Where are your weak spots?

[inkdust]

I've known for a while now that I struggle with grounding my scenes with setting details. I'm so wary of drawn-out descriptions of places and people that I run the risk of writing scenes that read more like dialogue scripts. So one element of tackling my second draft is consciously adding in more background details.

Where are your writing weaknesses? What do you do to try to overcome them?

Comments

[caecilia]

Middles, endings, hurting my characters.

I can have a great opening and then it starts to slow down until it gets stuck. I think I'm held back by my fear of taking emotional risks. :\

Have you tried writing exercises where you just describe different settings, without characters?

[inkdust]

Doing an exercise like that would probably be good. I've written timed prompts and things where I've included more description because the style of writing seemed to welcome it more, but when I have an actual cohesive scene I want to play out, it's hard for me to balance it with action. Maybe I'll try copy-pasting a scene and just adding a ton of setting description, way more than I need, and then pare it down and see if I'm left with something better.

I do okay with putting in emotional stuff, but then when my characters react to it I get paranoid about them coming off as whiny / depressed / unlikeable. That's one thing I really need outside reader feedback for. But I do find that my overall state of mind affects the content I feel like I can write about. When I'm more depressed, I hesitate to do painful things to my characters.

I find that if I can at least figure out what I want the climactic point of the story to look like, then I have something to push toward even if the middle slows. Or do you ever try writing out of order, at least for a scene or two?

[caecilia]

Oh yeah, I write out of order all the time, because sometimes I don't even know what story I wanna tell or where it starts, or I'm just doing freewrite or jotting down little ideas. I'm procrastinating on this right now, though. Blech.