sticky tabs and annotation for fiction, but fuck that, start logging the stuff you really like in one way or another, and try to break down /why/ those passages work for you. If it's a one-liner, then you can probably break it down into it's core functions. Assuming the line is concise, each word is accomplishing something, figure out the function of each word and try writing your own with new words that utilize the same functions.If it's something that required context to be impactful, then try and figure out each bit of context that was required for it to hit the way it did, and do the same thing.With music/art, once I got the muscle memory/motor skills stuff down , I never really practiced per se, I would just try and demystify the bits of music/art that moved me in one way or another. I'd figure out how to recreate that bit and break it down to which aspects are necessary and which weren't etc, so I can then re-use the same concept in my own work. The end result is never a copy really, it's a bunch of stuff pulled from this pool of influence that I've been filling my whole life
nobody on this board knows lol
>>25629079>>25629085I like Scribophile.com for the following reason: the critiques aren't fantastic, generally, but seeing so much amateur writing and having to tell someone what you think about it (you have to earn karma to post your own writing) causes some self reflection (hopefully), where you see someone who's writing is consistently bad. Then you ask yourself: do i do this? Talking heads, ADHD digressions, purple prose, info dumps, unrealistic emotional reactions, absolute drudgery, whatever. I dont know if youre at the stage where you even feel ready to post your writing, but hey. Why not give it a try?
>>25629079>>25632353Sorry to double post but you said you've posted your work here. I think my writing is pretty good, and I might be delusional about that, but i usually get zero replies here. And if I get one, its a snide remark about a single word choice. Useless! I wish this board was good!
>>25629079Keep a journal. It will instil the habit of writing regularly, and give you valuable practice in sentence construction. It will also help you develop a style for yourself.
>>25629079Try finishing a story. A first chapter is nothing.
