I didn't write this advice. Not be a long shot, heck, I didn't even get it from the one that wrote it, just a friend of theirs. Still, this is undeniably some of the best advice I've gotten on the subject.

Write the damned thing.

Don't care if it's shit. All writing is shit at the beginning. You're not going to fix it. You don't know how to fix it. You're not going to make that one fucking paragraph perfect. Fuck your pretentious perfection. Just write. Keep writing. Show your shit to everyone. Cup it in your hands and roll it around and hold it up to anyone who will give you two seconds and say 'This is my shit. Please, tell me how to make it better.' And you write the damned thing. And you keep writing the damned thing. Don't you pay attention to that other idea. Fuck it. You got this shit to write. Doesn't matter if it's a thousand words, a hundred, or ten you write the damned thing. You don't know what to write? Fuck you. You think your characters are going to make it easy on you? Does everyone you know give you their life and soul and fate on a silver platter? Does everything get handed to you? Fuck you. Write the damn thing. Make something happen. Make anything happen. And if the story won't tell you then you yell at it. Threaten it with ninjas or pirates or grandma dying or a pregnancy but you do it. And when your story behaves then you write it. And you go to those people and ask them 'what do you think now?' and you listen. And if they tell you your story is great then you thank them, and ask why. And if they tell you its shit then you thank them, and apologize, and ask why. And you write the damned thing. What, it's been two weeks? Fuck you. You think stories write themselves? Did you think this was going to be easy? Did you ever look at all those shitty fanfics and laugh and joke about how they gave up? Now it's your turn. So write the damned thing. And when it's finished. When the damned thing is created, you look at it. You look at it hard and you weep. And you show it to people. And you ask them what they think. And you listen. You listen like your life depended on it. And you put it out there for the world to see and go "THIS IS MY SHIT! WHAT DO YOU THINK!?" And you pray for one honest motherfucker to tell you. And they might tell you it is the god damnest stupiest gayest most boringest story they have ever read. And you thank them. And you ask why.

And then you take this thing that you create and you set it aside. What? You want to fix it? You want to make it better? Do you try and fix all your shitty ideas? Fuck it. You pick up a new idea. And you remember what you did. You remember what people said. You remember why it was good and why it sucked ass and you write. The. Damned. Thing. And you make it better than the one that came before. And this time you go through and look for the boring dialogue and the stupid characters that only make sense to you and the ideas that you thought were good at the time and you change them, if you can. If the story will allow you. But then you go back to writing. You go back and you get it done and get it created and you go to that one honest motherfucker and you say to them 'Hey, Mr. Nice person. I really respected your feedback and I was hoping you'd take a look at this story.' And you hope they read it. And when they're done, and they say it's crap and shit and what the fuck are you doing wasting your time, you thank them again. And you ask why. And you ask how you can make it better. And you listen.

Then you set it aside. And you take a new idea. And now you know better which ideas are shit. Which ideas don't deserve stories. Which ideas are too big for one story or too small or too cliche. And you push those ideas aside and you find one that's interesting. You find one that's personal. You find one with hooks for hearts and with tits and ass to ogle and explosions and motherfucking flames exploding and you go 'Okay motherfucker. Let's write you.' But this time you pay attention to all the little shit that didn't seem to matter before. Like the difference between their and there and they're or when you use a capital or a lowercase or all those fucking commas you either don't use and should or do use and shouldn't. And... you... become... aware... of... all... your... fucking... ellipsis... and you say, 'Fuck that! I'm going to write the damned thing, but I am not going to do that shit anymore!' And when the story gives you lip, you say, 'Fuck you story! Do you want me to break out the motherfucking ninjas? No. Then give me something to write.' And you think about your characters. You learn them. You listen to their childhood. You think about what they want. What they need. What they fear. What makes them horny. What's their darkest motherfucking secrets ever. And you write the damned thing. And you find the honest motherfucker, or two if you're lucky, and beg them to read it. And ask them if it's better. And how can you just make it better! And you listen. And you thank them.'

And if you get fucking readers that like you, you thank them. And if you get people willing to sacrifice their time and energy to help you, you thank them. And if fuckers give you shit, you ignore them, but if they give you shit and then tell you what you did wrong to get shit, then you thank them. And if they give you five bucks out of their wallet to help you out, or draw one of your OC's, or post some where that it was good, then you fall down on your motherfucking knees and THANK THEM LIKE JESUS! Because you're not one of those fuckers that got ten pages into a fic and then gave up. You're not one of those fuckers who thought their shit was gold and stopped listening when everyone told you to stop. You're one of those people that got advice from an honest motherfucker rather than a friend or a parent who tells you its good. Fuck good. Demand better.

And then you look at those ideas. You see those ideas in other stories. You see them in movies and real life and in friends and family and yourself and you pick the brightest, best fucking idea you have before you... and even if it's not perfect you sit down. You look it straight in its eyes...

And you write the damned thing.

And that's all the advice I can give you.

1465223
That's very... aggressive.

1465230

Sometimes you just gotta hammer the point home though, and this accomplishes that in spades.

1465223

This is what I would like to tell some of the authors I see here that insist on "revising" their works, sometimes even before they're actually finished...

1465248

Well I do think so minor revisions can be of help, but overhauls are best saved till completion if you think it's worth redoing it all.

1465256

That's the point: they're not doing minor revisions (correcting a few mistakes here and there). They're doing a complete re-write before the story is even finished, and the result is sometimes inferior to the original...

1465223

Write the damned thing.

I stopped right there. That is literally the best advice you can ever give to someone learning how to do it.

1465277

That's pretty much the TL;DR of the whole thing. The rest is for those who need the specifics of how exactly one should go about it in spectacular fashion.

Too. Much. Cursing.
ABANDON THREAD!

1465223 I agree with it, though it is a tad aggressive... I prefer giving advice in a more toned-down manner, but some people do respond better to aggressive messages.

1465223 I have this saved in a Notepad Document for later reference. I appreciate you putting this up. And the swearing made me laugh at times.

Mmm. That was good advice. That felt like advice from someone who knew what they were doing. In the words of Chris Vallotin "That's a good word, right there."

1465306

I found it humorously over-aggressive, and I think that was half the point the writer had in making it so. Half serious, half over the top so it really sticks in one's memory for being funny.

To sum this up in one word: Persistence.

Now that was some sound advice. Thanks for sharing!

1465248
I did that. Twice. Because the first chapters of my story made me cringe every time I read them. So one day, I sat behind my computer and said "Fuck this, let's make that shit better."

It wasn't a modification. It was a re-write from the ground-up. Even if it's still not perfect, it's better and none of my readers complained.

1465417

Sure, I sometimes get that feeling myself. It's natural. And, obviously, this does not apply to, say, chapters that are vastly inferior to what followed them, but then I wonder why one would bother to continue such a story at all.

I sometimes think about re-writing my own stuff, but I always stop myself. That kind of attitude has its pitfalls. Rather than moving forward, you can end up constantly backtracking yourself, re-working the same material over and over because "it still doesn't feel right."

No. Stop. It "doesn't feel right" because as you improve, your view changes. Leave your old stuff behind. Keep it as a point of reference. Be able to point to it, and say: "This is where I came from."

Or, as the OP quoted: "Write the damned thing. . . . And then you take this thing that you create and you set it aside."

1465223

So basically: finish what you start, don't dwaddle, gotta go fast, be a decent person. Lotsa cursing, a little creepy, sounds like a drill sergeant. Okay, dude.

1465520

Would you say perhaps that maybe writing a new chapter and reorganizing it right alongside the original is a better alternative in that sense? Because then you try to improve, but you keep "where you came from" readily present and there as a reminder.

1465558

I suppose so...

I was referring to people who insisted on re-writing their stuff, even though: 1) It wasn't necessary (in my opinion, at least), and 2) they stopped it halfway or so through (e.g fifteen chapters in), and started wasting their time with the re-write rather than moving forward.

Doing some revision early on is okay, but any more than that and you might want to consider cancelling the story outright, since if it needs that much work to feel "right" at such an early stage, then you might have been on the wrong track from the beginning.

1465248

Heh... eheh... guilty.

1465661

A very excellent point. There's a fuzzy line on what situation calls for what.

1465223 Beautiful.

1465520
It wasn't about 'it still doesn't feel right' as much as 'it's complete and utter shit'. So I rewrote them. They still don't feel right now, but IDC because they're okay chapters.

A: Original author was Generation X (betcha).
B: Me too.
C: That's hella good advice.

You can edit all you want, but you have to have *something* to edit.

Also, the writer cannot exist without a reader. Talk to your readers, or hit a wall and never grow. Thanks OP.

This advice. I like it. Truer words have rarely been spoken.
If you have an idea, write it. S'what I did. Maybe there will be loopholes that you forgot to fill out. Maybe it will suck or maybe it'll do okay. But you can never know until you write, and finish the damned thing.

1465223
Ha! The core advice was good. But honestly, TL;DR.

He just kept going on and on and on and on and on and on (and on).

I liked this bit:

Don't care if it's shit. All writing is shit at the beginning. You're not going to fix it. You don't know how to fix it.

Read.

There is a reason the saying "Good writers read, bad writer's don't" came into existence. One can learn a lot about writing from practising, but reading what others have written and take note of how they do things is a far better way of learning.

This shit is going on my wall. With a fancy ass frame. I'm going to save this and show it to every one. A genius wrote this, and I must demand to know who it was.

I've been rebooting my stories too many times.

Hold me, thread.