So as I am reading more and more threads and then writing my own I am coming to realize that I SUCK at writing. Hahaha, but that doesn't mean I have given up, it just means that I have realized it. Practice makes perfect and reading is part of that practice. But just to be more specific with my thoughts here is why I think I SUCK.
1.) My sentences are choppy. I write how I say it in my head, which is why there are so many commas (I am a Comma Queen) and it is also why my writing is so choppy. Choppity-chop-chop. Lol. But I will admit that I don't know all the laws of grammar, and will learn them as I go along...
2.)Show vs. Tell. I have read many a blog, article, and attended college where my English professor ranted about this subject. And here is how they would usually go: When writing you need to show me the woman's yellow bonnet, not tell me that the woman's bonnet is yellow.
Sure, ok I see the point in showing and not telling while writing, but at the same time...one must tell some things. Right? I think this article explains what I mean a lot better than what I can describe.
A story is not a movie is not a TV show, and I can’t tell you the number of student stories I read where I see a camera panning. Movies are a perfectly good art from, and they’re better at doing some things than novels are—at showing the texture of things, for instance. But novels are better at other things. At moving around in time, for example, and at conveying material that takes place in general as opposed to specific time (everything in a movie, by contrast, takes place in specific time, because all there is in a movie is scene—there’s no room for summary, at least as we traditionally conceive of it). But most important, novels can describe internal psychological states, whereas movies can only suggest them through dialogue and gesture (and through the almost always contrived-seeming voiceover, which is itself a borrowing from fiction). To put it more succinctly, fiction can give us thought: It can tell. And where would Proust be if he couldn’t tell? Or Woolf, or Fitzgerald? Or William Trevor or Alice Munro or George Saunders or Lorrie Moore?
And yet day after day we hear “Show, don’t tell.” And there’s real fall-out. I see it constantly among my students, who are nothing if not adjective-happy. Do we need to know that a couch is a “big brown torn vinyl couch”? We are writing fiction, not constructing a Mad Lib. Yet writers have been told to describe, and so they do, ad nauseum. It’s like the sentence that was popular in typing classes—“The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs.” Well, this is a good typing sentence (it contains every letter of the alphabet), but it’s a bad fiction sentence.
If you ask me, the real reason people choose to show rather than tell is that it’s so much easier to write “the big brown torn vinyl couch” than it is to describe internal emotional states without resorting to canned and sentimental language. You will never be told you’re cheesy if you describe a couch, but you might very well be told you’re cheesy if you try to describe loneliness. The phrase “Show, don’t tell,” then, provides cover for writers who don’t want to do what’s hardest (but most crucial) in fiction.
Besides, the distinction between showing and telling breaks down in the end. “She was nervous” is, I suppose, telling, whereas “She bit her fingernail” is, I suppose, showing. But is there any meaningful distinction between the two? Neither of them is a particularly good sentence, though if I had to choose I’d probably go with “She was nervous,” since “She bit her fingernail” is such a generic gesture of anxiety it seems lazy on the writer’s part—insufficiently imagined.
—Joshua Henkin
So yes, show and tell. Why choose when you can do both?
3.) My biggest flaw when writing...I mary-sue my character. AAAAHHHHH!!! Yes. I do, do this much to my dismay. I know I do. And I am sorry! But I don't want my character to be such a deplorable beast. I want her to be real and relatable, as I am sure everyone on here does. There is no excuse for this it's just...well...here is the thing...ok...
So I don't map out my posts, on the contrary, I write as I think of what to write, then re-read what I write, then edit as I go. Which works for some things, but not as well for others. Since I write as I go, I write down what I think...like I know that 10+12=22 but could a 2 year old kelvic that hated schooling, do such simple math off the top of her head? Probably not. Do I convey that in my writing, perhaps, but not really. I make it so she does count it, if a bit slowly, but ends up accomplishing it...*mentally scolds self* Bad writer* XD
On this note, I also don't like people getting mad or yelling at my character...*nervously laughs* What can I say, this whole post is about me hating my writing. Lol. I know that not everyone can like my character, and I know that living in Sunberth she can't go unscathed for very much longer...I have plans to hurt her, I have plans that don't go in her favor, I just hate to think of my beloved Phira in such circumstances. But I chose Sunberth for a reason, and I am sticking to that for now.
4.) I let one thing dictate everything. So I was on here as another character a couple of years ago but never got much done with her. That is why I created Phira, because I do love RPing, I do love this site and it's world, and I do like writing. However as I was thinking of a character to make, Phira was a lot different. She was a girl with a much darker personality and a much more combat related history. HOWEVER, I wanted her to have Syna's gnosis mark...and I let that be what I centered her character around. *mentally scolds self again* Bad writer. And as I read about Syna and her Gnosis mark, I realized that she wouldn't give her mark to such a dark character. So Phira had to change. She had to be a lot happier.
As I said I had another character on here, Aislynn, who I created Phria after. Both are clouded leopard kelvics with an affinity for the Sun. But Syna wouldn't bestow her mark on that alone, so I am constantly battling with myself to make Phira who I want her to be and not make her centered around Syna and that mark. I can have both! With a little give and take here and there that is. And I can't get Aislynn back. And Phira is not Aislynn.
5.) Being too ambitious. I want everything and the world for Phira, but she can't have it. I won't spoil her like that. I want hardships for her! I do, I do! And as hard as that is for me for others in Sunberth not so much. I want her to be the best, and she won't be. I won't encourage her like that. I want her to know everything! But I won't let her learn it. She will not be a mary-sue! She won't! She won't! She won't!
Ok after that little mantra I will get to my point! I have grand plans for her...that I won't ever do because it's just not realistic to her environment. She can't learn 21 skills in one thread...not any that I, at my skill level, can write. But I will try to write them in there any way. Even irrelevant ones to her character like in my The Library thread. She might get some XP in rhythm (if that is even a thing)... she might not...I don't care either way, the point is that I wrote with the purpose of getting it. Why? Because I want everything and the world for her! But I won't let her have it! *Lowers head in shame*I can only get better, right?
Hahaha. Ok so there is my little spiel about me sucking! But as I said I will get better as I go along. Practice makes perfect, and while no one can be perfect, it can only make me a little better.
by Phira on September 16th, 2016, 12:12 am 
