writing improvement meme
Mar. 19th, 2013 08:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
queenluaInspired by amielleon's similar tumblr post.
I decided to dive through what I could find of my old stuff and see how my writing's changed through the years. Several RPG posts are included just because I put a lot of effort into RPGs for a great portion of my writing journey and whatnot. I didn't go out of my way to find things that were especially good or especially embarrassing (though some of these are indeed embarrassing)—mostly I aimed for things I thought were fine/good/okay at the time of writing, rather than finding things that I thought were THE GREATEST THING EVAR or THE WORST THING I EVER WROTE at the time of writing.
Legends (p. sure this is c. 1999, earliest story I remember typing up, some awkward mashup of Pokémon fanfic and my own hairbrained ideas):
Dawn Warriors (doesn't have a specific date on it, but probably 2000-2002ish, and yes this is totally Neopets fanfiction):
post from a wolf RPG, c. 2003
dopey short story about a wolf RPG character (like it was so angstydumbdrama the subtitle was "a study in the decay of innocence"), c. 2005
Distant Thunder, c. 2007
Excerpt from near the end of the story; basically they're in a postapocalyptic universe where the rain's supposedly toxic, but Miyuki thinks it's a-OK now.
post for a goofy character on a horse RPG, c. 2007
I don't think this actually adds much to the "snapshot of Lua's writing ability progressing" but it made me smile, so :P (Honestly I was getting tired of writing emo/dark characters, and was getting tired of everyone else's characters being emo/dark, so this was one of several goofy characters I started writing in an effort to get everyone to lighten the fuck up.)
ANYWAY In 2008-2009 I mostly wrote poetry and drabbles (I was experimenting with the short short story as a form; I don't think I was very good at it), and I wrote very little at all during 2009-2010, sounfortunately I don't have much to share WAIT JUST A SECOND I totally just found some shit that I have almost no recollection of writing:
North Star, c. 2008
The plot arc is basically, Sam's invited herself and her cool friends into Marie's barn so they have a place to drink (they're all high schoolers); Marie's uncomfortable with the idea but goes along with it because she and Sam were good friends when they were younger and because Marie is a clingy fuck:
(though I find the insight about "hey everyone is basically goddamn fourth graders forever" kind of amusing, since I feel like everything I've learned about people while in college can be summed up that way)
And finally, summer 2011, shortly before I started publishing Fire Emblem fic—this is an abandoned typical-medieval-fantasy short story that was basically me being "I want to write a pissy healer":
I guess the trends aren't that interesting. I mean, the early stuff's just stilted in obvious, hey-I'm-young-and-getting-used-to-this-writing-thing ways, everything in the 2003-2006 era tends toward purple-ness and melodrama, and things seem to start settling around 2007, with several awkward bumps and edges that get sanded off later. I still see the earliest form of a lot of the rhythmic tricks I try for pretty regularly nowadays, though. Maybe that's about when I was finding my "voice" (whatever the fuck that means)? Or maybe I've just been stagnating/progressing more slowly since then, whichever :P
amielleon's similar tumblr post.I decided to dive through what I could find of my old stuff and see how my writing's changed through the years. Several RPG posts are included just because I put a lot of effort into RPGs for a great portion of my writing journey and whatnot. I didn't go out of my way to find things that were especially good or especially embarrassing (though some of these are indeed embarrassing)—mostly I aimed for things I thought were fine/good/okay at the time of writing, rather than finding things that I thought were THE GREATEST THING EVAR or THE WORST THING I EVER WROTE at the time of writing.
Legends (p. sure this is c. 1999, earliest story I remember typing up, some awkward mashup of Pokémon fanfic and my own hairbrained ideas):
“This person has made it past the ruins,” the fire dog grunted. “It is quite impressive.”
“Well, impressive or not, we must stop them from getting any further.’” Said the lightning dog.
“Yes, if they make it to the Temples of Kantrimal......” Water dog’s voice trailed off.
“May that day never come,” finished the fire dog .
Shelly and Kevin had just finished climbing over the last wall in the Great Ruins. These temples were in ruins now, which is how they got their name. This huge, ancient temple was a place were some of the most frightful creatures anyone had ever seen.
Dawn Warriors (doesn't have a specific date on it, but probably 2000-2002ish, and yes this is totally Neopets fanfiction):
The faerie eyrie unfolded her wings, yawning as the first sunbeams of dawn struck the land. Her purple and pink feathers glistened slightly as the sunlight struck them. She arose from where she lay and caught a nice breeze to glide her across the lake she had slept by.
The eyrie’s name was Sandra. She was the very first, and, unbeknownst to her, the very last faerie eyrie. She was clever and quick, but did not enjoy fighting. She only killed what she needed.She did not like killing innocent creatures. However, in the wild, it was hard to find food, especially with the colder days off autumn ariviving.
Sandra didn’t have parents, or at least any parents she ever knew. However, she grew into a young adult and did great peace projects. Now, still a young adult... she wanted peace for herself, though. Tranquility of the outdoors. She left and became a wild eyrie, to live by her instincts, and it suited her well.
post from a wolf RPG, c. 2003
Kissed by the pale moonlight, Silver's sturdy figure glittered like diamond beneath the ebony sky of satin, her normally bedraggled fur oddly silky today - smooth and soft, still thick from the harsh winter, but beginning to shed with the sluggish approach of spring. Her tail swished lazily behind her, this way and that, as she stepped over the rugged terrain, her footing certain and her stride graceful - indeed, more than graceful. An air of superiority hung about her - but it was an elegant, alluring superiority, an inductive, enamoring superiority. Though the alphess was beginning to get older - evident by the way her pelt was beginning to dull its brilliant silver in favor of a duller gray, though this was not evident in the moonlight - still, she still retained much of the majestic grace of h er youth. But this could always simply be Silver's stubbornness - some who know her well may say she defied age, refused to give in to its vicegrip - and so it never struck her, or at least not hard.
dopey short story about a wolf RPG character (like it was so angstydumbdrama the subtitle was "a study in the decay of innocence"), c. 2005
“Wait.”
Claws clicked across the cavern floor, and every soldier bated their breath, stealing fleeting glances at each other as though some invisible phantom were passing through their midst. Camden squirmed, tenacious as ever - his paws itched to turn, run, move, bound away from this dark place, but to no avail. The four guards held him fast, releasing soft growls like the sound of snakes hissing.
Camden did not believe in ghosts or spirits. Wherever the dead went, he had decided, it was noplace on earthly soil and no concern of his. Yet when a sudden chill breath - just a breath, no more - breezed lazily against the back of Camden's neck, for an instant all things changed.It was naught but a wolf’s breath, but all at once a violent tremor thundered down his spine, through his legs, to all his being... oh yes, for that moment at least, he believed in spirit-things. Transient -just a breath - but there none the less.
That eerie voice rang out again. “Spare him.”
Distant Thunder, c. 2007
Excerpt from near the end of the story; basically they're in a postapocalyptic universe where the rain's supposedly toxic, but Miyuki thinks it's a-OK now.
“This is real grass, Aaron, not just that wiry, metaly fake kind. How could this be growing in toxic rains?”
“I don’t know,” he snapped, exasperated. “Are you sure this is the real stuff?”
“I’m sure.” Miyuki’s voice was still serenely calm. “Feel it if you don’t believe me.”
A little thrill went through Aaron’s spine as he touched the stuff. It felt stiff, and smooth, like the copper-grass, but this was so soft, and malleable, and richly textured. It curled ever so slightly between his fingers, and involuntarily he smiled as he lifted one trembling hand to stroke it. By mistake he tore it a little bit, and marveled at the little strands he saw, all growing together, unified in that one blade of grass, all so warm and green and alive.
Then Aaron felt a raindrop fall, the first raindrop, right on his head. He winced, drawing himself back, but he gritted his teeth, refusing to scream. He cast Miyuki a pleading look, face drawn taut. “You’re sure?” he whispered.
“I’m sure. I can feel it,” Miyuki answered, rising to her feet slowly, and standing beside Aaron, proud and tall.
More rain came down, pittering and pattering, like the sound of a horse galloping, like the sound of a stream gurgling, like the sound of a bird calling and crickets chirping and chipmunks chattering and a thousand other wonderful sounds. They were sounds from a world Aaron had never heard, never dreamt of until that moment, and in that moment he felt he had fallen back to that time, ages and ages past, when the earth was young and beautiful.
“It feels so nice and cool,” he murmured, eyes shut, as though he were dreaming.
“Mm,” Miyuki murmured, nodding and smiling as the rain came down.
post for a goofy character on a horse RPG, c. 2007
I don't think this actually adds much to the "snapshot of Lua's writing ability progressing" but it made me smile, so :P (Honestly I was getting tired of writing emo/dark characters, and was getting tired of everyone else's characters being emo/dark, so this was one of several goofy characters I started writing in an effort to get everyone to lighten the fuck up.)
Nikolai’d been in Altarian Heights barely a week, but already he’d managed to find the soggiest, sloggiest, slimiest, grimiest bog in the whole territory to stake out as his own.
Privately, he congradulated himself as he sank into the sticky mud-wallows. Not everyone, he figured, had the nose to detect such a perfectly delectable stink such as the one here. Rather like wine tasting, there were many things to be considered in a bog - consistency of the mud, strength of the stench, longevity of the stench, the complexity of the stench, the depth of the waters... The list goes on.
And if bogs were wine, well, this would certainly be the Bordeaux of bogs. Mud of excellent consistency you could sink into over your head, gnats and flies and insects buzzing furiously about, all sorts of critters writing and wriggling in the muddied waters; why, it was perfection!
So Nikolai went traipsing about the bog, filthy-ing himself as much as possible, until he suddenly caught sight of the frog - one, huge, cross-eyed bullfrog whose whole demeanor simply shouted, I’m ready for a staring contest.
“Oh, a staring contest, is that it?” Nikolai shouted back, a little nervously, for he knew bullfrogs were excellent stare-ers.
ANYWAY In 2008-2009 I mostly wrote poetry and drabbles (I was experimenting with the short short story as a form; I don't think I was very good at it), and I wrote very little at all during 2009-2010, so
North Star, c. 2008
The plot arc is basically, Sam's invited herself and her cool friends into Marie's barn so they have a place to drink (they're all high schoolers); Marie's uncomfortable with the idea but goes along with it because she and Sam were good friends when they were younger and because Marie is a clingy fuck:
“Listen,” she whispered, drawing close to Marie, “we’ve got some drinks with us. Just some rum and coke is all. Do you mind?”lolllollol baby lua tried to write about liquor
Marie’s pulse skipped a beat, then fluttered frantically. Then Marie wanted to kick herself for her too-quick heartbeat, for the cold sweat she could feel coming on. She was in high school now, for goodness’s sake; she should have this together. But she felt herself balking. “You – you didn’t mention this on the phone,” she stammered at last.
“Look, I just wanted to see what it’s like, and Chris has no problem putting his fingers on some ‘cause of his older brother, and in like Europe and shit drinking’s totally legal so there’s no reason we shouldn’t—”
“I wasn’t accusing you or anything, Sam,” Marie cut in, “you don’t have to get all defensive about it.”
“Oh. Yeah, of course.” Sam fidgeted awkwardly, waiting for her friend’s reply.
[after they've been drinking for a while...]
“You’re so…” Sam swallowed, struggling to shape her lips to form words, “You’re so fucking serious all the time, Marie. You dress like a goddamn emo kid, probably cut yourself, always rambling about bullshit German authors or whatever –”
“Samantha!” Ethan shouted, aghast.
Another night, another time, Sam’s words would have wounded Marie, made her stomach freeze up like an old lake, made her throat choke with tears and render her speechless. But seeing Sam stumbling drunkenly toward her, she instead laughed, laughed raucously in her harsh, braying, unbecoming way. They probably think I’m drunk, Marie thought, but she felt clearheaded as could be, as though her meager sips of rum had heightened her perceptions.
It’s like fourth grade, Marie thought. Back in fourth grade, there had been a schoolwide ban on playing cards: plain 52-card decks, baseball cards, Pokemon cards, anything card-shaped and printed on cardboard was suspect. She couldn’t quite recall the reason – something about the unhealthy tendencies toward ‘gambling’ these games created – but she remembered how the students had silently rebelled. During recess, whole classes would gather under the bleachers, huddled by their cards, holding them as though they were precious jewels to be protected from pickpockets. They sat at strategic angles, carefully obscuring their games from the sight of teachers, and the mere sound of heavy footsteps approaching would send them all skittering to a dark hiding spot, like so many cockroaches.
And here they were again, a whole group of them, huddled anxiously over little plastic party cups, in this thin-walled, junky old barn. Marie kept laughing. Sam’s eyebrows knitted, struggling to understand the laughter, and eventually, she stepped lopsidedly backward, swallowing heavily, relenting.
(though I find the insight about "hey everyone is basically goddamn fourth graders forever" kind of amusing, since I feel like everything I've learned about people while in college can be summed up that way)
And finally, summer 2011, shortly before I started publishing Fire Emblem fic—this is an abandoned typical-medieval-fantasy short story that was basically me being "I want to write a pissy healer":
"Tanya!" he said, letting just a hint of exasperation well up in his voice. He breathed, controlling himself again before speaking again: "Tanya, dear, you need rest." His tone was the tone he used with all the ladies of the court, soft and soothing. Also carrying, perhaps, a hint of condescension — but that was lost on most ears. "I hate seeing you strain your gentle self this way; you can go back to this once you've rested just a few hours —"
She flew at him: like a diving crane, one fluid lunge and one centered impact, shoving into his ribs and sending Shad staggering backwards a few feet. He shouldn't have been caught off-balance like that; but then again, he hadn't known a healer to be so fierce. But now, looking at her, she truly did look like one of those martialists — even in this state, her eyes wild with rage, her stance was coiled, balanced, all precision and power. He blinked. Had she learned to hold herself that way by accident? Was it related to that curious way of healing she had?
"There is nothing gentle in me, Sharad Zinler," Tanya spat, "and you would know it too if you ever stopped oogling and started listening." The words stung more than Sharad would've liked: it was one thing for Zarek to call him out on his philandering, quite another for some healer he barely knew to do so. "And I'll tell you what's a strain, Zinler. A strain is, this man's blood is poisoned, which is why he's passed out, and if I can't find a way to cleanse him soon that'll be one more family missing a father. A strain is, that man over there —" Tanya made a fierce jabbing gesture with her left hand "— I haven't even had a chance to touch him yet but he's probably going to lose that leg, and he's not even sixteen yet by my reckoning. And a strain is that there are are hundreds more strains just like this, and compared to all that my being a little bit sleepy seems absurdly selfish."
She paused to breathe, and Sharad tried to interrupt — but she strode up to him, with such energy he thought she was aiming to bowl him over; instead she stood right at his chest and glared into his eyes, speaking with quiet violence: "This is my work, and I know you think you can go waltzing up to every damn courtier and tell them how and when and what to do, but not now. Not this time. Not with me."
I guess the trends aren't that interesting. I mean, the early stuff's just stilted in obvious, hey-I'm-young-and-getting-used-to-this-writing-thing ways, everything in the 2003-2006 era tends toward purple-ness and melodrama, and things seem to start settling around 2007, with several awkward bumps and edges that get sanded off later. I still see the earliest form of a lot of the rhythmic tricks I try for pretty regularly nowadays, though. Maybe that's about when I was finding my "voice" (whatever the fuck that means)? Or maybe I've just been stagnating/progressing more slowly since then, whichever :P
no subject
Date: 2013-03-19 01:06 pm (UTC)Also I do think *something* starts stabilizing after awhile, or merely shows that all growth is logarithmic and it just gets less obvious after awhile.
no subject
Date: 2013-03-19 02:29 pm (UTC)also it occurs to me suddenly that it may be interesting to do this for a "classic" writer with a large corpus—like, back when I was obsessed with Twain, I could tell by reading just a sentence or two of a random piece whether that piece was early, middle, or late Twain—sometimes based off the subject matter but mostly just because his style felt very different for each of those periods
and it wasn't even a "oh early twain is clearly better than late twain" thing; they were just... different
maybe I'll try doing that with a different author next time I have a library adventure :P
GONNA GO OFF ON A TANGENT HERE, SORRY
Date: 2013-03-19 06:09 pm (UTC)Seriously, though. Purple prose factories if I've ever seen one. I remember one had a minimum post length of like 500 words, and one was looked down on for calling things by their most sensible names. I am certain I had a combative asshat of a character I had to refer to as "bellicose" and "gumptious" because those were on the lists of acceptable $5 synonyms. THOSE WERE SOME TIMES.
Right, right, tangent done. I definitely see things starting to solidify around 2007, though it's kind of hard to put my finger on. The progression is interesting to look at!
Re: GONNA GO OFF ON A TANGENT HERE, SORRY
Date: 2013-03-19 07:47 pm (UTC)glad you found it interesting! whisper you should totally post your own writing improvement meme whisper
Re: GONNA GO OFF ON A TANGENT HERE, SORRY
Date: 2013-03-20 12:16 am (UTC)There really was a specific and highly peculiar style they were cultivating, now that I'm thinking of it. I only joined because they advertised as being for ADVANCED people and I considered myself ADVANCED so clearly I belonged there. And then I got sucked in. :|a
(I'm considering posting my own, but none of my pre-2005 writing survives and I'm not sure how much has changed since then. Maybe I've learned to be a bit more subtle, but I think
I've been stagnating for a whileall the big things were in place by the time I started high school.)Re: GONNA GO OFF ON A TANGENT HERE, SORRY
Date: 2013-03-20 02:09 am (UTC)AND I SAVED IT BECAUSE I THOUGHT IT WAS SO COOL AT THE TIME
- begin excerpt -
Ears : lobes, auds, audreys, auditives, auditories, dublets, lappetts, thorns, flutes, receptors, tulips, antennae.
Hair : tresses, plummage, tassles, locks, plume, tendrils, veil, mesh.
Eyes : orbs, orbits, oculi, orics, oculars, oracles, optics, oids, pools, luminaries, spheres .
Mare : femme, femmoria, femina, fem, lua, lamia, femme fatale, fatale, brutale, vixen, vixetta, hellion, maiden, valkyrie, bruja, lorelei, she-beast, femorette, feminique, demoness, enchantress, doe, dove, tempest, pixie, kona.
- end excerpt -
And yeah, the style they wanted was very much like that, and very specific and odd. Some games I was on also featured battles/combat as a major way to gain rank/status, but instead of having stats for characters, battles were "judged" by various third parties based partially on "how pretty we think your prose is"—which just added more pressure to conform to the style...
I was really into writing that way for a little while, since it struck me as ~shiny~ and ~cool~ and ~dazzly~ when I was twelve or whatever, but I mentally separated "RPG writing" from "actual prose writing" because I knew that shit made sense to zero people outside the RP community... and eventually I just lost patience for always having to meet word limits and describe the same damn things over and over in ridiculous purple prose so I dropped the style :P
Re: GONNA GO OFF ON A TANGENT HERE, SORRY
Date: 2013-03-20 02:19 am (UTC)Re: GONNA GO OFF ON A TANGENT HERE, SORRY
Date: 2013-03-20 04:23 pm (UTC)Re: GONNA GO OFF ON A TANGENT HERE, SORRY
Date: 2013-03-20 10:20 pm (UTC)Re: GONNA GO OFF ON A TANGENT HERE, SORRY
Date: 2013-03-21 07:36 am (UTC)This bothered me a lot toward the end of my RP days. I started finding the writing incredibly dull - doing it, reading it - and never thought too hard about why, but this sums it up nicely. Somewhere in my RP 'career' the trend went from "write a nice descriptive paragraph and answer the other writer's question" to "write two goddamned pages of description in which you reply to five people in pose-order, with no attempt to make any of this flow - and by the way, find five different ways to say you're leaning on the table."
... uh. Off topic, oops.
There's definite progress in your excerpts though. I loved reading them. Ammie's comment about stabilizing sounds about right to me; it seems like your style solidifies and matures little by little with each portion. Like, your characters get more solid, and you start weaving story into their action and dialogue a lot better, and so forth.
Your earliest isn't as bad as my earliest by far. XD
Re: GONNA GO OFF ON A TANGENT HERE, SORRY
Date: 2013-03-21 11:52 am (UTC)I was really fortunate in that, near the end of my RPing days, I found one really nice site filled with relatively-older players who were also sick to death of the bizarre/inflated/stilted style of other games (or had just skipped that trend entirely). People wrote in English! And you weren't expected to describe every damn thing in flowery prose! Like seriously just write your character's thoughts/actions/dialogue in an interesting, concise way and move on. It was great. The plots were delicious. etc.
Then that site closed and… well, then I started writing Fire Emblem fanfic.
probably not a coincidence oopsAnyway, I'm glad you liked reading the progress snippets! They were really quite fun to compile. also psst you should post your own writing improvement meme psst