Before anyone is coming in here expecting a fanfiction, you're not going to be getting one. If you read ahead, I believe you may actually find yourself to be... well... something. Because I'm not going to guess what your reaction will be. I just feel that because of what's in this, it really does belong here in the Writer's Workshop.
As the title says... looking back is painful, but it's well worth it. Now... I never really thought about creating a thread like this... but I stumbled across old fanfction back from when I was twelve – yeah, you read that correctly; twelve. Now honestly... I have to look at these and I seriously have to laugh at myself. Now... I know that I and many others know that when they first get started writing, they're not going to be the best out there – but when you look back at your stuff from when you were just getting started, you have to sit there, stare at it and just wonder something along the lines of, “was I really so terrible back then?”
Now... just to prove my point... I'm going to show you something that I wrote at twelve because I was... * coughs * well... to be very blunt about it, a Mary-Sue freak. My characters were horrible, my plots lacked, I only wrote what I wanted happening, happening within the story right then and right there.
WARNING: You may run away screaming because of my lack of experience at this point and time in my life when I was writing.
Okay... even just rereading that for myself is painful, so I'm going to do both myself and you a favour and just cut it off there.
Now... see... as you can clearly tell – aside from the fact that I was a Fullmetal Alchemist nutcase – I lacked the ability to actually develop a character through dialogue and actions and again, only really wrote what I wanted happening, happening right then and there. If one where to actually have see the whole thing that that passage came from, it wouldn't have even made two full pages on my OpenOffice application. And, you know... I'm not saying that short stories are terrible (it's just that I'm not a big fan of them).
People can actually convey a lot with a really good amount of quality in a very short story or chapter – so just because I'm complaining about myself not reaching more than just two pages on my OpenOffice doesn't mean that you should feel down about your stories being less than that.
Anyways....
Points to actually be looking for when going over writing when you read over stuff from the past like that – that is, if you feel like rewriting them for some reason (in which case, I am never touching that foul excuse of a fanfiction ever, ever, ever again....) – then you should be looking at what you did and comparing them to what you could be doing.
Questions to be asking yourself is usually as follows:
What could I have done better/differently?
How can I describe this to where my audience can actually imagine what it is that I'm imagining when I write this?
How are my character's actions flawed/wrong?
Is my character too perfect/a Mary-Sue/a Gary-Stu?
What can I do to prevent my character from being hated because of that?
And you know, I'm sure that there's actually a whole bunch more questions than just those ones (those ones are just ones I could pull off the top of my head on a whim).
Anyways... let's actually compare that monstrosity of a passage with this more recent passage here:
All right... as we can see, a five year time difference has affected my writing greatly. More description, less abrupt passages, more character development in a relatively short amount of time. The same questions will still arise when you look at your newer work, but less often – especially when you know you've improved and can see it in your writing – and especially when others can see it in your writing that you've known for a while, too.
It's also come to my attention that actually receiving more harsh critiques does sometimes provide a better result. I'm not encouraging it (really...) – however, let's be honest with one another, shall we? We'll get upset when someone tells us all of our flaws, we'll not want to listen to them, we'll keep going our merry way. Though, even though we do do all of that, during that time, we're thinking about the stuff it is that they said about it and then just start to go, “huh... well... I hate to admit it... but... they're actually right.”
I mean... I got real sensitive when people called my characters Mary-Sues. Now when someone says that my character is leaning into being a Mary-Sue/Gary-Stu, I ask how it is that they're being so and then do my level best to change that without changing my character dramatically.
One of the things that one has to be is to not be afraid to ask questions. If someone says something about your writing and you don't see it, ask what it is, ask them to point it out and then read over it and then see what you can do to fix it. This where a Beta would come in handy. If you're not sure about your writing, you can always send it to them and have them look over it and tell you. Betas aren't just there for grammatical and spelling errors – they're also there to help you with stuff you, yourself, are not certain of. Again, don't be afraid to ask questions.
People say that some of their readers are the harsher critics that they've got – I've always been told by my father that the worst critic that I'll always have is myself. It's true – even as an artist that draws, I'm constantly going, “that doesn't look right. That doesn't sound right. What am I doing wrong? Why can't I do this better? No one is going to like this.” – it's a toss up to listen to yourself when you're writing or drawing – because it's you that's the one that's producing it.
I know it takes a lot of work to actually go back and look at something that you did a long time ago – but I'm sure it'll be worth it. And remember... there's always room for improvement.
As the title says... looking back is painful, but it's well worth it. Now... I never really thought about creating a thread like this... but I stumbled across old fanfction back from when I was twelve – yeah, you read that correctly; twelve. Now honestly... I have to look at these and I seriously have to laugh at myself. Now... I know that I and many others know that when they first get started writing, they're not going to be the best out there – but when you look back at your stuff from when you were just getting started, you have to sit there, stare at it and just wonder something along the lines of, “was I really so terrible back then?”
Now... just to prove my point... I'm going to show you something that I wrote at twelve because I was... * coughs * well... to be very blunt about it, a Mary-Sue freak. My characters were horrible, my plots lacked, I only wrote what I wanted happening, happening within the story right then and right there.
WARNING: You may run away screaming because of my lack of experience at this point and time in my life when I was writing.
Okay... even just rereading that for myself is painful, so I'm going to do both myself and you a favour and just cut it off there.
Now... see... as you can clearly tell – aside from the fact that I was a Fullmetal Alchemist nutcase – I lacked the ability to actually develop a character through dialogue and actions and again, only really wrote what I wanted happening, happening right then and there. If one where to actually have see the whole thing that that passage came from, it wouldn't have even made two full pages on my OpenOffice application. And, you know... I'm not saying that short stories are terrible (it's just that I'm not a big fan of them).
People can actually convey a lot with a really good amount of quality in a very short story or chapter – so just because I'm complaining about myself not reaching more than just two pages on my OpenOffice doesn't mean that you should feel down about your stories being less than that.
Anyways....
Points to actually be looking for when going over writing when you read over stuff from the past like that – that is, if you feel like rewriting them for some reason (in which case, I am never touching that foul excuse of a fanfiction ever, ever, ever again....) – then you should be looking at what you did and comparing them to what you could be doing.
Questions to be asking yourself is usually as follows:
What could I have done better/differently?
How can I describe this to where my audience can actually imagine what it is that I'm imagining when I write this?
How are my character's actions flawed/wrong?
Is my character too perfect/a Mary-Sue/a Gary-Stu?
What can I do to prevent my character from being hated because of that?
And you know, I'm sure that there's actually a whole bunch more questions than just those ones (those ones are just ones I could pull off the top of my head on a whim).
Anyways... let's actually compare that monstrosity of a passage with this more recent passage here:
All right... as we can see, a five year time difference has affected my writing greatly. More description, less abrupt passages, more character development in a relatively short amount of time. The same questions will still arise when you look at your newer work, but less often – especially when you know you've improved and can see it in your writing – and especially when others can see it in your writing that you've known for a while, too.
It's also come to my attention that actually receiving more harsh critiques does sometimes provide a better result. I'm not encouraging it (really...) – however, let's be honest with one another, shall we? We'll get upset when someone tells us all of our flaws, we'll not want to listen to them, we'll keep going our merry way. Though, even though we do do all of that, during that time, we're thinking about the stuff it is that they said about it and then just start to go, “huh... well... I hate to admit it... but... they're actually right.”
I mean... I got real sensitive when people called my characters Mary-Sues. Now when someone says that my character is leaning into being a Mary-Sue/Gary-Stu, I ask how it is that they're being so and then do my level best to change that without changing my character dramatically.
One of the things that one has to be is to not be afraid to ask questions. If someone says something about your writing and you don't see it, ask what it is, ask them to point it out and then read over it and then see what you can do to fix it. This where a Beta would come in handy. If you're not sure about your writing, you can always send it to them and have them look over it and tell you. Betas aren't just there for grammatical and spelling errors – they're also there to help you with stuff you, yourself, are not certain of. Again, don't be afraid to ask questions.
People say that some of their readers are the harsher critics that they've got – I've always been told by my father that the worst critic that I'll always have is myself. It's true – even as an artist that draws, I'm constantly going, “that doesn't look right. That doesn't sound right. What am I doing wrong? Why can't I do this better? No one is going to like this.” – it's a toss up to listen to yourself when you're writing or drawing – because it's you that's the one that's producing it.
I know it takes a lot of work to actually go back and look at something that you did a long time ago – but I'm sure it'll be worth it. And remember... there's always room for improvement.