# Something I'm somewhat bad at.



## Kaane (Nov 29, 2013)

I have a bit of a problem with my writing that I find is quite detrimental to my development, besides the fact that I never actually get my stories perfect enough to put them in FA.  I treat the damn things like babies X3.

I write about ideas.  Like, I'll begin a story not really with a plot in mind, but a theme, some sort of idea to elaborate on, like the world from the viewpoint of a sociopath, or the tensions between the different classes of society, or the blurred lines between love and lust.  I'd like to think I'm a classical writer in that sense...I explore ideas by building a story around them.  The only problem with this is, stories of this type tend to be overwhelmingly boring.  I can see just from reading my own works that no one would even consider reading them fully just because they most likely wouldn't be able to get past the abstractions that I use in conjunction with the plot.

Thus, I'd like to know if anyone's willing to offer suggestions about this, about how to make a story interesting.  I find that what's interesting to me is very uninteresting to others, so it pays to have some sort of sounding board that is more in touch with what most people enjoy.  

I'll put a text file of the first chapter of one of my stories if anyone would like to read it.  If anything, I need a first impression of it.  You know, just to make sure that I'm able to keep readers going past the first chapter.  I could seriously use some criticism, as I am able to get little of it from others I know.


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## Leo McDowd (Nov 29, 2013)

I learned one thing from Pixar movies: Write the story first, develop the themes later, and rewrite the story.

Don't ever write with a theme in mind. Sometimes the themes will come naturally to you in mid-development.


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## M. LeRenard (Dec 2, 2013)

Well... the above is what Stephen King said, but honestly there is a place for theme-oriented writing.  It's not my favorite (to read or to write; I've attempted it once so far and it's a horrible pain in the ass to get it right), but some folks tend to find it more meaningful than story-oriented fiction.
From what I can tell (and I'm no expert on the subject), the best way to salvage such stories is to just use interesting language.  Not cryptic language--you don't want your stories to be frustratingly difficult to understand.  But use creative metaphors a lot, change up your vocabulary, give it a nice rhythm or flow, whatever it takes.  And since the story isn't a focus, the other way to get people invested in what you're doing is to make it a puzzle to solve, with hidden meanings and symbols and stuff like that.  The point is, if it's boring, it's boring, so make it interesting in whatever way you can.

Honestly, this type of writing is not particularly popular, and I don't think it ever will be.  But if you do it well you'll be much more likely to win accolades for it than us simple storytellers, so it's worth attempting from time to time.  Obviously the best of both worlds would be if you could manage to write an entertaining story (with your usual action, romance, intrigue, adventure, and everything else under the sun) that also has a well thought-out and intelligently described theme that doesn't force itself too much on the reader.


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## Tailmon1 (Dec 2, 2013)

It's always best to get your ideas and things down on paper and then go about fixing things later. 
If you don't? Sometimes they are gone forever!


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