Anxious writer asking if their writings any good.

[Garapheater]

I'm still reasonably new to the writing world when it comes to doing it myself using my own imagination. Sorry if this doesn't fit here its taken me a while to post something like this due to my anxiety but I want to be able to write so much. This is a small snippet of what I'm writing at the moment, I'm wondering if this is any good or if I'm just a shite writer like my anxiety makes me think. sorry if I misunderstood this part of the forum.

 

 

The girl gets tossed over to the mother who whispers to the daughter “it's all going to be okay just stay quiet and let us adults talk this over”, the girl grasps her mother tightly ,afraid. The four people stand at the other side of the room muttering to each other out of earshot of the daughter and mother, the four turn around staring at the two. One of the women begins chuckling and says “ The girl is coming with us I'm afraid, since you have nothing worth the amount you owe us we will be taking your daughter as new inventory”. The mother, outraged, tries to escape her restraints but realizes she was tied down too well and just embraces her daughter for what might be the last time she can.

 

One of the men yanks the daughter away from her mother with little difficulty, putting her over his shoulder as she kicks and screams, demanding to be put down. The group grab the sacks they came in with and leave together leaving the mother crying defeated in the corner still tied down to the chair. The group leave the house, closing the door behind them as if nothing happened. Although everyone nearby heard the commotion no-one came to help in any way, the inhabitants of Lumicon Rong watch as the group walk away with the young girl and possessions of the home they left. 

 

The young girl watches as no one helps or even speaks a word of displeasure to the abductors, she thinks to herself realizing “no one cares... do they?”. People hardly glance in their direction, no matter how loudly she shouts. They pass an assortment of buildings on their way to a location the young girl had never seen before, what looks like a small castle wall with a few tall buildings behind it in the corner of the mountain range Lumicon Rong resides in. Within the twenty or so minutes it took the party to get there, not one person spoke out or even crossed the path of the abductors. It was as if no one could see or hear them, or maybe they feared what might come out of any conflict created.

 

As the group approaches the closed gate one of the women shouts loudly “oi swain, wake up”. The sound of a bottle being knocked over followed by a grunt comes from above the gate as an older gentleman's head appears. He acknowledges her with a nod and opens the gate, swiftly disappearing afterwards back behind the battlements of the wall. The young girl at this point has accepted what has happened to her and is awaiting whatever will come next, hoping for the best, expecting the worst.

[Frustration]

28 minutes ago, Garapheater said:

I'm still reasonably new to the writing world when it comes to doing it myself using my own imagination. Sorry if this doesn't fit here its taken me a while to post something like this due to my anxiety but I want to be able to write so much. This is a small snippet of what I'm writing at the moment, I'm wondering if this is any good or if I'm just a shite writer like my anxiety makes me think. sorry if I misunderstood this part of the forum.

Bro I feel the same way sometimes but I'll let you in on a secret

Spoiler

Now don't tell anyone

Spoiler

It's classified

Spoiler

Everyone, even the greats like Brandon and Tolkien, started out objectivly bad.

One of Brandon's writing buddies even commented after reading OB that he had forgotten that Brandon was actually a good writer.

The important thing isn't writing something good the first time.

It's writing something better than the last thing you wrote, NEVER GIVE UP.

 

 

 

[Garapheater]

1 minute ago, Frustration said:

Bro I feel the same way sometimes but I'll let you in on a secret

  Hide contents

Now don't tell anyone

  Hide contents

It's classified

  Hide contents

Everyone, even the greats like Brandon and Tolkien, started out objectivly bad.

One of Brandon's writing buddies even commented after reading OB that he had forgotten that Brandon was actually a good writer.

The important thing isn't writing something good the first time.

It's writing something better than the last thing you wrote, NEVER GIVE UP.

 

 

 

cheers this helps a surprising amount, I'm too anxious to show any mates or family members things I write.

[RedBlue]

If you’re looking for people to give you more serious critiques, I suggest checking out the Reading Excuses forum on this site. There’s a few of us who share our original work and give each other feedback. I have found it very helpful 

[Kaymyth]

Okay, I have maybe half an author credential crumpled in my back pocket; I've got a short story published and a weekly writing critique group I'm part of, so there's a halfway decent chance I know what I'm talking about. I'm going to take a moment to kick my imposter syndrome to the curb and chime in with opinion in three parts:

1. The kudos: You show a lot of promise as a writer. You've already got a good grasp of narrative flow, and you're demonstrating skill at painting a picture with words. These pieces are huge and, in some ways, the harder things to teach. You're clearly an avid reader, as it shows in your writing. You understand the feel of how writing words. That's invaluable.

2. The harshest truth: Writing is work. Growing as a writer is even more work. The old saying goes, "It takes at least a million words of crap in order to learn how to write well." And it's true. It's going to take time and a lot more words before you're writing at the level you want to be. But know that every single writer out there has done the same, and you have the spark. You can do it, if you've the will.

3. One thing to work on: I want to leave you with some concrete feedback without making you feel like I've picked your selection apart with a red pen, so I'm going to give you an assignment of one single thing you can improve: punctuation. Study up on your comma placement and, particularly, the correct punctuation to use around dialogue. It's an easy thing that you can learn that will give you immediate results. It's a small piece that will have a big impact on the overall look, flow, and polish of your writing.

Good on you for being brave and sharing your work! I know that first time can be hard, and getting any kind of criticism can be crushing for a newbie writer. So I have one final piece of bonus advice for you: keep sharing. Keep putting yourself out there. It's hard, I know, but the only way for any writer to grow is to take the feedback and use it to improve your writing. Because no matter how successful, every writer has been exactly where you are right now. All of us. Every single one. (And, in fact, some of us may well have started a lot further back!)

Even now, Brandon Sanderson himself will sometimes write something that turns out to be broken. He's shelved projects that didn't work. (See: Apocalypse Guard.) Good writers aren't born, they're grown.

Keep growing!

[Garapheater]

19 hours ago, Kaymyth said:

Okay, I have maybe half an author credential crumpled in my back pocket; I've got a short story published and a weekly writing critique group I'm part of, so there's a halfway decent chance I know what I'm talking about. I'm going to take a moment to kick my imposter syndrome to the curb and chime in with opinion in three parts:

1. The kudos: You show a lot of promise as a writer. You've already got a good grasp of narrative flow, and you're demonstrating skill at painting a picture with words. These pieces are huge and, in some ways, the harder things to teach. You're clearly an avid reader, as it shows in your writing. You understand the feel of how writing words. That's invaluable.

2. The harshest truth: Writing is work. Growing as a writer is even more work. The old saying goes, "It takes at least a million words of crap in order to learn how to write well." And it's true. It's going to take time and a lot more words before you're writing at the level you want to be. But know that every single writer out there has done the same, and you have the spark. You can do it, if you've the will.

3. One thing to work on: I want to leave you with some concrete feedback without making you feel like I've picked your selection apart with a red pen, so I'm going to give you an assignment of one single thing you can improve: punctuation. Study up on your comma placement and, particularly, the correct punctuation to use around dialogue. It's an easy thing that you can learn that will give you immediate results. It's a small piece that will have a big impact on the overall look, flow, and polish of your writing.

Good on you for being brave and sharing your work! I know that first time can be hard, and getting any kind of criticism can be crushing for a newbie writer. So I have one final piece of bonus advice for you: keep sharing. Keep putting yourself out there. It's hard, I know, but the only way for any writer to grow is to take the feedback and use it to improve your writing. Because no matter how successful, every writer has been exactly where you are right now. All of us. Every single one. (And, in fact, some of us may well have started a lot further back!)

Even now, Brandon Sanderson himself will sometimes write something that turns out to be broken. He's shelved projects that didn't work. (See: Apocalypse Guard.) Good writers aren't born, they're grown.

Keep growing!

Cheers for the lovely response it helps a lot, your totally correct about the punctuation part, I failed English in secondary school due to that mostly (I still try my best with it though). The part I have been stuck on for a few week on is a conversation between two characters because I'm not exactly the most outgoing bloke in the world because of my severe anxiety the only people I really speak to are close friends and family. sorry if I'm ranting nonsense now I'm truly grateful for the response <3 

[Kaymyth]

57 minutes ago, Garapheater said:

Cheers for the lovely response it helps a lot, your totally correct about the punctuation part, I failed English in secondary school due to that mostly (I still try my best with it though). The part I have been stuck on for a few week on is a conversation between two characters because I'm not exactly the most outgoing bloke in the world because of my severe anxiety the only people I really speak to are close friends and family. sorry if I'm ranting nonsense now I'm truly grateful for the response <3 

With punctuation, it really comes down to memorizing a bunch of rules. It's annoying and dull, but that's the only way to learn it. Take notes, make a cheat sheet, whatever works for you.

This is one piece where having a writing group can be really useful, but only if you have the right group of people. Ideally, you want folks who all have different strengths and weaknesses, so you each have something to contribute to the others. And y'know, even when you're good at a thing, sometimes you'll make a mistake. In my group, we're constantly fixing each other's grammar/spelling/punctuation all over the place.

I have been told that dialogue in particular is difficult to get right, and that I'm freakishly good at writing it, so I'll share the trick I use to get mine smooth. Even if you don't talk to a lot of people, I assume you watch at least some TV/movies, right? I tend to imagine my characters on the screen. I visualize them, build the scene, and run them through it in my head over and over, working the scene until I have the emotions right, the movements, and the conversation. Once I have it sorted, well, I just write what I've pictured. It works well for me, though as always, your mileage may vary.

[Channelknight Fadran]

Huh. Present-tense writing. Don't see that often.

You seem to have a more poetic writing style than what's generally accepted today. That's definitely not a bad thing, though; it just means that if you ever want an audience then it's gonna be a little niche.

That said, I'm not very well-versed with this kind of style. I can try to give feedback if you want but not right off the top of my head.

[Mystic Syn]

Looking at it right now, it's a really good start! But this I will tell you: No matter what, your own writing will not be as great in your eyes as it is in another's eyes. Heck, I'm still trying to come to terms that people actually like my writing and want to see more of it, and I've been "professionally" I ain't no professional when it comes to anything, especially with writing, thus the quotation marks writing for the past five-ish years or so.

Now, on to my feedback~

It's honestly been a while since I've seen someone use the present-tense writing, and you are doing a good job doing it! I also like how creative you got with names; then again, I am not always creative when it comes to names, so I can be easily impressed by that lol. I'm the person who will either smash down on the keyboard and look for names through that mess, or just look up some words over Google Translate and pick the ones I like the best; all of those can be viable options for you, if you want to do that. I don't care if you use them, because they weren't originally my ideas.

I also love how your writing flows! Especially when you're new at writing, it can be hard to learn how to make your writing flow like a stream down a mountain pass. but you've got a good idea and grasp of it and I can't wait to see what it becomes! All it comes to is practice. Everything requires that, and writing isn't excluded. You can't just pick up the pen and start writing like a god. I hate to break it to you, but we're all human, and no matter what we do, we make mistakes. Writing is not a perfect process, but you can learn from it as time goes on and you have a better grasp of what it is.

 

I think that's good for now. If you really want, I have a whole topic with some of my general tips about writing and whatnot that I will link because I can get more into depth about my process when it comes to writing, if you wanna look at that. Again, I am not a professional, but these are my opinions and experiences of what I've done and learned over the years that I've been writing.

Spoiler

Here it is, hopefully it'll work~