Me: Oooh, I bet this video is going to tell me something I haven’t noticed I’m doing wrong. Video: Tells me everything I sort of already knew but choose to ignore because I’m in denial. Me: *surprised pikachu*
I'm taking a class focued on writing for videos games right now and I'm pushing out 4,000+ word documents with ease. And then I have to cut a bunch of stuff to stay within the word count limit. Meanwhile, in another class I have to write these short blog posts, only 4-5 sentences, each week and I dread that. growl
I've been doing a lot of beta reading and have realized how hard it is to actually craft a consistent well-rounded book. The stories all have great and good aspects but on the whole, there's always something that's a little off with the writing. So here are some (but not all) of the things that I see that don't work... 1) showing something without conflict. (egads, does this slow the pace) 2) telling the reader how to feel. 3) overabundant use of adjectives and overly detailed expressions. 4) a chorus of "...started to..." or "...began to..." 5) inefficiency of the writing - this partially goes into not understanding the assumptions that readers make, so you get things put on the page that the reader will already assume. An egregious example-"He turned to me. Then he grinned at me." 6) lack of variation in both sentence structure and character actions. ... And there's more, but I don't want to overstay my welcome or make you think I have a big ego :P
Okay, since people seem to want a little more...these are a bit more abstract and higher level critiques I've given people (All stated humbly and constructively). 7) Lack of defined character goals - This happens when introspection/sequel scenes aren't there or are incorrectly constructed. 8) Payoffs without proper setups. For you GoT fans, season 8 is a cornucopia of this. The corollary is, of course, the setup without a payoff. If you introduce something, use it. 9) Telling conflict that is crucial to the story. Have you ever read a midpoint told in exposition about something that happened a week ago? I have... 10) Overly loving the protagonist. Like your protagonist, love your antagonist. (The greater the opponent, the greater the reward theory - No cheap victories!) 11) Dialog without any contractions. Yeah, it stands out as unauthentic. 12) On the nose dialog - please love subtext. 13) Overuse of dialog tags. "Yes," I offered. "No," he insisted. "It might be okay," she said without pouty lips. "Fine," I relented. "Good," he said nodding. 14) Stream of consciousness. There are a microstructure and logic to scenes and sequels that the reader is going to assume. When you break that, you force the reader to expend energy trying to figure out what you are thinking. This is a nice article on the structure: www.advancedfictionwriting.com/articles/writing-the-perfect-scene/ I could probably go on, but I'd rather make a general statement about writing (IMHO). It's about a lot of things, but really, all good writing falls under being considerate for your readers and that's why it's important to understand what happens when people read (Structure is about structuring things in a way that's easiest for readers to digest). That's why it's better to evoke when possible, and when you need to introduce things use them as much as possible. If anyone wants to chat further, I'm awwangauthor on Twitter. :)
Friend showed me their manuscript that opens with the main character threatening to kill the reader (it’s written in the format of a letter from an assassin to his handler)
How to get good at grammar: READ! A LOT! I was good at grammar way before I knew for sure what a verb was. XD You don't actually need to know why something should be like it is, you just need to have seen it correct often enough so that if you write it wrong, you'll get that feeling of something being "off".
As a professional book coach and editor, I appreciate so much about this video! Especially the reasons relating to ego and fear. I'd also add an eighth reason: you might suck at writing because you are trying to write like someone else rather than like yourself, whether that looks like straight-up mimicking an author you like, copying a popular trope because it's popular, or following a how-to-write-a-book system that worked for the person who sold it to you but doesn't work for you. (This does tie into not practicing enough, though...practice is how you learn to write like yourself. So it might be reason 1a, haha.) Oh, and I love that you've got The Dresden Files centrally placed on your backdrop shelf. One of my all-time fave series!
Totally agree with you on grammarly. I used to use it when I would procrastinate on a paper and while it saves you in a pinch, you’ve gotta teach a man to fish.
"Hey guys, it's me Alexa here, and I want to tell you why you suck at writing?" Terror flows through the heart of the watcher, but lo, they continue on.
Personally, I can tell if someone is a bad writer if there's three things: they don't like criticism/respond negatively even if it's solicited criticism, they have a ton of mistakes like info dumps/bad flow/uneven plot structure that makes reading their stuff a chore and most importantly, they are just plain bad at telling a story and it is just all over the place.
@@myheartwillstopinjoy8142 oof. Well, mostly my biggest advice would be to be open. "Not everything you write will appeal to everyone." All people have personal opinions. And in regards to criticism, its like the quote "If someone tells you something is wrong, they're almost always right. If someone tells you exactly what's wrong and how to fix it, they're almost always wrong." Honestly, if people don't like your story, maybe it's just not for them. But if they're offering constructive criticism instead of just going: "This is bad I don't like it", listen to them. And when it comes to plot structure, just watch a ton of videos and learn how to outline. Try every method you can get your hands on. One of them is bound to work eventually. And once you find it works, learn that method well. Before you start writing, have an outline, and a general idea of plot beats, arcs, motivations, important moments etc. That should help give your story structure but do know that outlines should be dynamic. And they're bound to change one time or another and that you should let them change. Often halfway through stories, you'll realize your plots don't work. Allow your outlines to change. Don't lock yourself into them. That should be enough to get you started. And it should give your story enough structure to make it readable. When it comes to info dumps, it's mostly about how to integrate them. Infodumps are not always bad (EXAMPLE, ONE OF MY FAVORITE BOOKS OF ALL TIME, *_THE LIES OF LOCKE LAMORA_* BY _SCOTT LYNCH_ , IS LIKE 60% INFODUMPS. AND I LITERALLY DON'T MIND A SINGLE INFODUMP. NOT A SINGLE. ONE.) and it's mostly about knowing where to spread info. Knowing where to put it is a skill you'll develop soon and all your information give just enough info to understand a situation. It's rarely harmful to be ambiguous about some stuff. Readers don't need to understand ever single word. Trust their intelligence. Sprinkle information throughout. And for the love of God, don't give character details if a character is looking at themselves in a mirror. Please. Don't do it. Instead, just like with information, learn to sprinkle in information throughout the whole length of the book and you'll eventually learn how and where to do it almost seamlessly. Do you ever notice when writers just put info like that? No, because they've learn to make it stand out enough and yet not too much that it detracts from the sentence and pulls you out. Now, of course, I'm no expert and all rules are made to be broken so take all this with a grain of salt but honestly, it's going to take a lot of patience and practice and effort. Good luck. I hope I read something your write someday. And if you don't mind a tiny shameless plug, uh, go see my writing at james-stark-the-writer-wips.tumblr.com
@@James.Stark.Ben.Edition First of all, thank you so much for taking the time and writing me this long paragraph full of helpful advices and tips (I even took screenshots of your comment) I love writing and I try, but everytime I read what I wrote, it's often cringy/ boring. I'm into emotional stuff, but I can't write a touching, heartbreaking scene. Any advice for that? I hope that I can write a book one day. Of course I'll check it out 😊
@@myheartwillstopinjoy8142 actually, talking about emotional scenes, I'm just going to use one of my pieces to kind of try to give you an idea. It's not the best thing ever but, reading over it and analyzing it a little should help you way more than if I tell you what to do. So, some context for this piece. Our MC, Aaron, had just receive the news his dad is dead and his friend, Eleanor, is going to console him and talk to him and stuff. james-stark-the-writer.tumblr.com/post/183887691924/chapter-4-part-3-aaron So, that's basically it. It's not a super long piece so it should give you an idea of how to portray and get across feelings much better than I can put it into words. Basically, you want to use body language, how they're feeling etc to get across the emotion. Like if you get angry, you might not notice you ball your hand into a fist or your nostrils flaring or the adrenaline coursing through your blood. But you can feel _something_ . You can feel something is different. You can tell you're angry because your body is reacting to it. And getting emotions across is basically that. Little hints of body language mixed with a line or two of inner dialogue mixed with some external action and rinse and repeat. Basically. But reading the scene gives you more of an idea of how to do that, even if it sounds simple. It should even give you an idea about pacing and what details are important and what to cut and take care that this all becomes much more complex in first person. I'm writing in third person omniscient, meaning my narrator is basically God. He knows everything. But first person or third person limited constricts you to one point of view. You can't head hop like you can in third omniscient. You only know what one character is feeling at one point in time. You can't switch to other characters all of a sudden or tell how they're feeling to the reader. That's called "Cheating the Narrative" and you should check out other more in depth articles about it. But basically, since first person is limited to one person, they can't actually know what the other characters are thinking or what they're feeling. They can guess, but they can't know for sure. Here, let me give you an example. So, let's say we have two characters. It's a first person pov and they're having a dialogue: "Hey, what's that in your hand?" He asks, taking a step towards me. "Nothing, officer." I reply innocently. He's unfazed and keeps moving towards me. He's not going to back down. Now, in the example, you're not cheating the narrative too much. _he's unfazed_ this is something the pov character can see. But, _he's not going to back down_ is kind cheating the narrative. The pov character doesn't know that the other character is going to do that. Especially since it's a first person present tense pov. But, if the cheating is much more pronounced like this, "Hey," His voice is strained from all the blood flowing from his wound. "Will you miss me?" I nod quickly to reassure him. "I will." Now, in this example, there's not enough context obviously but do you see that _his voice strained from the blood flowing from his wound_ part? Yeah, that's massively cheating the narrative. Because there's no way for the pov character to know why the other character's voice is strained. They can simply tell he has a strained voice. It's a fact. How his voice is strained is not a fact, but just a guess. It's not a massive thing by any means but I try to keep it out as much as possible. Again, I might not be making too much sense so go read some stuff up on it. And there's a bunch of articles on how to get emotion across which might be helpful. And yeah, that's basically it. Go check the articles out. They'll probably help much more than I can. And you should just learn to analyze basically everything you read. How you can phrase a sentence better or how you can make something flow better. You'll get the hang of it soon enough.
@@myheartwillstopinjoy8142 and regarding the "writing feels cringy" thing, everyone's does. In the beginning. But don't let that discourage you. You'll improve. Just keep at it. Believe me, you don't want to read some of the earlier stuff I've written. And I've come very far. Not even very close to great or even good but I think I've improved much more than where I started and even though I've got a long way to go, I know I can make it. And I believe in you. Just keep going. Don't let the fact your writing is 'bad' discourage you. After all, you'll be the only one reading a first draft and, that's what editing is for. To refine your draft. Believe me, the end product is usually indistinguishable from the first draft.
A thank you note: Ever since I discovered your channel I've been binge watching your stuff and I must say I've learned a lot, thankyou Alexa for all your effort!
I would love to request a video. I like how you explain things. I’ve been looking for a video that has a dictionary of traditional publishing terminology & new author terms that we should all know.
Several of her videos do this. I'm thinking especially of videos like "What is IP in Publishing" and similar videos, she unpacks a lot of terminology and what they are in comparison to each other. There isn't one video with all the words in one place, but they are kind of obvious when they have terms in them. The playlist she has for Book Writing & Editing 201 has a few videos of that sort; they won't be hard to find.
Yeah, audiobooks can definitely cover up a lot of prose problems in a story. I can think of a podfic and audiobook that I can't stand reading myself; the sentences are choppy and awkward and constantly trip me up but the audio versions go along perfectly smoothly, and the story is enjoyable.
It's easy to say that we shouldn't be afraid of failure, but if you hear over and over again that a project you've spent over a year on is only worth flushing down the drain, it's really difficult not to be discouraged.
I'm sorry you had to go through this. If you can try keeping your projects a secret and working on it alone. Keep that excitement and love you had at the beginning. It's like a dream, no one's going to want it the way you want it. No one's going to see it the way you see it. No matter what, write your story because no one is going to tell it like you. I pray you get someone in your life who encourages you about your work❤
@@angeltsholwana2702 Actually, between when I wrote that and now, I did get a lot of support for my newer projects, so... I suppose times got a lot better.
Thanks for being real, Alexa. I'm somewhat sick of people acting as though no one ever sucks at anything, or that sucking's a bad thing. Sometimes you just suck at stuff and that's okay, and if you really like it you'll keep going either way and improve, that's it. As someone who's very much aware of their big ego, I often wonder if I am one of those people you tend to talk about. The fact that I'm questioning this, however, makes me think it might not be the case? And so continues the endless cycle of "is my ego too big or is it okay to just like some of the things I write?". I'd usually call myself a very self-reflected person, but it's hard to judge my own work. Looking back on my older work I realize that back then my ego was definitely fucking huge when it shouldn't have been, but a big part of myself worries I'm still somehow stuck in that phase.
Confidence plays a huge part of writing well imo. Being able to like your own writing doesn't mean that you are a bad writer. In my case I often say that it shows how far I've come because I actually now know enough to know when my writing is bad, when it is actually good and what the difference is between them. I would say it only becomes a case of ego when it begins to negatively affect your writing eg. You don't bother learning or improving on any of your skills because you think you know everything already or you don't take constructive criticisms because you're convinced your work cannot possibly be flawed.
Question for Noveltea: What's the difference in attitude between a professional writer and a hobbyist? What shift in mindset do we need to make if we want to make it as professional writers?
I've come to the conclusion that a professional writer is capable of writing even when they don't feel like it. This means having the ability to finish what they start even when that initial glow and excitement of an idea is gone. And it isn't just finishing the first draft, but the multiple edits and revisions required to see a project through to the very end. A hobbyist tends to chase what feels good at any given time, abandoning projects willy nilly when things get hard or when they find a newer, shinier idea to entertain themselves. Edited to add: I guess this could be summarized as someone with discipline vs someone who has no desire to step out of their comfort zone.
@@angelxxsin I totally agree, and that used to be me! I used to start projects left and right, polish off a dozen chapters, then move on to whatever new, sparkly idea had tumbled into my head. Flitting from idea to idea may be fun, but creativity without self-discipline is a slow, frustrating way to kill your muse. I lost the ability to take myself seriously, and I got used to letting myself down on everything I cared about. Either you find the courage to finish your book completely -- drafting, editing, and releasing it to the world -- or you flail aimlessly in every direction until you exhaust your spirit, and eventually lose faith in yourself and your dreams. Fuck that. I'd rather write.
When I was in school learning about grammar... they never ONCE even mentioned such things as active and passive voice. Only adverbs, verbs, adjectives, nouns... etc. All the word classes and lots of training in which one was which. Nothing about how to actually USE them in a good captivating text. Eff. That's something I've learnt all on my own while writing my first book.
I ate a fortune cookie last night that told me "Sell your ideas -- they are totally acceptable." You hear that, World? I've reached "acceptable" status! XD; Edit: Congratulations on the 30k subs! :)
When I see people on reddit and they ask a pretty simple question with a concrete answer to a plot problem, like how to get the character for point A to point B and they get 10 different perfectly fine answers and the person is like, no this won't work, you're wrong, etc. I think that person has to bad. Mostly just because they don't want an answer, they just want someone to confirm their own opinion about their own work and if you don't then you're wrong.
I love your videos! Thanks so much for posting this. Just one thing I think 10,000 hours is the amount of time it takes to become an expert at something. It takes less time to be considered good, at least that's what I remember from "Outliers".
Fear of failure. That's me to a T. I'd love to be good (I'm not) but I'd rather not try than try and fail. I enjoy writing the story, but other than a series of connected stories that were fairly well received on a Neverwinter Nights persistent world forum (yeah, I know) I just can't muster the chutzpah to subject anyone to reading my crap.
I did actually look up the 'Are You A Good Writer'-video first before coming to this one. I'm actually looking for a video that explains why sometimes people, like on a writing Discord, will give feedback to other writers' excerpts but you get crickets when you post some of your own work. Really frustrating
Another great video👍#6 is so me and I am working on being more confident in myself. I love the 'osmosis learner' description 😊 bc that is the best way for me to absorb knowledge. You should do a video on your favorite authors and what you found in their writing style that makes them great writers.
Great stuff [as ALWAYS TBH] I will be adding this a playlist for safekeeping. I wonder how much the obscurity of unpublished work is part of the problem. Just like we rarely see the study sketch reference work of the painter... Thanks National Geographic for making Leonardo da Vinci the cover story for the May 2019 issue & giving us another rare look at THOSE notebooks.
Thank you, great points! There's also fear of success... but I think that's more of a procrastination issue. I have that one myself. Very similar to 'imposter syndrome' in some ways. Basically you subconsciously fear how your life might change if you were successful, so you don't follow through with the required effort. By the way, I see you have "Run Lola Run" on your shelf! One of my favourite films :)
Sucky writing often comes down to simplistic writing. This kinda falls into your "usage" category, but only kinda. Writers who don't know how to elaborate, or build on to their sentences, have trouble creating subtly or subtext, leaving their prose limp and lifeless.
My problem is that I’m not great at storytelling. I know the general outline of the story, but I don’t know how to say it in a compelling and engaging way. Do you have any tips for this?
Yay! I'm glad having fun while improving through critique is supposed to be the point of writing. I only started because of boredom with video games, streaming, tik tok, etc. Also, now I can actually do something fun at work when it gets slow
I always enjoy your videos about writing and your tips for doing it so. Wiring should be fun and entertaining not only for an audience, but for you too! I am waiting for the one about bad writing.
Alexa tells truths, and I love her. Huge thumbs up for this, as well as the AmAzInG resources she leaves for everyone. If you're not viewing what she provides below her videos, you're missing out. Nice job, Alexa.
People bite heads off when told about their writing: I welcome the criticism for improvement. Grammar is very important! Read your work aloud, and make sure to place commas where you'd pause in speech. Also, do not capatilize random words. Make edits! Reading may also help, too! You'll know when you are getting good. :D
I am most definitely guilty of number 4 lol. My reading has definitely gone down once I started writing. I get tired much much faster now when I sit down to read lol. Edit: surprisingly none of the others lmao
Oh I think once you start writing it's ok! I've had some EPIC reading slumps while writing books! But as long as you filled your well nice and deep with voracious reading before, you'll be fine :D
@@AlexaDonne yeah, lol, my shelves are filled with more books that I want to read than books I have read. But I just keep buying more lol. It's a habit, I guess. But audio books help a lot to get me through a book. If I'm not staring directly at the sentence or the words, I'm just processing it instead of analyzing it so it helps a lot.
Definitely a sign that someone is a bad writer is when they use stylistic devises accidentally. For example, a friend of mine uses a lot of anaphora and parallelisms but they don't have a meaning. Those are there because she is lazy not because she wants to accentuate those sentences.
When I played instruments our teacher used to say “you only have to practice on the days you eat” and that’s kind of stuck with me for writing. Whether it’s actual writing or writing related, I like to try and do it every day because it’s great practice. Loved the video and it really helped out!!
Every teacher I had for writing (save for one, wonderful essay teacher who worked so hard to broaden our minds and break us out of the 'essays are only for posh scholarly journals' mold) could have used your advice. The ones who take themselves super seriously, and want writing to only be about serious stuff, and look down upon genre writing as 'little more than frivolous escapism.' They uphold the 'classic greats' (aka mostly white male authors from the last 100 years that really weren't actually that great, but scholarly circles uphold them.......for some reason) and try hard to stamp out anyone who deviates from that rigid structure. Those teachers were, in my opinion, awful writers. Theonly people that would pick up their books would only pick them up 1. because the books were required reading for a class or 2. because they were trying to show off that they themselves were 'high brow.' Their books and short stories and especially their essays were boring and desperate. The 'look at me, look at how deep I am! look at how original and not like every other desperate to be deep and interesting white male I am' emo(not-emo) sort of writing that is really only worth paying attention to in scholarly circles...and then, its only worth paying attention to because scholarly circles pay attention to it. Which basically means we need to make new scholarly circles because no, just because you say your works are prestigious that does not make them so.
As a white man, I read catcher in the rye as a teenager and didn’t think much of it but as 25 year old I find some parts now very relatable. Sometimes it takes time and lifetime experience to appreciate classics. I don’t know how old you are but this was the case for me.
I need to work on writing the plot to my stories, because mine usually have a lot of plot holes. If you have any tips as far as that is concerned, that would be great to hear about! Have a great day!
try to write an outline of each chapter and then just write. after you finish ask yourself questions about the chapter. If you can't answer them, go back and try to answer your questions because those are most likely the plot holes !
Definitely reading is a problem for me. I have ADD which makes reading and comprehension impossible for me on most days. I can only read two books in a month. And I get distracted all the time so I don’t remember what I’ve read anyways.
A video on what makes bad writing would be super interesting! I read a book for school this year that I thought was god-awful, and I want to know if it has objectively bad elements or if it's just not agreeing with me.
The benefit of reading is making a comparison on why writing that way work here and not on others. From someone who prefer read book on paper, I can discern why fan-fictions bore me and taught me the essence of writing: plot and how to describe scenes effectively. To practice, we need a goal, otherwise, it's random. 6 is basically many fan-fictions authors. They are protective of their works they won't to improve. So why you publish anyway? On 7, I used to be that way and I was directionless.
Great video, Alexa! Among the top priorities for me (and I'd hope lots of others) on a written work is "Readability"... This covers grammar (mostly) and the general other mechanical basics of the language. AND all in all, about the BEST EVER method to scour through work and fix it is a "Text-to-Speech" software... Okay... Okay... I get it. It's hard to listen to a robot read ANYTHING. That's relatively true. BUT when you really REALLY want to know if your work is "bearable" to read, plugging a robot voice-over is absolutely the quickest way to find those spots that spell "trouble"... The 'bot will "fumble" and you'll NOTICE (note those cap's... I mean every letter of them)!!! BUT what about resources? This sounds expensive and we're not just talking money here! (Right?) Actually, there's a very good LITTLE software that I've used for years on WINDOWS... FOR FREE... AND it's completely minimal. It sure as hell doesn't seem so minimal when you peruse the "help" files and configure everything and add in your own WORDS! BUT it's minimal. I've never had a system so much as "shiver" under the thing. SPEAKONIA is featured on Cnet, but you can "search" for it, by name, or "Speakonia, text to speech, free" to get the top sites for a free and quick download... AND you, too, can have Microsoft Sam or similar voices (yes, more than a single... two male and two female variations) WITH controls for setting speed, pitch, volume, etc... so you hear something your ears can "get along with"... Even a "test" button before you "apply" the new settings... It reads off the clipboard TOO, and with a click, you can have it TELL you time and date... just like that. Sure, it takes a bit of getting used to... First-drafts in .TXT files ONLY if you bother to write the draft IN Speakonia's (very) basic text editor... OTHERWISE, my usual course is to start-up Speakonia, and then open the document I want to "scour" through... Then pick a fair-sized segment at a time (like select the whole screen at a time... so you can read/follow along) and click "copy". This puts a copy of the selection into the clipboard file, and Speakonia will start reading... You can pause and play again at any time... You can play it over and over... OR narrow down to a segment of choice (say a single troublesome sentence) and replay it over and over... or paste it into the Speakonia editor and pick it apart until you're satisfied with a "readable result" and put it back. Most of my experience with it, Speakonia is invaluable. If it "sounds right" to me, 90% of the time a College English Professor won't complain about the thing... whatever it is. AND just for the record, no I do NOT run Speakonia on my comments. That would likely be a trainwreck. I'm quite aware my commentary grammar structure is RITTLED with horrifying mechanical "funkiness" and I love the little rebellions of it. I'm also NOT sponsored by Speakonia in any way... It's FREE as in FREE! I just happen to love the damn thing. ;o)
I would add: cliches! It's normal to write cliches in a first draft, but edit them out! Unless of course they're used for a reason in the story and it's intentional.
I'd love to write a story and I already know almost all of these things but my problem is that I'm an indecisive perfectionist who only reads stories online and also isn't very creative. Tips?
I always remember this one guy in my writing classes, who would make up excuses when we critiqued his work negatively. Surely he had the enthusiasm, but when you were talking about the ego - man, Alexa, I had flashbacks. I was in a class with him twice, and both times he delivered some pretty mediocre, low key rip off work (one very generic and tropey, not in an inventive way, fantasy; and one mystery fantasy that sounded kind of ripped off of another student's work from a previous year). I developed a reputation for being a bit impassioned with critiquing character, and during workshop (in ours we were not allowed to speak) he would interrupt me and make up excuses as to why this and that was a certain way. Then he would cry at the end of the critique. I mean, I consider myself to be pretty sensitive, but if I felt it would improve my work I found it in good faith. Nobody in the class was being mean, it was all good criticisms to make his work better but...yikes.
When my novel failed to get an agent I sent it off for a professional evaluation (£415) and received 22 pages of back of what was wrong with my book baby. I spent three months blubbering on the floor after reading it. Four years on my book's much better and I'm a lot better at receiving criticism. I had to go through the experience of critique leading directly to improvement to appreciate it's value. Your class mate might have grown to appreciate your critiquing latter on.
I found out that the first chapter of my novel sucks and the second is pretty good. So i writed again the first chapter but maybe i would had to change its whole structure.
Oh, some years ago i met another writer and we made a friendship. I read her story, it was well written, the words were just where they had to be, but the story didn't gave anything, no emotion or hype. I told her i felt it didn't have spice, flavor, and the civil war began. She was mad because i was polishing my selfpublished book, so when i get a publisher chance it would be better, and till today send some of her friends when i'm doing book signing to say simple things like "this is the final version? for real?" cuz it looks normal to others eyes, but with all that behind is not a simple common question. I know there's more behind but not sure what, she never told me even when i asked what did i to deserve her hate :') the ego man, the ego
Hey Alexa! I just found your channel a few weeks ago and have been silently binge-watching pretty much all of your content, so I figured it was about time I comment 😂 I’m usually more over on the booktube side of TH-cam, but your videos have been so nice to keep me motivated while I work on writing projects! So just wanted to let you know that I’m really enjoying your content!😂
VIDEO REQUEST/IDEA! Can you talk about the different ways to write a book and pros/cons of each? I mean things like should you use past or present time in the verbs? Speak in first person (main character) or third person (invisible outsider)? I probably explained this really bad but you get what I'm saying! Also, what do you think when view point characters are different in every chapter, like in A Song Of Ice and Fire? I'm really curious about this topic!
I have a long commute each day. So I use an app call @voice which reads a file to you. I just let it read my work back to me. This helps me hear what I actually wrote and find problems more easily.
You may be kidding but all of us suck at writing - otherwise we would neither need a re-write nor an edit of any type. We would also never need to seek the services of an editor. We all suck. Something you left out that I find a critical element of good writing is the ability to be a story-teller. If you can speak your book aloud and it comes like a captivating story, you have the gift. The rest of the process is mechanical and can be fixed. BTW, all of the ladies in my office would like to Saint you for your skin care video. I have to say, they are really getting results now and it has only been about 30 days.
Oh boy, does the fear of failure cause problems. It usually leads me to not even starting in the first place paired along with taking things too seriously. I would rather not write subpar things, which leads to no improvement to begin with. Something to work on, for sure.
Although I wouldn't say I completely fall into these categories I find it still helpful and I totally agree and confirm this 7:40 !!! I love to read but I don't read that much and my list of book that I've read is relatively small but I think I am a relatively good (average) writer (but tat's probably because I write a lot, I write at school during breaks, I write fanfics on tumblr and wattpad and when I get at least a bit inspired I write either on my computer if it's like 2 in the morning or during the day I write on paper cause I prefer that because it's more personal so I since I started to write which was when I was 9 I got a lot of practice and I don't think I'm ever gonna stop). But on the other hand I have two friends who are a total bookworm, they read a book one day then read another book in the next two days and they just read a lot in general and a lot more than me but they incredibly suck at writing and when they are at school they can't get good greats for their essays. I feel a bit sorry for them because for me writing is something natural and a way to express myself. Obviously in my native language! I do write in English as well but it's not that good since my English is level B2 and my grammar seriously needs to increase but I'm trying xD
I'm 12 and I just started writing my novel (I've been thinking about it for at least a year) I don't know why, but my novel is really dark and contains black magic, and I love to kill characters, like, I'm only on chapter 4, and I've killed the main character's father, teacher and some of the side characters...
I'm definitely scared of rejection. XD But that's one reason I put myself out there, to see if I will be rejected, or if I do have something good going on in my story. And how to improve the parts that do suck a bit. XD
Alexa, you have the total package. Congrats on hitting 30k-this makes your channel incredible, according to Owen Video. If I'm lucky, one day we'll do a collaboration. Funny, people think they'll write productively if they don't read a lot. A writer's brain must be treated like an athlete's body. Yes, the visions of grandeur lead to passive voice, or self-aggrandizement.
Why is my writing of low quality? The main reason for that, which is also the mother of some of the aforesaid reasons in this video, is because I was not designed to be skilled in this area!
I burned out a little on writing and editing my last project, so I’ve been reading instead, way more than I have for most of my adult life. 2-4 books a week. But I’m full, I think. I started plotting my next project this week.
dude when she was talking about how some bad writers actually think they're really good I just laughed nervously and went to reread commentary on my fanfictions to be sure I'm no delusional about my talents
I kinda have a problem because whenever I think something is good I turn it in and get and 80% but when I think it's terrible and I'm stressing out I end up getting like 100% and my teachers impressed. How do I fix this?
Looking for errors was my Mom. She would always point out the errors in my stories. Yet I wish we had such books as Captain Underpants & Dogman when I was a kid. Why? The author Dav Pilkey who created these wonderful books explains he doesn’t think grammar matters so much as what matters is getting your story down on paper. If you do not know who Dav Pilkey is, you should look him up. I get why grammar is important. So do not get me wrong there, but I think it’s a good example by Dav Pilkey & besides you can always correct your grammar later. Yet there are other reasons why my writing sucks. One is, whenever I take a break from my writing is, it feels like my writing is dry. I never think I am amazing. I know what kind of stories I want to tell, but I know I am not there yet. Yet I do want to practice. Why? Not just to get better, but just to get into the swing of writing. Like yesterday, I was upset at myself since I did not write at all, well, not really true. I did write in my journal, but nothing story wise. I heard that author Jeff Kinney takes 9 months to write each Wimpy Kid book (I had no idea) & yet I heard R.L.Stine writes one book per month. I wish I could at least get into that kind of schedule writing one story per month. I do understand why they say to focus on one story at one time, because for me if I am writing a book, then writing a screenplay or writing a webcomic, because otherwise I find it really distracting. I just have so many ideas in my head now, that I do not want to loose them.Signs that I suck at writing? Many not having enough experience in it,
when i do beta trades i always ask how the person wants to me to beta for them (sometimes people can feel down and need some confidence boost and other times its submission time and they need me to rip it apart) but more often then not its the ones that ask for a higher harshness of beta-ing and then reject all suggestions with "but i like that" or "someone else said it sounded fine" or just flat out ignores all fixes. why even have me beta you then? ignoring some is fine but i'm pointing out real mistakes, yo, fix that shi-
I would say I am guilty of this, to a degree. Yes, I have made some pretty significant changes because it wasn't working on a literary level to someone else, and of course fix poor sentence structure/spelling and grammar errors/etc. There is no reason not to fix the basics, in my opinion. That said, I also find myself defending elements I simply like but do not know why I like them, or why they matter to 'my baby' (another issue I have). This is definitely something I need to work on.
For me, I've never had the "I'm the best writer ever" thing. I've always been the extreme self-doubt effect, which forced me to study craft which helped but then I still doubted myself as unproven. Now I've gotten really positive feedback from people but I keep making excuses like "it's not good yet because this is just an earlier draft" and so on. Not sure why I can't get past that self-doubt thing.
My biggest issue is people saying the stuff I write doesn’t make sense. Should I take an online grammar course or is there something else I should do? I know this is sort of an old video.
My grammar foundation is not just messy, it's nonexistent. I've been told my writing style is clunky and boring. For years, I've been stuck writing things like: "X does this. Then X does that. X feels odd about that. Then X does this. Then X does that." Even worse is when one of my characters, even in third person limited, begins to wander away in their thoughts and it just reads like someone's journal entry.
Anyone else having the issue of feeling pretty good about their writing, to the point where you just slap yourself on the shoulder with the words "job well done, me", but then question it for hours afterward? These videos really confuse me, Alexa! XD You claim that I might have a shot since I question it but also that I suck because I feel good about it (like - really good, not just "yeah, I guess this scene is alright", more like "oh-my-god-this-is-the-next-bestseller-material" (and yes, I might be exaggerating a tad)). Which is it, I need to know! And yes, I realize that this is also me procrastinating!
![ILLSLICK - KILLSHOT REMIX [FULL VERSION]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/RIK8RrqIAzE/mqdefault.jpg)
Me: Oooh, I bet this video is going to tell me something I haven’t noticed I’m doing wrong.
Video: Tells me everything I sort of already knew but choose to ignore because I’m in denial.
Me: *surprised pikachu*
Don't call me out like this! XD
Fear of failure? I came here to be called out, but damn. That's me.
I know right? Hahahah
Same! I'm terrified that I suck and people are just being nice
"Lighten up, have fun!"
Me, staring at document with twitching eye: "Yes. Fun."
I enjoy writing usually but writing for a grade is kicking my butt :(
I'm taking a class focued on writing for videos games right now and I'm pushing out 4,000+ word documents with ease. And then I have to cut a bunch of stuff to stay within the word count limit. Meanwhile, in another class I have to write these short blog posts, only 4-5 sentences, each week and I dread that. growl
I've been doing a lot of beta reading and have realized how hard it is to actually craft a consistent well-rounded book. The stories all have great and good aspects but on the whole, there's always something that's a little off with the writing. So here are some (but not all) of the things that I see that don't work...
1) showing something without conflict. (egads, does this slow the pace)
2) telling the reader how to feel.
3) overabundant use of adjectives and overly detailed expressions.
4) a chorus of "...started to..." or "...began to..."
5) inefficiency of the writing - this partially goes into not understanding the assumptions that readers make, so you get things put on the page that the reader will already assume. An egregious example-"He turned to me. Then he grinned at me."
6) lack of variation in both sentence structure and character actions.
...
And there's more, but I don't want to overstay my welcome or make you think I have a big ego :P
Please continue ToT
For real, please continue. I'm taking notes! Lol
Okay, since people seem to want a little more...these are a bit more abstract and higher level critiques I've given people (All stated humbly and constructively).
7) Lack of defined character goals - This happens when introspection/sequel scenes aren't there or are incorrectly constructed.
8) Payoffs without proper setups. For you GoT fans, season 8 is a cornucopia of this. The corollary is, of course, the setup without a payoff. If you introduce something, use it.
9) Telling conflict that is crucial to the story. Have you ever read a midpoint told in exposition about something that happened a week ago? I have...
10) Overly loving the protagonist. Like your protagonist, love your antagonist. (The greater the opponent, the greater the reward theory - No cheap victories!)
11) Dialog without any contractions. Yeah, it stands out as unauthentic.
12) On the nose dialog - please love subtext.
13) Overuse of dialog tags. "Yes," I offered. "No," he insisted. "It might be okay," she said without pouty lips. "Fine," I relented. "Good," he said nodding.
14) Stream of consciousness. There are a microstructure and logic to scenes and sequels that the reader is going to assume. When you break that, you force the reader to expend energy trying to figure out what you are thinking. This is a nice article on the structure: www.advancedfictionwriting.com/articles/writing-the-perfect-scene/
I could probably go on, but I'd rather make a general statement about writing (IMHO). It's about a lot of things, but really, all good writing falls under being considerate for your readers and that's why it's important to understand what happens when people read (Structure is about structuring things in a way that's easiest for readers to digest). That's why it's better to evoke when possible, and when you need to introduce things use them as much as possible.
If anyone wants to chat further, I'm awwangauthor on Twitter. :)
@@hannahpea78 Okay, I added a few...(for better or worse)
@@aaronwang5204 My hero!
i know its a bad book when it starts with them griping about their annoying alarm in the morning lol
i wish to harm the melody machine
i kinda like that
Friend showed me their manuscript that opens with the main character threatening to kill the reader (it’s written in the format of a letter from an assassin to his handler)
@@Your_Mossad_Handlerlmao i love that. i enjoy stories that talk to the reader. always fun
How to get good at grammar: READ! A LOT! I was good at grammar way before I knew for sure what a verb was. XD You don't actually need to know why something should be like it is, you just need to have seen it correct often enough so that if you write it wrong, you'll get that feeling of something being "off".
Just as when you explain on 'Don't know the story structure', a scene idea popped up that would REALLY make the story better, thank youuuuu!!!
That's one of the reason I watch these videos. Always helps my mind come up with new ideas or ideas around an issue.
@@NicoleCamp88 I guess the harsh truth helps writers a lot xD
If you don't have time to read, you don't have time to write -Stephen King
Chrys T Yeah because I need time to procrastinate
I read a lot but I’m terrible when it comes to writing 🙈
@@Hellopokebowl Ha haaaaaaaaaa you are crazy! I Love it! 😂
As a professional book coach and editor, I appreciate so much about this video! Especially the reasons relating to ego and fear. I'd also add an eighth reason: you might suck at writing because you are trying to write like someone else rather than like yourself, whether that looks like straight-up mimicking an author you like, copying a popular trope because it's popular, or following a how-to-write-a-book system that worked for the person who sold it to you but doesn't work for you. (This does tie into not practicing enough, though...practice is how you learn to write like yourself. So it might be reason 1a, haha.)
Oh, and I love that you've got The Dresden Files centrally placed on your backdrop shelf. One of my all-time fave series!
Totally agree with you on grammarly. I used to use it when I would procrastinate on a paper and while it saves you in a pinch, you’ve gotta teach a man to fish.
"Hey guys, it's me Alexa here, and I want to tell you why you suck at writing?"
Terror flows through the heart of the watcher, but lo, they continue on.
Kaitlyn Shell When she said that I agreed 😂 about myself and I thought it was funny.
my flaw in writing is punctuation... i always add an expensive, or prodigious amount of commas in a single sentence.
Same! Omg. I used to use too few, and I guess now I'm over compensating. Lol. @@morganjones2744
@@morganjones2744 You can never have enough commas. :P I'm an avid fan of the semicolon myself lol.
Personally, I can tell if someone is a bad writer if there's three things: they don't like criticism/respond negatively even if it's solicited criticism, they have a ton of mistakes like info dumps/bad flow/uneven plot structure that makes reading their stuff a chore and most importantly, they are just plain bad at telling a story and it is just all over the place.
I am those three 😳
Can you give me advice please? (I won't get angry, I'll accept criticism)
@@myheartwillstopinjoy8142 oof. Well, mostly my biggest advice would be to be open. "Not everything you write will appeal to everyone." All people have personal opinions. And in regards to criticism, its like the quote "If someone tells you something is wrong, they're almost always right. If someone tells you exactly what's wrong and how to fix it, they're almost always wrong."
Honestly, if people don't like your story, maybe it's just not for them. But if they're offering constructive criticism instead of just going: "This is bad I don't like it", listen to them.
And when it comes to plot structure, just watch a ton of videos and learn how to outline. Try every method you can get your hands on. One of them is bound to work eventually. And once you find it works, learn that method well. Before you start writing, have an outline, and a general idea of plot beats, arcs, motivations, important moments etc. That should help give your story structure but do know that outlines should be dynamic. And they're bound to change one time or another and that you should let them change. Often halfway through stories, you'll realize your plots don't work. Allow your outlines to change. Don't lock yourself into them.
That should be enough to get you started.
And it should give your story enough structure to make it readable. When it comes to info dumps, it's mostly about how to integrate them. Infodumps are not always bad (EXAMPLE, ONE OF MY FAVORITE BOOKS OF ALL TIME, *_THE LIES OF LOCKE LAMORA_* BY _SCOTT LYNCH_ , IS LIKE 60% INFODUMPS. AND I LITERALLY DON'T MIND A SINGLE INFODUMP. NOT A SINGLE. ONE.) and it's mostly about knowing where to spread info.
Knowing where to put it is a skill you'll develop soon and all your information give just enough info to understand a situation. It's rarely harmful to be ambiguous about some stuff. Readers don't need to understand ever single word. Trust their intelligence. Sprinkle information throughout.
And for the love of God, don't give character details if a character is looking at themselves in a mirror. Please. Don't do it.
Instead, just like with information, learn to sprinkle in information throughout the whole length of the book and you'll eventually learn how and where to do it almost seamlessly. Do you ever notice when writers just put info like that? No, because they've learn to make it stand out enough and yet not too much that it detracts from the sentence and pulls you out.
Now, of course, I'm no expert and all rules are made to be broken so take all this with a grain of salt but honestly, it's going to take a lot of patience and practice and effort. Good luck. I hope I read something your write someday. And if you don't mind a tiny shameless plug, uh, go see my writing at james-stark-the-writer-wips.tumblr.com
@@James.Stark.Ben.Edition First of all, thank you so much for taking the time and writing me this long paragraph full of helpful advices and tips (I even took screenshots of your comment)
I love writing and I try, but everytime I read what I wrote, it's often cringy/ boring. I'm into emotional stuff, but I can't write a touching, heartbreaking scene. Any advice for that?
I hope that I can write a book one day.
Of course I'll check it out 😊
@@myheartwillstopinjoy8142 actually, talking about emotional scenes, I'm just going to use one of my pieces to kind of try to give you an idea. It's not the best thing ever but, reading over it and analyzing it a little should help you way more than if I tell you what to do.
So, some context for this piece. Our MC, Aaron, had just receive the news his dad is dead and his friend, Eleanor, is going to console him and talk to him and stuff.
james-stark-the-writer.tumblr.com/post/183887691924/chapter-4-part-3-aaron
So, that's basically it. It's not a super long piece so it should give you an idea of how to portray and get across feelings much better than I can put it into words.
Basically, you want to use body language, how they're feeling etc to get across the emotion. Like if you get angry, you might not notice you ball your hand into a fist or your nostrils flaring or the adrenaline coursing through your blood. But you can feel _something_ . You can feel something is different. You can tell you're angry because your body is reacting to it. And getting emotions across is basically that. Little hints of body language mixed with a line or two of inner dialogue mixed with some external action and rinse and repeat. Basically.
But reading the scene gives you more of an idea of how to do that, even if it sounds simple. It should even give you an idea about pacing and what details are important and what to cut and take care that this all becomes much more complex in first person.
I'm writing in third person omniscient, meaning my narrator is basically God. He knows everything. But first person or third person limited constricts you to one point of view. You can't head hop like you can in third omniscient. You only know what one character is feeling at one point in time. You can't switch to other characters all of a sudden or tell how they're feeling to the reader. That's called "Cheating the Narrative" and you should check out other more in depth articles about it. But basically, since first person is limited to one person, they can't actually know what the other characters are thinking or what they're feeling. They can guess, but they can't know for sure. Here, let me give you an example.
So, let's say we have two characters. It's a first person pov and they're having a dialogue:
"Hey, what's that in your hand?" He asks, taking a step towards me.
"Nothing, officer." I reply innocently.
He's unfazed and keeps moving towards me. He's not going to back down.
Now, in the example, you're not cheating the narrative too much. _he's unfazed_ this is something the pov character can see.
But, _he's not going to back down_ is kind cheating the narrative. The pov character doesn't know that the other character is going to do that. Especially since it's a first person present tense pov.
But, if the cheating is much more pronounced like this,
"Hey," His voice is strained from all the blood flowing from his wound. "Will you miss me?"
I nod quickly to reassure him. "I will."
Now, in this example, there's not enough context obviously but do you see that _his voice strained from the blood flowing from his wound_ part? Yeah, that's massively cheating the narrative. Because there's no way for the pov character to know why the other character's voice is strained. They can simply tell he has a strained voice. It's a fact. How his voice is strained is not a fact, but just a guess. It's not a massive thing by any means but I try to keep it out as much as possible.
Again, I might not be making too much sense so go read some stuff up on it. And there's a bunch of articles on how to get emotion across which might be helpful.
And yeah, that's basically it. Go check the articles out. They'll probably help much more than I can. And you should just learn to analyze basically everything you read. How you can phrase a sentence better or how you can make something flow better. You'll get the hang of it soon enough.
@@myheartwillstopinjoy8142 and regarding the "writing feels cringy" thing, everyone's does. In the beginning. But don't let that discourage you. You'll improve. Just keep at it. Believe me, you don't want to read some of the earlier stuff I've written. And I've come very far. Not even very close to great or even good but I think I've improved much more than where I started and even though I've got a long way to go, I know I can make it. And I believe in you. Just keep going. Don't let the fact your writing is 'bad' discourage you. After all, you'll be the only one reading a first draft and, that's what editing is for. To refine your draft. Believe me, the end product is usually indistinguishable from the first draft.
A thank you note: Ever since I discovered your channel I've been binge watching your stuff and I must say I've learned a lot, thankyou Alexa for all your effort!
Writing is fun, but it can be hard at times. Great video!
I would love to request a video. I like how you explain things. I’ve been looking for a video that has a dictionary of traditional publishing terminology & new author terms that we should all know.
Several of her videos do this. I'm thinking especially of videos like "What is IP in Publishing" and similar videos, she unpacks a lot of terminology and what they are in comparison to each other. There isn't one video with all the words in one place, but they are kind of obvious when they have terms in them. The playlist she has for Book Writing & Editing 201 has a few videos of that sort; they won't be hard to find.
Learning more about grammar is so important in not only the fundamental stage but grammar (active vs passive) is what makes your writing stand apart.
Yeah, audiobooks can definitely cover up a lot of prose problems in a story. I can think of a podfic and audiobook that I can't stand reading myself; the sentences are choppy and awkward and constantly trip me up but the audio versions go along perfectly smoothly, and the story is enjoyable.
It's easy to say that we shouldn't be afraid of failure, but if you hear over and over again that a project you've spent over a year on is only worth flushing down the drain, it's really difficult not to be discouraged.
I'm sorry you had to go through this. If you can try keeping your projects a secret and working on it alone. Keep that excitement and love you had at the beginning. It's like a dream, no one's going to want it the way you want it. No one's going to see it the way you see it.
No matter what, write your story because no one is going to tell it like you. I pray you get someone in your life who encourages you about your work❤
@@angeltsholwana2702 Actually, between when I wrote that and now, I did get a lot of support for my newer projects, so... I suppose times got a lot better.
1:52 I just found myself in... "when you're writing and rewriting a book for ten years"
Thanks for being real, Alexa. I'm somewhat sick of people acting as though no one ever sucks at anything, or that sucking's a bad thing. Sometimes you just suck at stuff and that's okay, and if you really like it you'll keep going either way and improve, that's it.
As someone who's very much aware of their big ego, I often wonder if I am one of those people you tend to talk about. The fact that I'm questioning this, however, makes me think it might not be the case? And so continues the endless cycle of "is my ego too big or is it okay to just like some of the things I write?". I'd usually call myself a very self-reflected person, but it's hard to judge my own work. Looking back on my older work I realize that back then my ego was definitely fucking huge when it shouldn't have been, but a big part of myself worries I'm still somehow stuck in that phase.
Confidence plays a huge part of writing well imo. Being able to like your own writing doesn't mean that you are a bad writer. In my case I often say that it shows how far I've come because I actually now know enough to know when my writing is bad, when it is actually good and what the difference is between them. I would say it only becomes a case of ego when it begins to negatively affect your writing eg. You don't bother learning or improving on any of your skills because you think you know everything already or you don't take constructive criticisms because you're convinced your work cannot possibly be flawed.
Question for Noveltea: What's the difference in attitude between a professional writer and a hobbyist? What shift in mindset do we need to make if we want to make it as professional writers?
I've come to the conclusion that a professional writer is capable of writing even when they don't feel like it. This means having the ability to finish what they start even when that initial glow and excitement of an idea is gone. And it isn't just finishing the first draft, but the multiple edits and revisions required to see a project through to the very end. A hobbyist tends to chase what feels good at any given time, abandoning projects willy nilly when things get hard or when they find a newer, shinier idea to entertain themselves. Edited to add: I guess this could be summarized as someone with discipline vs someone who has no desire to step out of their comfort zone.
@@angelxxsin I totally agree, and that used to be me!
I used to start projects left and right, polish off a dozen chapters, then move on to whatever new, sparkly idea had tumbled into my head. Flitting from idea to idea may be fun, but creativity without self-discipline is a slow, frustrating way to kill your muse. I lost the ability to take myself seriously, and I got used to letting myself down on everything I cared about. Either you find the courage to finish your book completely -- drafting, editing, and releasing it to the world -- or you flail aimlessly in every direction until you exhaust your spirit, and eventually lose faith in yourself and your dreams.
Fuck that. I'd rather write.
When I was in school learning about grammar... they never ONCE even mentioned such things as active and passive voice. Only adverbs, verbs, adjectives, nouns... etc. All the word classes and lots of training in which one was which. Nothing about how to actually USE them in a good captivating text. Eff. That's something I've learnt all on my own while writing my first book.
I ate a fortune cookie last night that told me "Sell your ideas -- they are totally acceptable." You hear that, World? I've reached "acceptable" status! XD;
Edit: Congratulations on the 30k subs! :)
YES! Good eye, Liv!! I'm excited for her.
acceptable also changes from person to person too
@@beepbeepimmadragon8758 My cookie was of an accepting, kind-hearted nature XD;
When I see people on reddit and they ask a pretty simple question with a concrete answer to a plot problem, like how to get the character for point A to point B and they get 10 different perfectly fine answers and the person is like, no this won't work, you're wrong, etc. I think that person has to bad. Mostly just because they don't want an answer, they just want someone to confirm their own opinion about their own work and if you don't then you're wrong.
#6 - Fear of failure - oh my god! Thank you so much for pointing that out. That is what I do and thank you for reminding me to write anyway!
I love your videos! Thanks so much for posting this. Just one thing I think 10,000 hours is the amount of time it takes to become an expert at something. It takes less time to be considered good, at least that's what I remember from "Outliers".
I always love and appreciate your candor and the touch of levity you add by being transparent and humble with your advice. Thank you.
Fear of failure. That's me to a T. I'd love to be good (I'm not) but I'd rather not try than try and fail. I enjoy writing the story, but other than a series of connected stories that were fairly well received on a Neverwinter Nights persistent world forum (yeah, I know) I just can't muster the chutzpah to subject anyone to reading my crap.
I did actually look up the 'Are You A Good Writer'-video first before coming to this one. I'm actually looking for a video that explains why sometimes people, like on a writing Discord, will give feedback to other writers' excerpts but you get crickets when you post some of your own work. Really frustrating
Another great video👍#6 is so me and I am working on being more confident in myself. I love the 'osmosis learner' description 😊 bc that is the best way for me to absorb knowledge. You should do a video on your favorite authors and what you found in their writing style that makes them great writers.
Great stuff [as ALWAYS TBH] I will be adding this a playlist for safekeeping.
I wonder how much the obscurity of unpublished work is part of the problem. Just like we rarely see the study sketch reference work of the painter... Thanks National Geographic for making Leonardo da Vinci the cover story for the May 2019 issue & giving us another rare look at THOSE notebooks.
Thank you, great points! There's also fear of success... but I think that's more of a procrastination issue. I have that one myself. Very similar to 'imposter syndrome' in some ways. Basically you subconsciously fear how your life might change if you were successful, so you don't follow through with the required effort. By the way, I see you have "Run Lola Run" on your shelf! One of my favourite films :)
Sucky writing often comes down to simplistic writing. This kinda falls into your "usage" category, but only kinda. Writers who don't know how to elaborate, or build on to their sentences, have trouble creating subtly or subtext, leaving their prose limp and lifeless.
how do you build on your sentences or fix any of these things?
My problem is that I’m not great at storytelling. I know the general outline of the story, but I don’t know how to say it in a compelling and engaging way. Do you have any tips for this?
This is also my problem
Yay! I'm glad having fun while improving through critique is supposed to be the point of writing. I only started because of boredom with video games, streaming, tik tok, etc. Also, now I can actually do something fun at work when it gets slow
I always enjoy your videos about writing and your tips for doing it so. Wiring should be fun and entertaining not only for an audience, but for you too!
I am waiting for the one about bad writing.
Alexa tells truths, and I love her. Huge thumbs up for this, as well as the AmAzInG resources she leaves for everyone. If you're not viewing what she provides below her videos, you're missing out. Nice job, Alexa.
God, I love your though love.
*tough
People bite heads off when told about their writing: I welcome the criticism for improvement. Grammar is very important! Read your work aloud, and make sure to place commas where you'd pause in speech. Also, do not capatilize random words. Make edits! Reading may also help, too! You'll know when you are getting good. :D
This video is the exact thing I needed to kick my butt into writing again
the main ones I need to work on is #1 & #2
I am most definitely guilty of number 4 lol. My reading has definitely gone down once I started writing. I get tired much much faster now when I sit down to read lol.
Edit: surprisingly none of the others lmao
Oh I think once you start writing it's ok! I've had some EPIC reading slumps while writing books! But as long as you filled your well nice and deep with voracious reading before, you'll be fine :D
@@AlexaDonne yeah, lol, my shelves are filled with more books that I want to read than books I have read. But I just keep buying more lol. It's a habit, I guess. But audio books help a lot to get me through a book. If I'm not staring directly at the sentence or the words, I'm just processing it instead of analyzing it so it helps a lot.
@@James.Stark.Ben.Edition have tried doing both at the same time. Listening and reading? It will help get you through books
I took acting and directing classes in addition to creative writing classes.
lol I was just writing and I think I really needed this! thanks!!
I am terrific. I have to believe I am so in order to keep writing. But I understand my work probably/likely needs to be edited.
Definitely a sign that someone is a bad writer is when they use stylistic devises accidentally.
For example, a friend of mine uses a lot of anaphora and parallelisms but they don't have a meaning. Those are there because she is lazy not because she wants to accentuate those sentences.
Would have liked this comment if I had any idea what either of those are.
I... guess it's good I don't know what those are
When I played instruments our teacher used to say “you only have to practice on the days you eat” and that’s kind of stuck with me for writing. Whether it’s actual writing or writing related, I like to try and do it every day because it’s great practice. Loved the video and it really helped out!!
Loved this!! Thanks for the consistently awesome vids Alexa!! This channel has helped me so much on my own author journey!
Thank you for your help and honesty!🙏🙏🙏
You always make excellent points and are just plain fun to listen to!
Every teacher I had for writing (save for one, wonderful essay teacher who worked so hard to broaden our minds and break us out of the 'essays are only for posh scholarly journals' mold) could have used your advice. The ones who take themselves super seriously, and want writing to only be about serious stuff, and look down upon genre writing as 'little more than frivolous escapism.' They uphold the 'classic greats' (aka mostly white male authors from the last 100 years that really weren't actually that great, but scholarly circles uphold them.......for some reason) and try hard to stamp out anyone who deviates from that rigid structure.
Those teachers were, in my opinion, awful writers. Theonly people that would pick up their books would only pick them up 1. because the books were required reading for a class or 2. because they were trying to show off that they themselves were 'high brow.' Their books and short stories and especially their essays were boring and desperate. The 'look at me, look at how deep I am! look at how original and not like every other desperate to be deep and interesting white male I am' emo(not-emo) sort of writing that is really only worth paying attention to in scholarly circles...and then, its only worth paying attention to because scholarly circles pay attention to it. Which basically means we need to make new scholarly circles because no, just because you say your works are prestigious that does not make them so.
As a white man, I read catcher in the rye as a teenager and didn’t think much of it but as 25 year old I find some parts now very relatable. Sometimes it takes time and lifetime experience to appreciate classics. I don’t know how old you are but this was the case for me.
I need to work on writing the plot to my stories, because mine usually have a lot of plot holes. If you have any tips as far as that is concerned, that would be great to hear about! Have a great day!
try to write an outline of each chapter and then just write. after you finish ask yourself questions about the chapter. If you can't answer them, go back and try to answer your questions because those are most likely the plot holes !
i STILL SUCK at writing watching this video
help me with more tricks
I swear, you give the most awesome advice about writing
Definitely reading is a problem for me. I have ADD which makes reading and comprehension impossible for me on most days. I can only read two books in a month. And I get distracted all the time so I don’t remember what I’ve read anyways.
Two books a month is good! When I'm busy I read less than that. Don't beat yourself up. Reading more slowly is still reading 😀
A video on what makes bad writing would be super interesting! I read a book for school this year that I thought was god-awful, and I want to know if it has objectively bad elements or if it's just not agreeing with me.
Last point was the most truthful. Love your vids. Peace from the UK as always.
The benefit of reading is making a comparison on why writing that way work here and not on others. From someone who prefer read book on paper, I can discern why fan-fictions bore me and taught me the essence of writing: plot and how to describe scenes effectively.
To practice, we need a goal, otherwise, it's random.
6 is basically many fan-fictions authors. They are protective of their works they won't to improve. So why you publish anyway?
On 7, I used to be that way and I was directionless.
"If you aren't writing for fun, why are you writing?" damn. That one hits hard 4 years later.
Great video, Alexa!
Among the top priorities for me (and I'd hope lots of others) on a written work is "Readability"... This covers grammar (mostly) and the general other mechanical basics of the language. AND all in all, about the BEST EVER method to scour through work and fix it is a "Text-to-Speech" software...
Okay... Okay... I get it. It's hard to listen to a robot read ANYTHING. That's relatively true. BUT when you really REALLY want to know if your work is "bearable" to read, plugging a robot voice-over is absolutely the quickest way to find those spots that spell "trouble"... The 'bot will "fumble" and you'll NOTICE (note those cap's... I mean every letter of them)!!!
BUT what about resources? This sounds expensive and we're not just talking money here! (Right?)
Actually, there's a very good LITTLE software that I've used for years on WINDOWS... FOR FREE... AND it's completely minimal. It sure as hell doesn't seem so minimal when you peruse the "help" files and configure everything and add in your own WORDS! BUT it's minimal. I've never had a system so much as "shiver" under the thing.
SPEAKONIA is featured on Cnet, but you can "search" for it, by name, or "Speakonia, text to speech, free" to get the top sites for a free and quick download... AND you, too, can have Microsoft Sam or similar voices (yes, more than a single... two male and two female variations) WITH controls for setting speed, pitch, volume, etc... so you hear something your ears can "get along with"... Even a "test" button before you "apply" the new settings...
It reads off the clipboard TOO, and with a click, you can have it TELL you time and date... just like that. Sure, it takes a bit of getting used to... First-drafts in .TXT files ONLY if you bother to write the draft IN Speakonia's (very) basic text editor... OTHERWISE, my usual course is to start-up Speakonia, and then open the document I want to "scour" through... Then pick a fair-sized segment at a time (like select the whole screen at a time... so you can read/follow along) and click "copy".
This puts a copy of the selection into the clipboard file, and Speakonia will start reading... You can pause and play again at any time... You can play it over and over... OR narrow down to a segment of choice (say a single troublesome sentence) and replay it over and over... or paste it into the Speakonia editor and pick it apart until you're satisfied with a "readable result" and put it back.
Most of my experience with it, Speakonia is invaluable. If it "sounds right" to me, 90% of the time a College English Professor won't complain about the thing... whatever it is.
AND just for the record, no I do NOT run Speakonia on my comments. That would likely be a trainwreck. I'm quite aware my commentary grammar structure is RITTLED with horrifying mechanical "funkiness" and I love the little rebellions of it. I'm also NOT sponsored by Speakonia in any way... It's FREE as in FREE! I just happen to love the damn thing. ;o)
I would add: cliches! It's normal to write cliches in a first draft, but edit them out! Unless of course they're used for a reason in the story and it's intentional.
I'd love to write a story and I already know almost all of these things but my problem is that I'm an indecisive perfectionist who only reads stories online and also isn't very creative. Tips?
Great video. No 6 is definitely my main flaw. I would love a video on what makes objectively bad writing.
I always remember this one guy in my writing classes, who would make up excuses when we critiqued his work negatively. Surely he had the enthusiasm, but when you were talking about the ego - man, Alexa, I had flashbacks. I was in a class with him twice, and both times he delivered some pretty mediocre, low key rip off work (one very generic and tropey, not in an inventive way, fantasy; and one mystery fantasy that sounded kind of ripped off of another student's work from a previous year). I developed a reputation for being a bit impassioned with critiquing character, and during workshop (in ours we were not allowed to speak) he would interrupt me and make up excuses as to why this and that was a certain way. Then he would cry at the end of the critique. I mean, I consider myself to be pretty sensitive, but if I felt it would improve my work I found it in good faith. Nobody in the class was being mean, it was all good criticisms to make his work better but...yikes.
Cry? Really? Wow.
When my novel failed to get an agent I sent it off for a professional evaluation (£415) and received 22 pages of back of what was wrong with my book baby. I spent three months blubbering on the floor after reading it. Four years on my book's much better and I'm a lot better at receiving criticism. I had to go through the experience of critique leading directly to improvement to appreciate it's value. Your class mate might have grown to appreciate your critiquing latter on.
I found out that the first chapter of my novel sucks and the second is pretty good.
So i writed again the first chapter but maybe i would had to change its whole structure.
Congrats on 30k!!!🎉❤
Oh, some years ago i met another writer and we made a friendship. I read her story, it was well written, the words were just where they had to be, but the story didn't gave anything, no emotion or hype. I told her i felt it didn't have spice, flavor, and the civil war began. She was mad because i was polishing my selfpublished book, so when i get a publisher chance it would be better, and till today send some of her friends when i'm doing book signing to say simple things like "this is the final version? for real?" cuz it looks normal to others eyes, but with all that behind is not a simple common question. I know there's more behind but not sure what, she never told me even when i asked what did i to deserve her hate :') the ego man, the ego
I need this. Thanks Alexa, you're my angel.
Hey Alexa! I just found your channel a few weeks ago and have been silently binge-watching pretty much all of your content, so I figured it was about time I comment 😂 I’m usually more over on the booktube side of TH-cam, but your videos have been so nice to keep me motivated while I work on writing projects! So just wanted to let you know that I’m really enjoying your content!😂
VIDEO REQUEST/IDEA! Can you talk about the different ways to write a book and pros/cons of each? I mean things like should you use past or present time in the verbs? Speak in first person (main character) or third person (invisible outsider)? I probably explained this really bad but you get what I'm saying! Also, what do you think when view point characters are different in every chapter, like in A Song Of Ice and Fire? I'm really curious about this topic!
You can search my channel for what POV/tense to write in where I cover those two things, at least!
@@AlexaDonne Oh I'll do that! Thanks! :D
Hell yeah. Phenomenal video chock-full of practical tips. Great work!
Fun fact: schools don't direct teach grammar anymore. 👍🏻
“To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.”
― Winston S. Churchill, thus I am perfect because I like to learn.
for practice... do you suggest short story work prior to a novel?
I have a long commute each day. So I use an app call @voice which reads a file to you. I just let it read my work back to me. This helps me hear what I actually wrote and find problems more easily.
You may be kidding but all of us suck at writing - otherwise we would neither need a re-write nor an edit of any type. We would also never need to seek the services of an editor. We all suck.
Something you left out that I find a critical element of good writing is the ability to be a story-teller. If you can speak your book aloud and it comes like a captivating story, you have the gift. The rest of the process is mechanical and can be fixed.
BTW, all of the ladies in my office would like to Saint you for your skin care video. I have to say, they are really getting results now and it has only been about 30 days.
Oh boy, does the fear of failure cause problems. It usually leads me to not even starting in the first place paired along with taking things too seriously. I would rather not write subpar things, which leads to no improvement to begin with. Something to work on, for sure.
Although I wouldn't say I completely fall into these categories I find it still helpful and I totally agree and confirm this 7:40 !!! I love to read but I don't read that much and my list of book that I've read is relatively small but I think I am a relatively good (average) writer (but tat's probably because I write a lot, I write at school during breaks, I write fanfics on tumblr and wattpad and when I get at least a bit inspired I write either on my computer if it's like 2 in the morning or during the day I write on paper cause I prefer that because it's more personal so I since I started to write which was when I was 9 I got a lot of practice and I don't think I'm ever gonna stop). But on the other hand I have two friends who are a total bookworm, they read a book one day then read another book in the next two days and they just read a lot in general and a lot more than me but they incredibly suck at writing and when they are at school they can't get good greats for their essays. I feel a bit sorry for them because for me writing is something natural and a way to express myself. Obviously in my native language! I do write in English as well but it's not that good since my English is level B2 and my grammar seriously needs to increase but I'm trying xD
I'm 12 and I just started writing my novel (I've been thinking about it for at least a year) I don't know why, but my novel is really dark and contains black magic, and I love to kill characters, like, I'm only on chapter 4, and I've killed the main character's father, teacher and some of the side characters...
I'm definitely scared of rejection. XD But that's one reason I put myself out there, to see if I will be rejected, or if I do have something good going on in my story. And how to improve the parts that do suck a bit. XD
I’m terrified of failing. I’ve always wanted to write but I get nervous and get writers block as soon as I try to put pen to paper
Alexa, you have the total package. Congrats on hitting 30k-this makes your channel incredible, according to Owen Video. If I'm lucky, one day we'll do a collaboration. Funny, people think they'll write productively if they don't read a lot. A writer's brain must be treated like an athlete's body. Yes, the visions of grandeur lead to passive voice, or self-aggrandizement.
Why is my writing of low quality? The main reason for that, which is also the mother of some of the aforesaid reasons in this video, is because I was not designed to be skilled in this area!
I burned out a little on writing and editing my last project, so I’ve been reading instead, way more than I have for most of my adult life. 2-4 books a week. But I’m full, I think. I started plotting my next project this week.
dude when she was talking about how some bad writers actually think they're really good I just laughed nervously and went to reread commentary on my fanfictions to be sure I'm no delusional about my talents
Trying to do my best
I kinda have a problem because whenever I think something is good I turn it in and get and 80% but when I think it's terrible and I'm stressing out I end up getting like 100% and my teachers impressed. How do I fix this?
I just want to finish my missing essays man
Wait this video isn’t for essays isn’t it
Looking for errors was my Mom. She would always point out the errors in my stories. Yet I wish we had such books as Captain Underpants & Dogman when I was a kid. Why? The author Dav Pilkey who created these wonderful books explains he doesn’t think grammar matters so much as what matters is getting your story down on paper. If you do not know who Dav Pilkey is, you should look him up. I get why grammar is important. So do not get me wrong there, but I think it’s a good example by Dav Pilkey & besides you can always correct your grammar later. Yet there are other reasons why my writing sucks. One is, whenever I take a break from my writing is, it feels like my writing is dry. I never think I am amazing. I know what kind of stories I want to tell, but I know I am not there yet. Yet I do want to practice. Why? Not just to get better, but just to get into the swing of writing. Like yesterday, I was upset at myself since I did not write at all, well, not really true. I did write in my journal, but nothing story wise. I heard that author Jeff Kinney takes 9 months to write each Wimpy Kid book (I had no idea) & yet I heard R.L.Stine writes one book per month. I wish I could at least get into that kind of schedule writing one story per month. I do understand why they say to focus on one story at one time, because for me if I am writing a book, then writing a screenplay or writing a webcomic, because otherwise I find it really distracting. I just have so many ideas in my head now, that I do not want to loose them.Signs that I suck at writing? Many not having enough experience in it,
Balancing ego and confidence can be tricky... Ego is one loud mutha!
when i do beta trades i always ask how the person wants to me to beta for them (sometimes people can feel down and need some confidence boost and other times its submission time and they need me to rip it apart) but more often then not its the ones that ask for a higher harshness of beta-ing and then reject all suggestions with "but i like that" or "someone else said it sounded fine" or just flat out ignores all fixes. why even have me beta you then? ignoring some is fine but i'm pointing out real mistakes, yo, fix that shi-
I would say I am guilty of this, to a degree. Yes, I have made some pretty significant changes because it wasn't working on a literary level to someone else, and of course fix poor sentence structure/spelling and grammar errors/etc. There is no reason not to fix the basics, in my opinion. That said, I also find myself defending elements I simply like but do not know why I like them, or why they matter to 'my baby' (another issue I have). This is definitely something I need to work on.
I really needed to hear the last two
For me, I've never had the "I'm the best writer ever" thing. I've always been the extreme self-doubt effect, which forced me to study craft which helped but then I still doubted myself as unproven. Now I've gotten really positive feedback from people but I keep making excuses like "it's not good yet because this is just an earlier draft" and so on. Not sure why I can't get past that self-doubt thing.
Great video! I completely agree that bad writers tend to lack self-awareness
Big ego: Terry goodkind. Yupp that's about right
Adam D the tea burnt my mouth, lmao
Another reason is that people use the exact same techniques. My tip is to use a variety of techniques and only use a few each.
My biggest issue is people saying the stuff I write doesn’t make sense. Should I take an online grammar course or is there something else I should do? I know this is sort of an old video.
If you still use Office 1997 and the Paper Clip, Clippy, then it's probably a good idea to upgrade your software package just a bit. ;-)
My grammar foundation is not just messy, it's nonexistent. I've been told my writing style is clunky and boring. For years, I've been stuck writing things like: "X does this. Then X does that. X feels odd about that. Then X does this. Then X does that."
Even worse is when one of my characters, even in third person limited, begins to wander away in their thoughts and it just reads like someone's journal entry.
Anyone else having the issue of feeling pretty good about their writing, to the point where you just slap yourself on the shoulder with the words "job well done, me", but then question it for hours afterward? These videos really confuse me, Alexa! XD You claim that I might have a shot since I question it but also that I suck because I feel good about it (like - really good, not just "yeah, I guess this scene is alright", more like "oh-my-god-this-is-the-next-bestseller-material" (and yes, I might be exaggerating a tad)). Which is it, I need to know! And yes, I realize that this is also me procrastinating!