What would you advice to your past self?

What advice would you give to your newbie self if you were just beginning?I think that we all mistakes as we grow up as artists and sometimes we wish we knew things earlier. What would you advice to yourself when you were just beginning at being a writer?

I think this could be very useful for newbie writters (not that I am not still a newbie lol)

I will start: I would advice myself to not worry about "mary sue" stuff and better worry to just express the story that is in my heart and have fun and definitively to start worrying about grammar lol and of course to never underestimate the value of flaws.

That you should always do everything as if it was for yourself and not to forget that you have the burden of proof as an author. That is you should prove to your audience that your story is interesting and not viceversa.

what about you?

edited 14th Feb '12 7:13:01 PM by FallenLegend

Don't throw ideas in just because they seem cool; make sure they blend together well. If not, rework them or get rid of them.

Hmm. I'd have to go with, "you know way more about political and societal upheaval than you do about lesbian romance. So for fuck's sake, stick with your strong suit: it'll make you happier in both the long and short run." The specific combination is personal, but I'm sure the general realization of "why am I not writing to my strengths?" has hit a lot of people.

edited 14th Feb '12 7:15:39 PM by KillerClowns

Don't be such an asshole, and don't bother with Knightfall, it's a shitty story that isn't worth a damn day of the five years you'll end up spending on it otherwise.

Ignore the complainers, those same people will end up loving the finished product regardless of their complaints, that's just the way you write.

In that same token, don't show anyone something early on in your thought process about it - it'll just create more complainers that end up making a 180 on their opinion later.

Get a sense of perspective; you're not that good.

edited 14th Feb '12 7:37:17 PM by CrystalGlacia

Oh, and that. Fuck me, that. So much that.

I don't know if I would give any, actually. Yes, I've made some horrendous writing mistakes over the last decade, but I'm not convinced I would learn as much by telling my younger self to avoid them then I did by actually making them. Like I said in the past, I have a few Old Shame works that I will never describe in any detail on these forums, but I still think they were a valuable learning experience, even if all the lessons they taught me were on what not to do.

edited 14th Feb '12 7:44:21 PM by nrjxll

That's what she said.

...

Note to past self: don't say "that's what she said" anymore.

Well, really I'd like to bitch-slap some sense into myself on a multitude of issues, but I would be very unlikely to simply accept the word of even my older self, so it wouldn't do all that much good. So I'd probably just troll myself for laughs.

And why's it called time travel tense trouble? What it should be is time travel first-person pronoun trouble. The tenses are relatively straightforward.

Find TV Tropes sooner. They will guide you to the light.

The first ten thousand words of your first story are going to be absolute shit, and you will know it. Get over it, the number of "first x words with a new work are shit" gets smaller.

Don't rush. It's not like anyone's lining up to read your crap.

"Your story has lots of problems, yes, yes. Shut up. You're a noob, what'd ya expect? But finish it and post it anyways. There's lots to learn from every step of the process, not just completing a first draft. Better bite the bullet sooner rather than later. Oh yeah, don't give a ride to that one asshole you'll meet at _____. He's going to rob you."

PS: always do one more read-through than you think you'll need.

edited 14th Feb '12 9:02:17 PM by MildGuy

"Your stories are great, past Sabrina, but your grammar needs improvement and you DO NOT WRITE IN ALL CAPSLOCK, it's hard to read and be light on the Purple Prose and descriptions. Use Beige Prose instead. Also, not many people will notice your stories in the future anyway."

edited 14th Feb '12 9:19:20 PM by sabrina_diamond

Actively seek criticism. Analyze everything in context and don't dwell on surface details while ignoring the underlying meanings and social context of a work's creation. Remember that all my highly detailed fight scenes and setting details are unimportant if I can't make round character that can be related to. Read from a vast range of genres and time periods. Remember to revise, edit, and proofread heavily before considering something complete.

"Don't write NSYNC fanfiction."

Good lord, tell me you aren't serious.

About having written it, that is, not telling yourself not to write it.

The late 90s were a confusing time for all of us.

And yes, unfortunately, that really happened.

My NEWBIE self? I don't really know, I started writing when I was ten, and I find it difficult to tell which flaws were caused by the fact that I was ten and which were caused by the fact that I was only starting out. But I suppose I'd tell myself "Don't use words you don't understand, they don't make you sound more novel-y, they just make your prose hilarious to read."

And if I were giving advice to myself from 5-4 years ago, then it would be "A story you'd love to read is not necessarily a story you'd be able to write. Don't try writing war drama, you don't know a thing about war."

"Don't listen to people that tell you to write Lord Of The Rings over and over. Develop your own style."

Write about people. No one wants to read about lasers.

Take that little voice in your head that goes "wee, I'm a writer, I'm writing" and kill it.

Stop wasting your time writing fan fiction. Even if you become the world champion at getting Hermione's tone just right, no one in the real world will effing care.

Stop talking about your work. Not another word. I'm serious about this, it's a miracle no one has stabbed you in the neck yet. Obviously you want to just stop writing and go live in a world where everyone's perpetually excited about the 100 pages you have, but life doesn't work that way.

Plan ahead. Yes, you hate doing that. You will also hate re-writing the same thing on and off for six years, thinking every time that this is it and you've got it down, only to discover after a few months that no, the plot still doesn't magically have an idea of where to go next.

"Character" is not an alternate spelling of "caricature".

Google "show, don't tell".

edited 15th Feb '12 1:21:17 AM by TripleElation

I would tell my past self, "Don't do Computer Science. I know you want to because you want to make a RPG as good as (story-wise) Planescape Torment. Go undecided for a bit to take out all of the Gen Ed. You will want a career that allows you to express your creativity, so start focusing yourself in that direction now. Oh and write more."

If I got this advice not only would I be a better writer by now, but I would not have to deal with as much crap and I'd still have my friends.

I would not advice to my past self. I would advise them.

I'd say this is better said as "write about people first; no one wants to read about lasers, so much as they want to read about people that are interesting... and happen to have lasers."