The Thing About Writing... · 5:01am Sep 23rd, 2012
There are two components to a story - a what, and a how. In other words, the story you tell, and how you choose to tell it (or, often, how it tells you to tell it). An average writer tells a familiar story. A great writer tells a familiar story in a way you didn't know it could be told. A brilliant writer tells a story you've never heard before. Some people have no trouble with devices, and choose to simply seen new stories to tell with their device of choice. Others have an endless supply of stories to tell and use a single device to tell all of those stories. But writing, like any form of energy, wanes if used in excess. Readers don't want to hear the same story told over and over again, nor do they want to hear a thousand stories told the exact same way. The only way for an average writer to become a great writer is to have a bottomless supply of both concepts and methods. To be able to tell twenty different stories in twenty different ways. That is how the good become the great.
So... you just up and got a shot of inspiration for something out of the blue? Cool.
And that's why I'm not a writer
And this is why I can't write casually.
So the reason I'm ignored is because my ideas aren't fresh enough? My supply is limited mainly because I feel no one will care either way.
377618 People will care if you slow down and give it your all. You can't just whip out story after story (unless you're Stephen King... are you Stephen King?) You really have to put your back into it. Plan EVERYTHING. Lay it all out in an outline or a spreadsheet. Know EVERYTHING that needs to happen, and know how you're going to make it happen. People like the meticulous writers. That's why Background Pony became such a smashing hit - it was thorough. It left no room for criticism because shortskirtsandexplosions had thought of absolutely everything. Not only that, but the story of Background Pony is one that you can't quite be sure you've heard before, and that even if you HAVE heard it, you know for a fact you've never heard it told quite like that.
It's a simple issue of being able to justify the events of your story, and not being afraid to change an event if the facts of your story say it should be so. And most of all, as is the rule of performing arts, to start strong and end strong. To write the beginning and the end with your most powerful work, and then fill in the center with everything you need to get from point A to point B.
377618 Let me put it another way, possibly a simpler and more direct way...
The way YOU write stories... you seem to just treat them as something to pass the time. And that's fine! It's great to write for yourself. But if you're writing entirely for yourself, you can't always expect readers.
If you want readers, you can't just treat writing as a casual hobby. You have to care about the story as much as you want the reader to. You have to treat the story as a pet project, as something you really, deeply care about, not just as something to do while you're not delivering pizzas or newspapers. You need to write what you really feel and watch as your story evolves. If you don't like something in your story, you have to get angry at it, and above all, fix it. You have to pound your story into shape until you absolutely love it. You can't just call it good without really working your fingers to the bone on it.