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JFeverFells
Aug '22

...You gotta find something to get everything.

This may seem like random gibberish to some but I wanted to just share something on my mind.

Your story won't come from nothing. You need to find it.

I had been too afraid to believe this for the longest time, but as an introvert I tried everything I could to make stories out of personal expirences... but I realized that, as an introvert, I had very little to refer to... somewhere along the line in my early 20s I gave up, started working and picking up several bad habits. Found myself in situations I had to dig my way out of, moments where I asked myself who I was and how my actions effected others. Things I was able to use as inspiration for struggle.

Too many creators now playing it safe, copying each other because "this is cool but I can do it better" when we are afraid to show something new, different... personal.

Somewhere along the line of a 10 year hiatus I picked up the pen and started drawing again... sure I have little to show for it now but I'm getting there, and I still feel like I'm barely beginning.

Tldr: If you are having trouble creating, don't forget to live.

-End of Nonsense-

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RobertBMarks
Aug '22

Well, you were doing great until this sentence.

Nothing nonsense about it.

DokiDokiTsuna
Aug '22

Oh I feel that, very much so...I think it's really difficult to accept that as a beginning writer; realizing that the average 'normal' protagonist-- someone adventurous and outgoing who can easily make social connections-- is simply not something you can write authentically.

But A, you don't have to write 'normal' protagonists, and B, as much as it's true that nothing comes from nothing, it's important to also realize that you are NOT nothing. All the life experience in the world won't help you if you can't also learn to broaden your perspective and realize that there's more than one way in which a life can be worth living; more than one type of person whose story deserves to be told.

Of course, when I say 'you', I mean anyone else who's reading this and feels like the OP resonated with them. ^^ But my point is that it's unlikely that you will ever stop being an introvert, so you have to appreciate that worldview for what it is. Pay attention to yourself, look inward and take note of all the emotions you experience: your frustrations, your fears, your struggles, your triumphs. They may not be loud enough for other people to hear, but they still exist and they are human.
Any story or character that you write, even if it relies on fantastical experiences to take the place of the ones you never had, will be stronger for that understanding.

And when you go out and do the things you do, and speak to the people you meet, it'll help you to relate their experiences to your own. You CAN use other people's life experiences to supplement the stories you tell, but it'll be easier to understand them and internalize them if you think of them not as the experiences of someone who's alien or 'superior' to yourself, but as those of just another human being, who probably goes through a lot of the same things that you do.

TheLemmaLlama
Aug '22

True, nothing comes from nothing - but you don't have to go outside and touch grass for it to count as 'living'. Things you see and experience from other people's works, the Internet etc are still very much real parts of life and can provide just as much material to write about :]

If anything, I feel like it's a matter of age. As a teen, I don't think my writing would've been better even if I was more outgoing and did more things in the 'real world', because I would've lost out on the material from my time on the Internet. Opportunity cost; you can't have it all. Basically, if you're young and struggle to find things to write about, that'll probably change once you get older and accumulate a few more years of being conscious :stuck_out_tongue:

BoomerZ
Aug '22

Everyone says write what you know. I think write what you want to know about. Do research and watch other people. I am like none of my characters, not a single one. I just have a story to tell and tried to create personalities that would make it interesting.

Christy_Oshima
Aug '22

This reminds me of one of the worst advice i was given by an instructor in Fantasy Creative Writing class; never write about things you don't know and always work within the boundaries of reality. Which in simple words meant not to be creative. And i am asking you; how will you create if you stick to reality? Ho will you put your fantasy into good use when people out there instruct you to stick within normality's boundaries?

If i wanted to write about today's events, today's people, today's technology, i'd work on a different genre. If i wanted to stick within boundaries, i would listen to my professors and become everything that society dreamt of me.

We are creators cause we dare make that step forward that so many others are scared of. Introvert or not, highly educated or not, we live in an age that knowledge is farm more reachable than in earlier years. If i want to write about a serial killer in some alien planet that water is a form of currency and people there are literally killing each other to absorb the water from their bodies, then hell i will and nothing will stop me. I will research, i will learn and i will combine everything i know with my own ideas.

Dare people. dare. Dare to present something new even if it was birthed by a cliché.. Your ideas, your stories,, are unique in more than just one way cause like it or not they have parts of your self.

JFeverFells
Aug '22

Not gonna lie, love all these challenging points of view. Disagreement is not always a bad thing.

Christy_Oshima
Aug '22

Once there is mutual respect, disagreement can be rather self-constructive in a sense :3 But this is a topic that most creators need to take a look at cause out there there is a good handful of people who always assume they can do better and love to criticize anyone else.

28 days later
Lensing
Sep '22

What is your tactic to find your story?
And what will you do when you found it?

I don´t agree with this statement:
"as an introvert, I had very little to refer to"
That has nothing to do with your storytelling.
Every human has unique experiences, dreams and wishes they can
refer to. Being an introvert is an unique experience

JFeverFells
Sep '22

I did take one thing from it... a critical topic I felt almost constantly.

Loneliness.

I do agree that there are expirences that could only have been seen in my position, but I dreamed of adventure.

Lensing
Sep '22

I think you are on a good way to write a good story.

I love stories which show the honest feelings, desires or wishes of the writer,
things that are too embarasing to admit and this is the hard part about writing
because it will make you vulnerable

1 month later

closed Oct 15, '22

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