I have been trying to get into writing short stories as a hobby. I have a couple of good ideas. But I tend to struggle when actually putting my thoughts to words.
Some issues I struggle with are as follows:
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Inability to settle on the right words: I’ll write something and think that what I wrote could be written better or differently and then I keep on writing and deleting and rephrasing with different words. Thus making very slow progress.
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Problems with continuity: I might think up a somewhat long plot line. But I have to write the whole thing in one go because if I don’t then my brain will splinter the story into multiple possible story branches when I stop and I am unable to choose the path to follow.
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Lose interest in continuing if I take a break: If I stop writing mid way and take a break from writing for an extended period of time, I am unable to find the motivation to resume. Mostly because trying to catchup with the story up to that point feels hard. I have this same tendency with video games as well where I don’t feel like picking up a game after an extended period of absence.
So is anyone here who does writing as either a hobby or professionally? If so how do you cope with your condition?
What I’ve found that works for me is to just make up the story as I go without much planning. The issue with this is approach I’ve found is that it’s hard to find a conclusion to end the story.
Okay so first thing, I want you to understand that writing is hard. Finishing a writing is hard. A lot of things happen to make it so I don’t finish.
The most notable thing is that writing and whatever the subject of the writing is is often a hyper focus. So I’m obsessed with the idea for days maybe even just hours, possibly weeks. And then sometimes I never touch it again.
This is something I think medication would help with (at least for me). This is also very normal. Give yourself permission to do that. Sparks don’t last forever.
The second thing is, sometimes my ideas and my writing are too grandiose and they kind of balloon to the point where there’s too much and I can’t seem to keep a handle on everything and I get overwhelmed.
In this instance I have found that changing the medium I’m writing the story in helps. Comics are a good example. I can’t draw very well but I can storyboard comic panels of my story. Helps me cut out the fat and the extra stuff I don’t need and make it a more clear picture in my head.
I have problems fleshing out characters, their motivations and their actions based on those motivations.
I’m not gonna lie. I got into D&D because someone offered and I was curious but the game helped me to sort through this kind of conundrum.
“What would you like to do?” Is a question I ask myself and my characters all the time and sometimes if I’m conflicted I can roll dice. This helps with decision paralysis and so on.
Shorten your stories. Challenge yourself to write a whole idea in one page. This is a writing prompt type thing I learned in college. It goes together with the other bit from college which was “ask yourself what’s taking your attention in the story”. This way you can focus on the parts your brain think need to be there. It helps me to hyper focus and get what I view as the important parts down on the page.
I’m one of those people who rereads and edits as I write but also one of those people who agree that you should have a first draft before you do major edits (spelling and punctuation and grammar are minor, changing the turn of phrase or moving bits of the story around are major).
Give yourself permission to hyper focus on other things and make a deal with yourself to come back to that thing in a specific span of time.
Have a time when you write. Like. This day from this time to this time. If nothing gets on the page in that time? Let yourself take the break. It doesn’t have to be the same day every week or even the same time. But give yourself office hours. Even if you don’t write a lick it’ll help. You can use that time to storyboard or outline or write ideas on slips of paper and put them in a fishbowl or something.
It’s okay to do a thing if you aren’t good at it right away. I am such a perfectionist that it’s hard for me to remember that. I definitely have the ADHD “if it’s worth doing it’s worth doing right the first time” mentality.
I do write small writing prompts on my phone whenever I get an idea. I just need to go and pick them up sometime :P
My problem with writing is that sometimes I just hover over a single sentence and sometimes I just ramble on a couple of paragraphs then re-read it to see that what I wrote was overtly detailed (just like how I tend to overexplain things when talking).
I guess its a start, but I like your idea of timeboxing the writing activity.
I started timeboxing this year and it’s been very helpful. Even if I’m having a bad day and I can only do one pomodoro sprint, it still stacks up, and it’s how I learned the structure itself helps me.
I track my productivity, and I get more done this way than I did flailing about for a week because things didn’t feel quite right.
I would love to give more like. Concrete things you can do to motivate yourself and also sort of build up certain habits but I still don’t know how to verbalize those and I don’t think that the trial by fire sort of way I learned as a kid is a good way. Or easy to implement in adulthood.