The writing of stories
Jan. 5th, 2020 10:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
plonqNow that I've finished writing a few of my own again recently, I'm setting aside some time to start reading other peoples' stories again (I have a half-dozen queued up).
I have little doubt I will probably skip one or two of them early on because I have fairly narrow tastes when it comes to reading.
I group stories into five basic quadrants:
Good Story - Good Writing
Good Story - Terrible Writing
Terrible Story - Good Writing
Terrible Story - Terrible Writing
Obviously there are degrees to all of these, so unless a story falls into the fourth quadrant, there is a chance I may struggle my way through it.
Naturally, the category of Good/Bad for a story is largely subjective - though a long, boring anecdote that ends three chapters into the story can, in my opinion, be measured as objectively bad. Often I rate a story as "bad" if it covers themes or topics that hold no interest to me, or covers them in al way that I do not find compelling, or find outright objectionable.
One might think that Good/Bad writing is a a more objective thing to measure, but there are triggers for me that will make me abandon a story.
I will abandon a story if it is a struggle to read because it lacks proper punctuation, is littered with lazy writing (u, ur, tho, plz - etc), has no paragraph breaks, has ambiguous attributions for who is speaking...
On the other hand, the voice and tense of the store can also turn me off from it.
- The story swaps tenses for no good reason. Most of the times that I have seen this, it was because it was written in present tense, but the author wasn't skilled enough to maintain that through the story and kept swapping to past.
- The story switches from first person to third person and back for no reason. There can be perfectly valid reasons for doing this, but usually it's just due to sloppy writing.
- Second person. I know that second person is very popular - especially with a younger crowd who feel like it gives them greater immersion in the story. I can't get past the first instance of You [do or feel something that I would never do or feel in that situation]. I guess I am just not passive enough to accept that kind of writing.
- Second person self-insert stories. I have not stumbled upon one of these - yet. These are ones where the author inserts something like (y/n) or Anon in the story when one of the other actors in the story addresses your character. You are supposed to insert your name there. Nope. I don't like it. I don't get the appeal.
Maybe I am being too fussy, and perhaps my failure to embrace other tenses and voices is stifling my creativity and shutting me out from a broader audience.
To address this, my next story will be written in self-insert, second-person future perfect progressive tense.
I have little doubt I will probably skip one or two of them early on because I have fairly narrow tastes when it comes to reading.
I group stories into five basic quadrants:
Good Story - Good Writing
Good Story - Terrible Writing
Terrible Story - Good Writing
Terrible Story - Terrible Writing
Obviously there are degrees to all of these, so unless a story falls into the fourth quadrant, there is a chance I may struggle my way through it.
Naturally, the category of Good/Bad for a story is largely subjective - though a long, boring anecdote that ends three chapters into the story can, in my opinion, be measured as objectively bad. Often I rate a story as "bad" if it covers themes or topics that hold no interest to me, or covers them in al way that I do not find compelling, or find outright objectionable.
One might think that Good/Bad writing is a a more objective thing to measure, but there are triggers for me that will make me abandon a story.
I will abandon a story if it is a struggle to read because it lacks proper punctuation, is littered with lazy writing (u, ur, tho, plz - etc), has no paragraph breaks, has ambiguous attributions for who is speaking...
On the other hand, the voice and tense of the store can also turn me off from it.
- The story swaps tenses for no good reason. Most of the times that I have seen this, it was because it was written in present tense, but the author wasn't skilled enough to maintain that through the story and kept swapping to past.
- The story switches from first person to third person and back for no reason. There can be perfectly valid reasons for doing this, but usually it's just due to sloppy writing.
- Second person. I know that second person is very popular - especially with a younger crowd who feel like it gives them greater immersion in the story. I can't get past the first instance of You [do or feel something that I would never do or feel in that situation]. I guess I am just not passive enough to accept that kind of writing.
- Second person self-insert stories. I have not stumbled upon one of these - yet. These are ones where the author inserts something like (y/n) or Anon in the story when one of the other actors in the story addresses your character. You are supposed to insert your name there. Nope. I don't like it. I don't get the appeal.
Maybe I am being too fussy, and perhaps my failure to embrace other tenses and voices is stifling my creativity and shutting me out from a broader audience.
To address this, my next story will be written in self-insert, second-person future perfect progressive tense.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-06 04:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-01-06 05:05 pm (UTC)This is how I found myself reading a story once where one of the characters ended up ejaculating in the middle of a conversation.
It's usually not something that makes me stop reading a story unless the author really goes overboard with it, but I find myself rolling my eyes at times and thinking, "That word you used -- I does not mean what you think it means in common usage."