I’ve noticed that when it comes to creating a story, I create the world first then have a story spawned from said world. That also seems to be an issue too since I can’t create a story first then world second. I struggle with this a lot with Red Reign and other stories.
It would feel bizarre to do it the other way around, honestly. Like how I need to make a title first then plot second oddly enough.
Something has to come from nothing I suppose.
What about you guys? What are things that you’ve noticed about your writing when it comes to creating stories and stuff?
Thoughts and feelings?
I think or rather I honestly believe that worldbuilding is something I prefer more than the actual story itself. I find joy in creating fictional worlds and lore and such a bit more than the story and characters. Is that weird? Tell me, what you all think?
I’ve noticed that most of my protagonists tend to be shorter/smaller than average. I guess it’s just because I’m really short
While editing, I’ve noticed that my characters tend to have the same halting/stuttering speech pattern that I have. Like, they’ll pause a lot mid-sentence, and my dialogue tends to have an abundance of ellipses (which I’m trying to edit out lol).
But they speak that way because it’s how I talk/think irl. I’ve got a weird speech issue where I forget what I’m saying as I’m saying it, and will pause to remember what words I need to say next. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Nah, all my character designs are intentional. I’ve had plenty of tall secondary characters (especially the villains), but my protagonists have all been little shrimps, even the animal protagonists.
I think Shia was my “tallest” protagonist, but even then, he was baaarely average height.
I tend to struggle a bit with height for characters and weight especially.
I am under the impression that the person weight has to fit with their height at least for fictional characters. So, if someone is like six feet tall, then their weight should be able to go with the height.
I understand that it is WAY different in the real world, because not everyone’s height and weight go hand in hand, but in fiction I struggle with that a lot when I shouldn’t.
Aside from that, my character’s height is either around mine or depends on what race/species they are.
I don’t know how I tackle plot holes. But I do manage I realized I never really thought so much about my process before.
I have recently begun to notice plot holes better than before. Not sure if there’s a pattern with them or not.
@lunar.eclipse You might be able to add something since we’ve been talking about our different writing processes and the methods we use to deal with plot holes
I am positive that my story House of Naivin is loaded with plot holes.
Not that it really matters since I wasn’t planning edit it anyway. Though the tenses in my story are horrible, but I’ve always known that. LOL!
I’ve also noticed that I always finish shorter fiction than longer stories way more. House of Naivin was a start, but that story lacks most sense anyway.
Lately I’ve been coming up with a vibe first, then wondering how to create a plot, some characters and a world for it. Like right now I want to write a tragic romance, but ironing out those annoying little details that make an actual story is proving a challenge. (♯^.^ღ)
I spend a lot more time going off on side quests than actually focusing on the main storyline to the point where I’ve started saving said side quests as short stories
I’ve also noticed that I don’t focus on relationships between my characters (in a romantic or sexual sense). Like, it’s there. But it only gets brought up when the plot or character development demand it. My characters also really just don’t give a shit about what your romantic/sexual orientation, religion, skin colour, or gender are. There is no questioning of LGBTQIA+ stuff because it’s so normal. There is a bit of race stuff because there are so many and they clash in beliefs sometimes. My main locations are also very disability friendly. The only time someone being bigoted really comes up is when the characters is just a closed-minded dick to remind people how other cultures view certain things and how stupid it is to get upset about random people existing ;-;
I could explain why this happens but every single time I do someone feels the need to go to war with me and I would like to avoid that ;-;
Here is my million-dollar writing advice. If your story concept sounds like the deranged ramblings of a schizophrenic mental patient on a sugar rush, it is a good sign!
I think that AI would have a hard time making sense of my stories, and my plots and I am glad of that. I hope to one day break AI, or confuse it to a slow, but painful death through them
So, number 1: summarize your story like you are bring to someone about it without looking at your outline. You should immediately start to notice some things that are missing from the summary that should add up but don’t. This should help you realize that you do probably don’t have a complete, very comprehensive understanding of your subplots as well as your character anrcs and will help you fix it. You should most likely colour code your outline to categorize any “will dine” moments and issues you notice. it really helps fish out where you’re either missing information or emphasize smth too much.
Number 2:
If you have a plot hole, something is probably wrong with your character arcs. Some common issues I’ve noticed with my character specifically is that they either are running from a threat rather than to their goal, take the i citing incident as a golden opportunity rather than a hard, impossible choice, or start out at the beginning of the book, as they should be in the end of the book. If you fish out these common repetitive mistakes in your writing, you should have been much easier time with designing character arcs which actually push the character to develop.
I realized I never really thought so much about my process before.
i’ll come back later with some tips!