The passage of time and winging your favorite hobby.
For this month’s Sunday Mini Stackin’ post, I wanted to yap about my older writing and how much my writing has changed, even in the shortest periods of time.
Because of course looking back on the fanfiction you wrote when you were 12 is going to make you cringe, you wrote it when you didn’t really have a good grasp on interesting storytelling or writing conventions.
But looking back on writing I wrote 4 years ago, 2 years, hell even last year, feels like it’s astronomically different from my writing now.
Where even does change happen when you’re writing? Is it really just a matter of practice making perfect? Does it have to do with reading more books? Did my degree help shape it? Or is it innate?
A month ago, a newer friend of mine asked me how I write dialogue. How do you write good dialogue, and how do you make it sound realistic? But the thing is, I don’t really know what I’m doing. I don’t know if my dialogue sounds realistic or good at any given moment. I’m not even sure if my writing in general is “good.” I know it’s better than it was before, but to what extent? How do I really know it’s good, if good writing is more or less subjective?
And I’ll see people write up blogs about their process, instructional videos on how to not suck at writing, tips and tricks of the trade, and like, yeah, these are things I employ, but I’m not really thinking about doing it. I just do it. I don’t know how people can take that step back from their writing and explain their entire process.
Maybe that’s why I never talk about my process. I don’t step back and think about it. I don’t know what I’m doing that’s working. All I’m doing is writing the words that come into my brain, sometimes laugh at my own jokes, or lose my mind when my brain comes up with a plot twist so insane, even I couldn’t predict it happening.
I had this conversation with a closer friend of mine, and honestly, the conclusion I came to was that I don’t prep enough for my writing. I don’t write outlines, I don’t create character sheets, I don’t really even draft out the story arc structure. And that’s like…not good. Not good at all, really. It’s hard to keep track of plot points, locations, and character names when it’s only in my brain.
Like, this is ultimately the cause from a novel draft I’ve been working on for the last six years, where I’ve done so much prep and redrafting to the point that it’s almost draining to work with that old prep work. It is so hard to sort through four plot rewrites and six years of work that I almost want to scrap everything and start fresh, but doing that feels like a disservice to the amount of prep work I’ve already put in. But what’s the point of prep work if I’m constantly prepping, constantly reworking the outlines, and I still can’t figure out how I want the middle of the novel to play out?
I guess it’s there where balance is needed. I can’t not prep at all, or else I confuse myself on the plot and make it horrifically convoluted because I only really understand the main character’s motivations and that’s it, but I also can’t prep so much that I lose the plot in the process either. And sometimes I just want to write the damn thing, and sometimes while I’m writing, I’m planning ideas that I wouldn’t have thought of if I hadn’t just starting writing it.
The issue with all of this is that when I hope to start work as a narrative designer, or writing creatively for a job, I worry that I might not have the structural understanding of writing for a team to help other people understand the mess of my ideas. And like, I’m going to be writing for my friends’ game projects come May, so like, these fears are going to have to be addressed soon. But also, where do I even begin with this? Do I sit down and create a bunch of characters, outlining motives and flaws? Do I start drafting flash fiction pieces of these characters to understand the characters’ mental processes as well? I don’t really know. If I do that, maybe, I can start understanding how to write different voices and different themes, instead of writing in the same voice all of the time. Not like my voice is bad, just not great for working as a narrative designer who needs to understand many types of voices on the fly.
This is essentially what I think of when I look back on my old writing. What led me to writing this? How much prep work did I do before finishing it? And ultimately, would I be able to write in this character’s voice again, even years removed from writing the initial work?
Despite all of this, I can still tell that my writing has improved over the years. One would hope so, given the fact that I did get a degree in writing or something, like you can only hope it wasn’t a complete waste of time, stress, and money, right? Right? I still can look back at writing from just a year ago and feel like my writing process has gotten significantly better. Hell, look at “Turnabout Transposed!” This shit has been my magnum opus for like most of my adult life thus far, and it, too, went through multiple phases of rewriting, is currently in perpetual editing hell, and even still, if you read the first chapters, it’s not nearly comparable to my most recent writing!
It has the bones of the writing voice that I currently have, but it doesn’t have the levity that my current writing voice has. It doesn’t have that desperation that’s so common in my writing. It’s kinda lackluster.
Take the opening lines of the second chapter, for example:
"The ride to the office was tense, unsure. More tense than Miles had ever known it to be between the two of them. There was something Phoenix wanted to say about Miles’ abnormal behavior, though his eyes stayed focused on the road in front of him.
Bated breaths were shared between the two as Miles pulled into a parking spot in front of the building, the way the voice inside his head had informed him of doing: in front of what seemed to be Wright Anything Agency, though its sign clearly stated “Edgeworth & Co. Law Offices.”
Your father is alive, Miles, the voice urged, a sensation Miles wasn’t aware of. I can’t explain why just yet, but he’s leading a revered law office. Don’t be shocked.
That’s not a very easy thing to do. Miles has spent the better part of his life without his father, a feat that seemed impossible when he was young. If this was truly a dream, it’s becoming more and more uncomfortable as time progresses. Though, that’s not unusual for Miles’ dreams.
He stepped out of the car along with Phoenix, the sun beating down on his back as his adrenaline built up. He’d be lying if meeting his dad again after twenty-odd years wasn’t a dream of his. It was always wishful thinking, but the possibility of seeing him now, be it in a dream or not, overwhelmed him.
Truthfully, Miles hadn’t thought of his father in a while. Though, attempting to search his memories for when he last thought of him caused his migraine to bloom through his skull once more. It was infuriating, this pain. Unrelenting and unbothered by Miles’ anguish. Miles slammed the heels of his palms into his eye sockets, rubbing at the pain to alleviate it.
It wasn’t helping. His eyes burned, his limbs felt numb, and he could feel hands pressing around his neck. His vision faltered, the sun’s light seeming far too bright. He couldn’t breathe.
“Shit,” someone said beside him as he crumpled to the sidewalk. The cool concrete unrelenting. “Mia! Mr. Edgeworth! Someone! Come down here!”
That was the last thing Miles could hear before the pain took over."
This is really bad. I’ll admit it. It mostly just tells you whats going on without really showing you how Miles is feeling. It tells you that he’s infuriated. It tells you he’s lamenting the death of his father. It tells you that there’s tension between Miles and Phoenix without really justifying it; you just should feel that tension. It tells you Miles is in pain, and as like a last minute thought, decides to show you that pain instead. And the icing on the disaster of a cake is the very final line before a fade-to-black, one of my least favorite writing techniques of all time: “That was the last thing ___ could hear before the world faded.” Like?? Tell me you don’t know how to progress to the next scene without telling me, good LORD.
And this shit is my most popular fic on AO3! As of writing this, 6,752 people have viewed this writing, and 308 people have liked it. Why? Like I’m obviously very grateful for people enjoying my writing, but why did this one have to be the one that took off? Why not any of my other writing that is significantly and objectively better? Is my perception of my own writing worse than it objectively is? And if that’s the case, then how do I know what of my writing is good and what of it is bad?
But, this was written three years ago. What about my writing from last year?
Let’s take a look at the opening sequence of my unpublished short story, “As Long As I’ve Lasted”:
"Winter. I’ve always hated that season. It enjoys its stay for far too long every time the leaves fall from the trees, and it seems to never end. Not until the sun shines for longer than a week. Not until the trees start budding and flowers start blooming.
This winter was the same—long, harsh, and relentless—until something piqued my curiosity. Something found its way back home to me, appearing out of the snow-swept blizzard and carefully stepping onto my front porch. As if I wouldn’t notice. As if I wouldn’t care.
Frankly, she’s always been a bit too nonchalant. I’ve tried desperately to ingrain it in her head that apathy wasn’t a good quality to have. She wouldn’t listen. She never listens.
When the doorbell rang, I rose with my cane in hand. My roommate Cody would probably attempt to answer the door for me, but I saw through the window who it was, and I needed to be the one to answer. She was out of breath when I opened the door, her hand resting on the porch’s railing. Her eyes were wide when she stared up at me, her brows knitted tightly together.
“Hello?” I ventured, prompting an answer. Prompting her to say anything to me.
She bit her lip, worrying the skin between her teeth, and said, “Hi, Mom.” It was the nicest thing she had ever said to me in over 15 years.
The sun had set just moments before. I let her into my house without question. My daughter, exhausted after hours behind the wheel, flopped into the recliner I had left vacant. She was tall and worryingly skinny, with long brown hair billowing past her shoulders that was stringy and forgotten. Her chocolatey brown eyes—the beautiful ones she got from me—looked hazy and distant. Jaw clenched, I urged myself not to complain about her appearance or her posture. She only just got here, after all. I didn’t want to turn her away immediately, but the remarks sat at the tip of my tongue."
Ultimately, the first thing to notice is that I graduated from third-person limited to first-person. You can do a lot of funky inner monologue stuff in third-person limited, which can be a lot of fun, but the inner monologue writing that first-person provides is truly like none other.
Secondly, you can easily realize that my writing is better. It leaves more room for guessing, it’s much more varied in sentence length making it a more enjoyable reading experience, and the character’s voice is much louder and more apparent than the sample from “Turnabout Transposed.” Hell, I feel like I’m even using better word choice and adjectives here!
But again, I think this is the case for my writing. I think it sounds better to me. But, comparably, I have no idea if it sounds good to other people. I don’t know if other people would read this and think that “As Long As I’ve Lasted” is worse than “Turnabout Transposed.” How could I? I can only really work with my own interpretation here, especially when “As Long As I’ve Lasted” is unpublished and has not been read by anyone other than myself, the college professor I wrote this for, and like maybe a couple of literary journal editors. That’s not a lot of people to work with and make a sound decision on whether or not it’s good. I can only work with my own understanding of writing, my own understanding of good storytelling, and hope that translates well.
And I guess that’s another take-away: Storytelling is meant for other people to enjoy, but if you don’t enjoy it yourself, then it loses a lot of the fun behind writing.
At the end of the day, if you don’t view your writing as “good enough,” then the writing process ends up becoming much harder to enjoy.
My inspirations helped me improve my writing. Reading more helped me improve my writing because I could better understand what I like reading in a story. But also, years and years of practice, constantly throwing myself at walls and hoping something sticks, helped me improve my writing as well. And I can try to explain what I liked in my writing and what I don’t like, but at the end of the day, it’s all practice. Most of it doesn’t get read. Most of it probably shouldn’t be read. But, because I wrote it, I got to learn something about myself, my writing process, and my voice.
I’m learning something about myself every time I write. And it might not have words to describe, but I understand it and I can use that to further improve my writing. And I’ll keep improving my writing, either expressively or internally, forever. Ultimately, that is the goal, is it not?
And that’s about it! Thanks for reading my inane ramblings about writing, writing tips, and my writing process. Hopefully it explains something as to why I struggle so much on writing about my writing. And also, hopefully going forward, I can write more about my writing process, be it creative, blog writing, or narrative design. Because like, let’s be real: all of those types of writing use vastly different parts of my brain and require different ways of thinking.
What’s your writing process? Do you have any writing tips that really helped shape your writing? Do you have fears about your writing that you can’t voice, and thus don’t know where to begin to fix the issue? Lemme know in the comments below!
This week’s kind of a busy one, yet again. We’ve got this Sunday Mini Stackin’ post which you’re currently reading, then on Wednesday (4/29 at 3 PM EST), I’ve got a new entry in the “How To:” series, this time going over the Ace Attorney series, and following that on Thursday (4/30 at noon EST) is my MBS post for April, so stay tuned for that!
And as always, see you next time!
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