RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Writer's Block Writing Workshop #1: What is hard for you to write?

I enjoy writing fiction. I also like writing non-fiction articles about people I've interviewed or subjects I've studied. But there are some things I find difficult to write about.

One of them is writing about my family. I'm a very private person. I rarely share anything about my family or my personal life to anyone but close friends. If you've ever taken any writing workshops as I have, you'd know that whatever you write for those workshops get discussed and picked apart by everyone in the workshop. In that situation it's even harder to write about personal stuff. If it was anonymous it might be a bit easier, but I still don't like it.

My ideal way to write is to use elements of my life in fiction and mix them with experiences I've heard about through friends or media or read about in other stories. It's a lot easier to write "in character" than it is to write completely as myself. If I could find a way to imitate myself, so I'm writing in character as myself, I'd have it made.

What is hard for the rest of you to write about?

Because I've been using my live journal as mostly a venting place I don't have too hard a time writing about myself.

What I write aside from that is fan ficition. I haven't written anything other than that in ages. So far I haven't had to do any kind of writing at my new job, but this is only my second day. I'm hoping any writing will be minimum, the last thing I want is a repeat of my last job, having to write letters I don't know what to say. I hated when my boss would hand me something and ask/tell me to write a letter from her. Um hello, I don't know what you want to say. She'd tell me basics of what to say and I kept wanting to tell her to write it herself but I refrained.

What I do a good/great job with is action. A lot of my fics are mostly (if not all) about the characters' personal lives. But I do have plenty of action in some of the fics. What I can't write to save my life is romance. You may think that's strange for a woman but I have never once read a romance novel. I was always more into the Trek and Star Wars novels. Romance novels were always something my sister read and I just never had a curiosity about.

I'm so glad I have a great writing partner/beta. She helps me smooth out the rough parts of my fics, which is mostly the romance stuff. That or she'll even ghost write it for me if I asked.

Interesting that you say you have no trouble with action. I find that action is always a challenge for me. Not something I dislike writing about, but more challenging than other things.

Most of my fiction is in the form of dialogues between characters and descriptions of the surroundings. Action, especially in the form of violence between two or more characters, isn't something that comes naturally to me. That said, I have had fun writing some over-the-top violent scenes in the past, and I want to try more of that.

Well they say you should write what you know. Course those that know me will know the stuff I've written is the furthest from what things were like for me.

For instance, the stuff I've written with the father/daughter perfect relationship, I'd have to say that's fantasy for me. I have never had that, furthest thing from it actually.

Action: My intro to fiction writing teacher once asked if I act things out when I write, because I had a lot of action in my fic. I said no. To this day I don't act it out, I can picture it in my head as clear as if I were watching Alias. I may not be able to explain it as well, but I do my best. I think my action descriptions (i.e. fights) are pretty good because I've had some martial arts training and have seen plenty of martial arts movies as well as just been around it for a good portion of my life in general due to my older brother mostly.

I (fairly recently) went in search of torture information. As in types and so on. I needed it for my MFU/Alias crossover. I found some good help in finding sites through fanfic_med on yahoo (groups). If you're ever stumped for medical info or have an idea of what you want to do to a character but have no idea the consequences, then ask there and you'll get both fellow writers answering as well as folks in the medical profession.

there are other fanfic research/info groups as well, like a law/legal one and I forgot the others. At this point in time, I'm just part of fanfic_med.

When all else fails, we can whip the horse's eyes, and make them sleep, and cry.

Plots. I have a hard time with plots...

I have a tough time writing group dialogue...I find it easy to write a solo scene but, put the characters all in one place and have them interact? That is damn difficult for me!

I have a hard time.

I won't lower myself to your level, TTT, if that's what you want me to do.

But it's warm in hell.

I have trouble with pretty much everything except for dialog. Plus, all my ideas are really really weird.

I struggle with action and exposition. Action doesn't come naturally to me, and exposition is so boring that I find myself turning off. Usually what I find helpful with exposition is to add a second narrative voice to proceedings and take the mickey out of it.

I have a hard time finishing a story. I haven't written stories in probably 5 or 6 years, but at that time I had several stories written, but not finished off. Part of the problem is that my characters are always changing. Not just one thing here or there, I have majorly revamped most of my characters several times.

I prefer to keep my writing in RPG form nowadays. Keeps me from having to actually write and complete anything by myself. lol

Do you mean changing in the course of a story like we normally would change in real life. or change as in completly change them to something different before the story's done?

I just thought of another thing I find I have problems with, starting a story. As in I have the story from start to finish in my head, but how to I write that opening paragraph? I have a tendency of doing something like "it was a dark and stormy night" when that just sounds too Snoopy for me.

My second NCIS fic started rough to me at least.

Quote:

---

A couple days after Elizabeth visited Ducky, he decided to call his old friend. That call was the first of many over the course of the next month. The two men helped to ease each others minds over the ordeal that Ducky had endured. As the weather continued to warm, so did Ducky’s spirits.

---

I know its good, but to me it just sounds, rough, almost awkward if I had to choose.

Have you tried taking the new characters and writing a story for them? Or adjusting the current story to fit them?

I have the opposite problem.

I have a lot of fun to create a plot, but very often got tired of writing all the filler dialogue and (especially) action scene. I think the fact that I am writing in a foreign language has a lot to do with it, but, anyway, dialogue and action (especially when they involve al lot of characters) are what bother me most.