What's the most difficult thing you've ever written?

[Arkadelphiak]

You read the title, so you tell me. Anything from something super complex, to one with strong emotional content, to something on groundbreaking theoretical physics.
But if you did the latter, let's be friends.

 

[Beth Pavell]

Hmm. Hard to say. The thing that immediately comes to mind would be the waltzing in A Da Vinci Smile. Trying to describe someone learning to dance without fifty words of description wasn't exactly fun to crack. I suppose the scene that gave me the most trouble would be the argument scene from Chapter Eleven of The Long Walk. Never really did get it right

 

[Barfing Ogres]

The 1st interactions between my 2nd story arc's protagonist, Geoff and the traveling companions he is about to meet for the first time. I rewrote that scene about five times before I think I got to where it needed to be all because Geoff is a socially awkward loner who hides behind a mask of politeness to cover up his peculiarities.

 

[Misfit Angel]

I think the hardest thing I've ever written was a first person narrative written in the style present in the Borderlands series... Ya know, nonstop slang, sarcasm and general insanity. I got about halfway through the first chapter and realized how difficult it is for little reward (most of the charm from Borderlands' dialog isn't the actual words, it's how the characters say them), and I knew I wasn't going to be able to keep it up for a whole series.

 

[diamondpearl876]

The hardest thing I've ever written was my 45-page-long monster chapter which encompassed themes such as imprisonment, mental illness, suicide and a whole both of other themes.

 

[Arkadelphiak]

Oh, so many good replies!
In my case, the most difficult thing is a story I'm working on called Malegænt that has gotten completely out of control. And I guess it's the good kind, because it has a ton of really great material that I'm continuously adding to it. However, it's become so vast and tangled that it may take me years to finish it. I suppose it's a complexity issue in my case --there's too many interchanging perspectives and sub plots to tackle all at once.

 

[Dieter]

Anything poetry is generally not a fun ride for me, it's just something that doesn't really click with me, unless I have something really specific in mind (and then it rolls just out, but whether it's good or not is a different story)

 

[Drakon]

I think the hardest was the "Tales from the Front Lines" section of my Poké Wars story/technical manual.

I had to mix action, feeling, emotion, technology porn, military terminology/slang and plot all together.

 

[Silverwynde]

One of the chapters I wrote for a novel I'm working on. I had one of the main characters actually break down and talk about his past to the second main character and it was tough. The content was emotional and very charged; it doesn't help that the one telling the story is the type to hide behind a tough veneer and act as though nothing's wrong and that he doesn't really need any friends. So yeah, that one was hard for me.

I also have difficulty writing abusive or bullying situations. It's really tough for me to go into that, as I've dealt with it myself and it can be triggering.

 

[Lord Kyuubi]

Starting is probably the hardest thing for me. I finished the initial draft of my story in January, but I wasn't underway with the rewrite until several months later. I think what was really awkward to do properly was to introduce the protagonist in a way which fitted into the story, rather than just feeling quite jarring. I felt it was important to describe her early, because if people start picturing someone incorrectly, it can be hard to remedy. But then there was the problem of her description breaking up the narrative. Her introduction's also probably not helped by the fact she's an umbreon.

But yeah, starting was really difficult, and I still don't have it right. I'll have to fix that before uploading.

 

[Vivillon]

Anything that isn't a poem, a purely narrative/descriptive story, or a literary translation of my thoughts and emotions.

 

[lovandra]

First, for me, It's really hard to write in English because it's not my native language, there always grammar standart that I need to pass and after try to correct it, completly ruin the emotional set that I plan to work before..

Second is when I try to create a sub story for character except main character.. it's really hard to not fall in love in your character after write it for too long and it make me altered the story and it is end up 'ruined'. But on the other side, I want all of my characthers to be interesting, but sometimes I went too far and the story become 'out of control' and lost focus.

Last is to finish my story.. I really like to write about my characters and I don't want their story to end. Or there are some alternative of climax that I prepared but I don't want to rush the conflict and end up altered it and it become anticlimax and I don't like it and I create another conflict or add another character and the story just never seem to end... ^^;

 

[diamondpearl876]

Anything that isn't a poem, a purely narrative/descriptive story, or a literary translation of my thoughts and emotions.

Stream of consciousness writer? They always have something interesting to say.

 

[Vivillon]

Anything that isn't a poem, a purely narrative/descriptive story, or a literary translation of my thoughts and emotions.

Stream of consciousness writer? They always have something interesting to say.

Sometimes, I just sit down and write without a lot of thought. When analyzing the piece afterwards, I can often see that events/characters match my thoughts or emotions perfectly. It may match an event that's happened to me recently, or a person who has recently affected my life in a major way It's odd; I don't even know that I'm doing it until after I'm finished.

 

[Beth Pavell]

Anything that isn't a poem, a purely narrative/descriptive story, or a literary translation of my thoughts and emotions.

Stream of consciousness writer? They always have something interesting to say.

Sometimes, I just sit down and write without a lot of thought. When analyzing the piece afterwards, I can often see that events/characters match my thoughts or emotions perfectly. It may match an event that's happened to me recently, or a person who has recently affected my life in a major way It's odd; I don't even know that I'm doing it until after I'm finished.

Funny, we're almost complete opposites in that regard. My best passages come right from the heart - or memory, for that matter - but they are always those that I obsess over, editing and tweaking and re-writing until I get what I'm after

 

[diamondpearl876]

Anything that isn't a poem, a purely narrative/descriptive story, or a literary translation of my thoughts and emotions.

Stream of consciousness writer? They always have something interesting to say.

Sometimes, I just sit down and write without a lot of thought. When analyzing the piece afterwards, I can often see that events/characters match my thoughts or emotions perfectly. It may match an event that's happened to me recently, or a person who has recently affected my life in a major way It's odd; I don't even know that I'm doing it until after I'm finished.

Sounds like stream of consciousness to me. Remind me to read your work sometime.

 

[Vivillon]

Anything that isn't a poem, a purely narrative/descriptive story, or a literary translation of my thoughts and emotions.

Stream of consciousness writer? They always have something interesting to say.

Sometimes, I just sit down and write without a lot of thought. When analyzing the piece afterwards, I can often see that events/characters match my thoughts or emotions perfectly. It may match an event that's happened to me recently, or a person who has recently affected my life in a major way It's odd; I don't even know that I'm doing it until after I'm finished.

Sounds like stream of consciousness to me. Remind me to read your work sometime.

I really only have one of such stories on here. Most of the stuff I post is poetry, and I have a couple of stories that were me just writing about one idea until I had a small (and I mean small) plot line finished. I don't think I have a single work here that's over 1,000 words. If you're interested in my stream of conscious story, though, here it is.

 

[chaos_Leader]

Oh boy.

I think the most difficult thing I've written was when I wrote a kind of psychological/psychic torture. Without going onto unnecessary detail, the focus character in the scenes had his mind directly linked with a small number of other people, who were then killed as they tried very hard to fight off the attacker/torturer. In effect, the focus character experienced death firsthand, multiple times, without actually dying. Not only did I need to work with the perspectives and emotions of people as they died, I had to contend with the fact that the characters I killed off for this psychic/psychological torture were prominent original characters that I had a pretty strong attachment to. It was a moment I knew well in advance that I had to do for my plot, but still, actually sitting down and doing it was really, really hard for me.

something on groundbreaking theoretical physics.

Those are actually really fun and interesting, and not all that difficult for me to wrap my head around and make use of.

 

[Hector]

For me, it's definitely a chapter of my fic that represents one of the big reveals of the story. Not to spoil anything (because I think the only person that's seen it besides me is Flaze, who's my beta reader), but it sort of represents a moment that is so painful that simply having gone through it wrecks the protagonist's life, which is amazing given the fact that the character in question seemingly has everything one could want in life.

In fact part of the reason it took me so long to get going with the rewrite was that I wasn't sure if I could even write the chapter in question (and because it is so important to the plot, I couldn't just skip it). It was painful to write because it turns a character I've grown rather fond of into something else entirely.

 

[Arkadelphiak]

Oh boy.

I think the most difficult thing I've written was when I wrote a kind of psychological/psychic torture. Without going onto unnecessary detail, the focus character in the scenes had his mind directly linked with a small number of other people, who were then killed as they tried very hard to fight off the attacker/torturer. In effect, the focus character experienced death firsthand, multiple times, without actually dying. Not only did I need to work with the perspectives and emotions of people as they died, I had to contend with the fact that the characters I killed off for this psychic/psychological torture were prominent original characters that I had a pretty strong attachment to. It was a moment I knew well in advance that I had to do for my plot, but still, actually sitting down and doing it was really, really hard for me.

something on groundbreaking theoretical physics.

Those are actually really fun and interesting, and not all that difficult for me to wrap my head around and make use of.

Oh man, I've been worthless with replies in this thread. But that's a heck of a task to write out. I bet that knowing the characters are important to you surely made it a million times worse. AND YAY PHYSICS~

For me, it's definitely a chapter of my fic that represents one of the big reveals of the story. Not to spoil anything (because I think the only person that's seen it besides me is Flaze, who's my beta reader), but it sort of represents a moment that is so painful that simply having gone through it wrecks the protagonist's life, which is amazing given the fact that the character in question seemingly has everything one could want in life.

In fact part of the reason it took me so long to get going with the rewrite was that I wasn't sure if I could even write the chapter in question (and because it is so important to the plot, I couldn't just skip it). It was painful to write because it turns a character I've grown rather fond of into something else entirely.

Yeah, I'm working with a similar scene in one of my stories. It's incredibly difficult to get that all encompassing suffering done just right, or else it turns into a hyped-up flop. Good luck!