How I write and what you can learn · 12:54am Jun 9th, 2019
Now, something I have been told time and time again is; “Just write. No matter how bad it is you are still writing and you can always go back and unfuck the disaster.” Now I understand where people are coming from, and I know they mean well, but let me beat something into the skulls of all the authors that keep giving this advice.
It’s not for me.
If any of you are familiar with the joke about the theories of ideal shot placement on an enemy, I would like to present why hearing only one theory is frustrating, if not, here it is.
Now, the approach I keep hearing is the machine gunner theory, while the rifleman and sniper theories keep getting discouraged. I would like to instead advocate for those two today.
To describe the machine gunner theory and how it relates to the advice I keep hearing, let me put it to you like this. The advice that keeps getting pushed is to put as much lead downrange as fast as possible. Eventually, you will get off a shot that will be the one you wanted. Now this works for some people, and I will never say that NO ONE should take the advice into consideration, I would just like to say that it isn’t for me and might not be for others.
The next approach is the rifleman's. This approach asks that you make every shot count. Every shot might not be the one you wanted, but each shot will be about where you wanted them to be. You but a good amount of lead downrange, but quite a bit less than with the first approach.
And finally, my favorite approach, and the one I feel the most comfortable with, the sniper approach. This asks that you not only make every shot hit, but the shot could not have been more effective. One shot, one kill. You put significantly less lead down range and each shot takes quite a bit more time to properly line up, but the end result is one that is so much harder to not be happy about.
Or to put it more simply; machine gunner: start writing or figure out a plot and just go to town, rifleman: figure out a story idea and make an outline that gives you some general ideas, Sniper: outline the living crap out of this story and figure out exactly what you want to do in each of your chapters.
I personally detest the advice to just follow the machine gunner theory as it asks two things of me that are antithetical to who I am and what my personality is like. It asks for me to be fine with writing substandard work, and it asks that I don't become a great writer, but a good rewriter. For me, putting down words I can not be happy with at the time of writing is like asking an Indian to eat beef. They can do it, they would just rather not. And to have to rewrite a story from what almost amounts to scratch feels worse to me than to write crap in the first place. I am rewriting THREE chapters of works I have posted and it feels like I not only failed as a writer but that I am useless as a source for good advice. That is the reason I hate the perpetual drone of “just put words on the paper”.
So, let me put down my advice for following the other two theories. [and before I continue, I understand that the advice is mostly for newer writers and more experienced writers tend to move towards more of a rifleman's approach, I just want to put forward the advice for writing in the other ways so there is a little variety.]
Rifleman; Think over what you are doing, don't just throw words out willy-nilly, consider what you want to say, what the goal of your work is going to be. Plan out each thing you want to put in your story, but don't be afraid to write without an outline. Not everything you write will be the best, but what you do write will be what you wanted to put forward. This approach is the midway point between sniper and machine gunner as you are putting forward a good amount of work like a machine gunner, but you aren't trying to make all of your work your magnum opus like a sniper.
Sniper: the advice here can best be summarised in this poem:
So you don't know what to write right now, that's perfectly fine. So many authors just keep saying to keep writing and something will come forward, and that's fine, but what I have found is that nothing lights the spark in my gut to write more than sitting on the shitter at 01:00 on a Saturday morning contemplating why I lost that game of commander about 3 hours ago. If you write about things that you are passionate about, and accept that you won't always be a wellspring of brilliant ideas, but you will be some times, those moments you are writing will be the happiest moments of your life if your method of writing is like mine. If you find yourself unable to write that next chapter, if you can't bring yourself to push further forward; get up, close your computer, and go for a walk. If a story just won't come out, the most success I have had in coaxing it back to the forefront of my mind is to stop trying to write it and do something else, or to write something different. When I run into a writing block, I just move on to a new project or stop writing entirely. Think of your mind like a machine, if you keep it running, especially at high stress, it will start to wear down. Give it a break every once in a while, let the ideas come back to you when you are playing a game of Dreadnaught at 17:00 on a Wednesday evening and raging because you are the only member of the team that actually knows how to play properly.
The idea of this post is not to tell authors that give out the advice to "just write" to shut up. Their advice works for some people, just not me. As an author, figure out what makes you happiest, whether that is writing a chapter a day or a chapter a month. If you can't look at your work and what you have done, or think back on the time you put in and be happy with what you are seeing, you're no longer writing for yourself. Let me leave you with a personal quote I have on my user page.
If you write, and only you like it, then it is a hobby. If you write, and only one other person likes it, then you have an audience. If you write, and over one hundred people like it, then you have a fan base. If you write, and over one thousand people like it, then you are an author. If you write, but you do not like it, then you are a slave. Write what makes you happy, it's what I've learned helps me sleep at night.
Also to anyone that actually like these blogs, If you feel that these are useful in any way, don't be afraid to change them up a bit and post them yourself either in your own blogs or in groups. I have tried my hand several times at posting these blogs in group threads and all I've gotten is poor responses, so you have my permission to use these as you see fit.
Dear author i might not be an author myself but i can say that your advice is a great one.
5071563
Hey, if you ever feel like trying your hand at the craft, I'm always available to bounce ideas off of and am more than happy to provide direction or help.
That will never happen to you
Some good advice in this.
5071669
I stopped playing dreadnaught for four months twice. Both times I come back I receive at least 2 best of match or best of team awards per match. I get paired with next to no one that can actually play
5071752
-wisdom of the day-
That the others are even more bad doesn't make you good
1: Good information on that topic - everyone has his own style. I think I still need to find mine.
2: You play commander? I love that format.
3: From your name I'd guess you are speaking german? Do you live in Austria?
5072424
1. Thanks, you are one of the few that actually liked it.
2. Yep, its my favorate format and just about all I play nowadays. I have 14 decks sleeved at the moment with a further 28 needing only a few additions to make viable. My favorites, and the ones that I actually put my money into, are my Kaalia deck, my Breya artifacts, my Yidris edrazi tribal, and my Atraxa superfriends.
3. Nein, ich lebe in Kalifornien. Ich lerne Deutsch mit Azure, und habe für zwei Jahre Deutsch in Uni studieren.
(I came to have a liking for German and Russian as languages and decided to have a German user name before learning German.)
5072606
You do your best.
3. Nein, ich lebe in Kalifornien. Ich lerne Deutsch mit Azure, und habe für zwei Jahre Deutsch in der Uni studierent.
(I came to have a liking for German and Russian as languages and decided to have a German user name before learning German.)
5074560
I'm getting better. This time it was only two mistakes
5074614
Yeah, I let slip the comma before the 'und', so you get away with two ;) Though, yes, you getting better