silent_g

joined 1 year ago
 

Here's the second entry in my weekly, alphabetically titled short stories that take place in my science fiction/fantasy universe. Thanks for reading and for any feedback or reactions.

 

Over the next few months, I'll be participating in Alphabet Superset and sharing my short stories across the internet. Yesterday marked the end of Week A, and I posted an introduction to my collection of short stories, as well as the first short that I've been working on for the past couple years on and off. I would describe the genre as lighthearted, comedic sci-fi/fantasy.

You can read the introduction here, it's about a 5 minute read: https://medium.com/@griffincouillard/tales-from-the-mortal-conglomerate-disclaimer-cf9a686076d7

And then the post for Week A is here, it's about a 20 minute read: https://medium.com/@griffincouillard/tales-from-the-mortal-conglomerate-antons-application-128fb5721972

Thanks for any reactions or feedback!

 

Many times when writing, I get a very specific image in my head of the way I want something to look, or the way I want something to move. Particularly with actions where objects are moving in a very specific way, I want to describe them accurately so that most readers would see the same thing that I'm seeing in my head. The problem is, I don't want to come off as sounding too technical (the object slid along its Z axis and suddenly stopped and rotated 45 degrees on its Y axis), and I also don't want to be so vague that a later sentence contradicts what they were seeing in their head.

Is this just a psychological thing that I need to get over and stop worrying about, and just write to the best of my ability and edit when I hear critiques/comments from readers, or is it a skill that I need to improve?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Any tips people can throw out are always welcome.

Whatever is going to work for you will probably be specific to you, but I think a good place to start is to read more stories. Try to nail down what it is you want to achieve with your story, and then find other stories that have succeeded at that, at least in your opinion. There are rules and tropes and formulas to storytelling that will make it easier to entertain readers, but at the end of the day, if you don't like what you wrote, and you didn't enjoy writing it, then I don't think it's worth it.

In my experience, once you start reading a lot, you start thinking more like a writer. You'll be watching a movie or a show and be thinking "How would I write this scene, how would I describe this to someone who wasn't watching it, and how would I do that in a way that they got the same feeling I got when I was watching it?" or "How would I improve this story, in what ways did it fail to give me the feeling I was seeking?" or "How could I incorporate some of these same narrative devices in my story, what is it that I like about this and how can I convince people that they like my story for the same reasons?"

You'll especially start asking yourselves these questions when you know you have a good story, and you're obsessed with getting your story on to paper. You'll start filtering everything you experience through the lens of that obsession, and every piece of media you consume will become a piece of the collage you create.

At least that's how it is for me, maybe you're completely different.