What's your least favorite part of the writing and posting process?

[Niharika]

Let's share what part of the writing process (or whatever parts come associated with the process) that we find most tedious. Also, share how you get through them. It could be kinds of scenes you find difficult to write, tips for getting through writer's block, helpful software (or traditional pen-and-paper approaches).

For me, it's several things.

I have trouble writing romance, and my way of getting through it is to write with my eyes closed, and have suitable romantic music playing.

Also... covers. I'm not an artist, unlike a lot of you talented guys here. So making covers is a big hassle for me. I mostly find unsplash for stock photos and make something minimalistic using a photo editing software or website like Canva. There is no hack for not having artistic talent, unfortunately.

I also have trouble creating character's pasts and stuff. Worldbuilding, if you will. Notebook.ai has been really helpful.

Go ahead, share your tips and tricks!

[joannekwan]

My least favorite part is just writing transitions between scenes I have a clear and solid idea of. Sometimes it takes a while to figure out a way to link them together.

As for romance, my tip is to strip away the idea of writing a romance. Instead, think of it as an exploration of the interaction between two (or more) characters and how, over time, they realize that they would rather not live another day without having the other in their life.

[Iris-Grimoire]

Passage of time, which also ties into transitions. Sometimes I just want to write every day in an eventful week of a character but that makes for horrible pacing and takes too long to get to the plot, BUT, I can't just cut that all out because there's useful interaction in those scenes. Montages have saved me more than once in this script.

As for posting, I don't like the sheer amount of social media that doesn't have a scheduling feature, or actively punishes scheduled posts. Pretty sure Twitter tanks my engagement when I need to travel or I'm not home and have to rely on scheduling, because I can post down to the minute manually and see a big difference - this sucks.

[yansusu]

Lead-ups to endings are my worst problem in the actual writing process. Like, the ending itself normally goes fast but the last ten k words or so before that are normally reaaaally tough for me. I guess it's because I'm subconsciously afraid to forget to tie up some loose threads. Which is idiotic because I always go over it afterward and revise but I guess the feeling is just hard to shake. The only way to deal with it is powering through and whittle away at it 1k after the other.

The other thing I find really, really tedious is part of my revision/editing process: If I have big revisions to make I do them on PC but for stuff that's more about phrasing/words/spotting typos I like to do it on a printed copy because it makes finding stuff easier for me. The problem is: I have to put all the changes back into the document. And I hate it There is nothing more dull to me than going through the text I've worked through so often by then, making sure not to miss even a single comma I added or crossed out and put it into the document again.
I'm afraid there is no way to get around this though if I want to work on paper. I try to do only a few chapters any given time so it isn't as bad but still. I hate this part to the core.

[insomniascrawl]

Yeah, for real though. I write the parts I like and pout my way through writing the transitional stuff lol.

[burginlewis]

Oh my word YES! Every one of my early first drafts look like this:

Stuff happens and people talk and the MC reflects and maybe a fight and yadda yadda and maybe some sex and somebody talks more or eats or farts or some such.

[Transition.]

More stuff happens and...

Over and over. I won't even deal with the transitions in a draft. I just stick in a placeholder for it.

The other thing that used to drive me nuts is making new characters. A lot of people love doing that; I don't unless it's a main character. The others are a pain in my butt. I finally made some one page Myers-Briggs cheat sheets for future character creation so I can just highlight 3 positive and 3 negative qualities and know it'll be coherent.

[Maps]

I hate being desperate to dig myself out of slow parts. It makes me not proud of the slow chapters and feel like I’m rushed.
Or not ending on a sort of note that makes people excited or curious for the next chapter.
But writer’s block is obviously the worst. I usually always have a point I’m to reach, but getting there can sometimes leave me staring at my screen with no motivation.

[silverraven0]

...English grammar. And finding the right words to not make them repetitive. And finding words to make sure I didn't misinterpreted the word I was going to use. And finding words when I forget what they're called...

Yeah, like that. Ahahahahahahahahahahaha...

[WriterLinXiaolong]

Correcting grammar, finding other vocabulary, when I'm stuck in an awkward scene like papapa scene cough

As for posting... I used to get annoyed with posting in tapas since I had to check the whole document again to put italics. Luckily, there's a workaround for it!

[Drewbie]

Every time I'm writing I get the feeling that I'm not connecting with my characters deep enough and that they are all seeming too similar. Also sometimes when a character is like "Wow they're sexy" while looking at another character I have to check it out over and over to make sure there is a decent amount of respect and its not just objectifying one of my characters

[Penni]

Making sure everything flows together and I didn't miss something. I try to have outlines now but sometimes I deviate from them. So then I get paranoid that I forgot some detail that will mess up the whole story

[Niharika]

I use a word, and then start doubting whether I'm using the word in the right context. I know the word. I know I know the word, but I still check the dictionary anyway.

[senefer91]

What I gave trouble with? Well, maybe romance but that is mostly because I am a very unromantic person and no amount of romantic music can change that. I often takes the route by writing people and situations first, then I go oh, these two have really good chemistry, let's try a romance. With other words I rarely write a story with romance in mind but add it in if I notice that there is an opening for it.
And sex scenes… I am just plain horrible. Going in like, "then they had sex." Often I just skip the part. I am the personification of fade to black. Well, it has become a point of mine to write out sex scenes if only because I often write BxB. I started because I wanted to write about the romance between men as all that I have read focus on the sex part. It became more like a porno than an actual romance.
I don't really have a problem with worldbuilding as that is my strongest suit and as an advice, write the world before you start your book. That makes it easier. Especially characters. If you just go on fantasy or inspiration, whatever you call it, then you will encounter the infamous writer block sooner or later. I have never encountered it myself but I know several people who has a hard time with it, most of the time its because they haven't really planned and structured the story in a good way.

A good thing to always ask yourself questions, write out how the character's personality is then ask yourself why? Is it genes? from who? If not, then what happen to make the character this way? Create a picture of the characters childhood and ask yourself how this would affect a person growing up.

You are writing a murder, all the clues are fine but ask yourself why did the murderer do it? Why is everyone reacting the way they do.

Writing about a war, why is there a war? Why are the character fighting it? How has it changed him/her?

Writing a romance, Why did they fall in love? Is it because they are the same? They are different? Do they change each other? How? Should they stay together? If yes, or no, why?

Asking questions also works great to get rid of writer's block. It helps you lose up the knots and start writing again. Back away for a while and look at the whole story, then you might see what your story is lacking.

These are some of my advice, sorry for making it so long

[nostalgicroxas]

Formatting. **** formatting so hard right in the gullet. Do I tab, do I go in five spaces, do I do an extra space between paragraphs? Do I do that extra space AND the tab? Can I do visual tricks with spaces that work with spaces on word that will translate to the website's uploading process? So many questions.

Like one of my favorite tricks is spacing a word out across the page and bolding or italicing it. Which is fine if the site can translate each space into the correct HTML character of "a non breaking space" shorthand, which 99% of them don't do. Heck, even Discord is like "you put five spaces !!! Truncates to one!" or "you put this hyphen five times. IT SHALL BE ONEEEEE ONE TO RULE THEM ALLLLLL"

When it's just in my word document software:

I am god.

.
When it's out in the wild on the web, I am not. Take that "." just above? I had to put that there because the coding for underneath a heading which is proceeded by ## is that no matter how many paragraphs you make, if they're empty, they don't exist. So you have to put a character for the programming to make the new paragraph. Just. TABLEFLIP. All day long.

[Jophiel]

Starting the story or day.

I'm not gonna lie, my main story happened to have four different revisions of the prologue since 2015 and I never finished either version. The old link of my comic's summary at Smackjeeves and Comicfury haunts me.

[jaycasky]

My least favorite part is how my writing turns super depressing when all I want is a happy ending.

[ivanskilling]

If I haven't written for a while, it takes me time to get back in the writing zone. And it's frustrating when I want to write, I know what to write, but the words just don't flow.

[Niharika]

Oh, I know that one. Everything in the real world seems to affect the world you're creating.

[Niharika]

I know. Sometimes I just want to say hell with it and let my character ogle them and describe the other character's physical charms in great detail. Then I wonder if that would be weird. because there are times in real life when you see a person who seems extraordinarily handsome/beautiful to you. You get fixated on little things about them that seem unreasonably beautiful, and you think... if this person asked me out, I would not be able to say no.

That happens in real life, doesn't it? Or has people-watching driven me mad?

Story time: I remember seeing a guy at a temple once (sacrilege!). He wasn't really noticed by anyone else. But I saw him, all in white, praying diligently while I was being a creeper. There was nothing special about him, and I can't even remember his face anymore or what made him seem so special, but it was like being stopped in my tracks by a glass wall. Then I moved on, pretended to pray to God and left, ignoring him because I'm not weird. At least, not intentionally.

[Niharika]

thank you for making it so long!