Progressing as a Writer Improvement, generally speaking, is something that will come with time and practice. But often it's something we aren't aware of as it's happening. Just like how when you're losing weight, people who see you every day might not notice for awhile. But when you bump into someone you haven't seen in weeks, the change is immediately noticeable. I know some people have told me they're more here for the roleplaying aspects than the writing aspects. If that's the case, then their progression might be more focused on things like character development, interaction with others, and so forth. And while those things are part of what I try to develop here, I also have a definite focus on the writing process itself. I consider the posts I write here to be practice for fiction writing. I'm going to college for a degree in Writing Arts, and I hope (one day, who knows) to be a professional writer. Whether it be in publishing my own fiction, or in writing for a magazine, journal, or some other forum. Based on this, I tend to analyze certain aspects of my writing. Things I think I'm good at, things I think I'm bad at. And whether I've improved in some areas. I think some of my strengths are deep character development, strong characterization, portrayal of emotions, dialogue, action, and attention to detail. I think some of my weaknesses are lack of describing the setting or a character's appearance (the things I describe, I have good attention to detail, but often I don't describe enough of what's around a character), losing the flow of the story when bogged down in technical details (ie, I might write a very technically accurate blacksmithing scene, but feel the story becomes uninteresting), and a lack of vivid imagery and use of simile and metaphor (for example, when I threaded with Aello, she included lots of prose and beautiful descriptions that painted a poetic scene, which is an area I feel my own writing lacking in). There are some times I bring out those areas I'm lacking in, when I'm specifically focused on them. For example Tock's Coma Dream is a post that I think makes strong use of some of the things I just said I was lacking. But I don't feel it comes out in my writing often enough. On the other hand, I definitely think I've made improvements over the past months. One particular area is in the use of my Animation magic. From the beginning, it's been something I felt I needed to develop into a certain style. There were very very few prior Animators on the site (most of my searching only found people who started with the magic in their Starting Package, but then never used it. I've only been able to find one or two examples of Animation actually being used in a thread prior to when I started Tock). As I've progressed with the magic, I've changed my techniques a bit, and started including some things I didn't used to. Part of this has come from input from ST graders, some from reading, re-reading, and re-re-reading the Lore every time I Animate something, in order to work on improving. And part of it has simply come from my own ideas evolving over time. My most recent attempt at Animation was, in-character, an utter failure. But as a writer, I felt I did a good job with it. Jumping past the other aspects of that thread (which involved Tock doing some very very bad things to people who didn't deserve it), and focusing just on the Animation process itself, I wrote about 2300 words. I went into a lot of deep detail about every memory Tock was transferring, and the process of how she was building concepts off each other, tying the different teaching together into a more cohesive whole (setting aside the fact that the Animation itself was, in the end, a broken failure). I even feel like I could have gone into more detail here, except that it was written to BE a failure, for the sake of the story. By comparison, there's one of the first "competent level" Automatons I made, back in June. While the overall assembly and construction in that thread was a good 2200 words, the Animation process itself was only 900. Now, length by itself isn't always important. If the writing is good and the detail is strong, a shorter work can be just fine. But I don't feel that's the case here. I re-read that post today, as I often do with my Automatons to remind myself all the details I put into them. I was very dissatisfied with it. I don't think I put enough detail into the programming. I don't think I spent enough time describing exactly what Tock was teaching him. Of course, "Eyes" (as I named the Automaton in my oft-scoffed naming style), while 'Competent' in his programming level, is a very simple device. All he is really designed to do is move his lenses into place, and hold stuff for Tock. Because he's so simple, he doesn't really NEED a lot, compared to say, Handy. But even then, when I look back on Eyes' creation, I feel like I could have done better. I feel like I could have gone into more detail, and "taught him more". I'm planning another Automaton soon in fall. And I'm planning to put a great deal more detail into this one. I won't feel satisfied with my progression as a writer or an Animator unless I improve on my previous efforts. I've learned a lot since I started (I refuse to link the VERY first Animation thread I did because I feel it is utter crap). And I feel I need to constantly work on improvement, learn from past mistakes, and ensure each new creation is better than the last. |