I WANT TO LOVE STORYTELLING AND WRITING MORE THAN WORLDBUILDING!!!!

Look, I am always going to love the aspects and action of world-building. Alagossia is my baby and I want to see her grow into a fine woman! I still want my novel to be inspired by my favorite stories. Given what I am going for with Project Glorious, I still need world-building no matter.

BUT…I want to LOVE the art of crafting and writing a story. Since I still want to write and publish novels, I just want to focus on characters and plot more than the world. I am still finding my habits creeping into the story. Yes, it is a rough draft that I KNOW needs to be edited and revised. I am not stupid and arrogant enough to just let Project Glorious/Red Reign not go through edits.

I want so badly to get better at writing, hence why I am trying to do it as much as I can. I just hate when I get into world-building fits when I am not writing because I need to change things. Mind you I am only focusing on the magic system, the races, and the countries only, nothing else really. I CONTINUE to focus on those things. Making changes (so many changes), jotting down notes and trying to build it from there, and ignoring crafting the plot, the characters, and slowly working on my prose.

I chalk it up to that whole I-am-a-panster-I-just-go-with-flow-I-don’t-need-an-outline-shtick that I am always confident about.

My first drafts are me just vibing and going with the flow of the story. Project Succession was on draft two, yet I felt it went nowhere. I just focused on world-building. The characters still seemed bland and uninteresting to me as well as the plot. I was still unsure what I wanted to even do with the story overall.

So, I want to become a better writer and storyteller, not just getting better at building a fictional world. There are many authors I never tried copying based on their writing styles, primarily the ones that I’ve “enjoyed”. I don’t read many fiction novels since I struggle with reading and only can handle looking at the “bigger picture” with manga/manhwa/webcomics. I am getting better at reading books, still I go in and out when my brain gets distracted by my loud ass thoughts that have nothing to do with the book I am reading. Not sure how I managed to finish books, but I do.

I am rambling and I apologize for that!

The point is that I want to become better at writing and storytelling, building interesting/relatable/human characters, executing a bizarre plot into something amazing, and creating a writing style inspired by my favorites with my own twist. I just don’t want my over affection/love for Alagossia to prevent me from doing that so much.

TL;DR: How do I accomplish that the more and longer I keep writing stories? I want to get better at writing and telling stories, not just solely focusing on world-building.
Side Note: also, Wattpad is going to be the main place where I share my story projects, relating to Alagossia or not.

Thoughts and feelings?

@J.L.O
@JojoDahlia
@Xelyn_Craft
@Akje
@alenatenjo
@SecretDurham
@NotARussianBot
@NatilladeCoco
@MatthewJH
@TheTigerWriter

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Update: I don’t want to say that I am overthinking, because I am a product of world-building over writing and story. I just want to stop that since I am taking my writing a bit more seriously than I usually do.

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Have you ever written fanfiction? I used to years ago; in fact, my earliest stories were fanfictions that I converted into original fics. I just changed the names, locations, situations, etc. Made it easy to tell a good story. Song of Achilles and any other retelling is the same thing, really. Have you ever tried that? Makes it easier to write a story when the plot and characters are already established, and you just have to focus on making it modern or whatever. ¯\_(ﭢ)_/¯

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Decades ago.

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Is that fine? I mean I love the manga and anime One Piece along with the manhwa/webcomic Tower of God and I did try it before, but wasn’t sure how to pull it off. Plus I REALLY wanted to do my own thing.

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By “is that fine?” do you mean “is it legal?” If so, then sure. Fifty Shades of Grey was a Twilight fanfic. You just have to disguise it: rename the characters, move the action to another place or time, etc.

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…I over thought about this and got paranoid. Honestly, I would like to think Red Reign is a fanfiction of One Piece meets Tower of God. Hell, I had a MHA (My Hero Academia) idea for a fanfic story that I wanted to make a novel.

I still do want to turn fanfiction ideas of my favorite stories into my own original ideas. I just get sidetracked by the ‘original’ idea of my own creation and making something so bizarre as if I can craft it into something great.

You are on to something here! I’ve been struggling with something new and unique under the sun of my own ideas, I believe that I just can take from my favorites to make my own thing.

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@Akje

Everyone says that there are no original ideas, something comes from somewhere. I always hated that in some small way, mainly because I want to be so different and unique from the world. Special snowflake right here. Yet I get so flustered trying to build and craft a story from something so bizarre that I lose faith.

I want to write novels and publish them, I just want to stop trying to be so “special” like that.

I did NOT mean to get that deep.

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First, just the act of doing will impart knowledge. You get more of a feel for your voice and what works for you the longer you do this. But what will really push you to challenge your writing is your first in-depth edit of your work. (And I hate editing.)

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I’m not giving up on Red Reign by any means. I now know what to do with Project Glorious.

Start it as a fanfiction first then turn it into original inspired novel.

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World building and story telling go hand in hand…

You cant have a great tale to tell unless it is in a well crafted world full of history…

It is something that makes a story rise above many others… The world it is set within…

SD

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I tend go crazy with it though.
:sweat_smile:

The richer the world is with history and detailed locations, the better the story within it feels… It all becomes grounded, and a realism begins to grow, and people then feel for everything that happens in that tale, that world, and the populace… Look how vast the love of The Lord of the Rings has grown since Peter Jackson gave us the wonderful visualised version of Tolkien’s work… Massive!
And how much hate is passed upon Amazon’s Rings of Power for fucking it all up for not being coherent with his vision of his crafted world…

More is more… You go get carried away with it, for that is what builds a better tale…

SD

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