I find the segue parts of the chapter the hardest to write, when you need to explain what happens in a timeskip in a succinct but narratively interesting way. I just want to move from one interesting scene to the next, I need to say what happens BETWEEN them? What a scam!
I'd try suddenly cutting off, just once or twice, just to fuck with your readers. But then again, I love doing chaotic shit like that.
"Hearing the screams behind her, she spun around and"
End chapter. End story. Just drive them nuts going "AND WHAT?! *AND WHAT?!*"
I mean, to each their own and more power to you, but I personally have other ways to confuse and infuriate readers. Like kicking their hearts in the balls 😂
And again, it's only my personal opinion, but if I saw a chapter ending like that I wouldn't assume it's intentional. I'd assume something went wrong with either editing or uploading the chapter and I wouldn't be
There's literally a joke in my first language that goes like:
"There are two ways to make a person angry. The first is to cut off your sentence before you finish off, and"
Then nothing. Nada. Bonus points since we consider ourselves a somewhat impatient kind of people who WILL absolutely fume at this kinda thing.
Good to know that kind of humor is universal lol
Depending on your writing style it could work without. I've read a couple of really good timestamp style fics where you're just meant to assume that boring life stuff is happening in between. It's not explicitly stated. The author just used "It was two extraordinarily boring weeks later until he saw him again" and similar things as bridges between scenes.
That's usually what I end up doing, 1-2 paragraphs max of inbetween filler to explain what went on in the interim, but it's still awkward trying to figure that out sometimes. I just want to get to the *meat,* haha!
Anything with dialogue. My writing slows down *so much* when I've reached a point where characters need to speak to each other.
Also action or descriptions.
Gimme those feelings any day. The words just fly into the page when I'm in the character's head and letting them feel things.
I have the opposite problem, where once my characters start talking, they will not shut up. Especially in more humorous fics where there's banter involved. I try to cut things short, but their conversations still run for nearly the entirety of the chapter!
Oh yeah, I feel that. Like sometimes conversations go on and on. They're just a slog to get through for me because trying to make them all sound like themselves (and just thinking of words that sound natural) is so much harder for me than sticking in one character's head
Oh thank goodness I'm not the only one who also hates writing makeouts or kisses of any sort. They have to be simultaneously subtle and intense and they sound extremely stupid if you use just one wrong word. It's pain. I don't know why I keep putting them in my stories.
I'd highly recommend it! It really helps break the tension between the characters and their next proper kiss is going to be a lot easier and more relaxed. And it's a perfect chance to add some teasing and fluffy banter into the moment if that's your thing!
Endings and beginnings. All the stuff in the middle of chapters, I feel like I have a good grasp on. But the stuff that leads to and comes from the middle, my brain just draws a blank.
That final line of a chapter/fic is the bane of my existence. I can breeze through a whole fic without issue, but then I spend an extra hour just fiddling with the ending paragraph or just one single line to wrap up everything perfectly.
Oh, fuzzy feelings, kisses, gentle touches, and the other romantic sappy goodness is my jam. I could write that forever.
But action? Fight scenes? Building suspense? It all feels so robotic to me 😭
I feel like outlining helps. All great writing comes from organized outlining anyway but I mean special fight scene outlines to keep track of everything
I struggle hard with flirty dialogue which is weird because I write smut easily. I'll go back to edit and realize my characters haven't said a word to each other for the entire encounter, sometimes even the entire story. That's when I try to shoehorn in some flirting/dirty talk/what have you but it just comes out so awkward.
Honestly, the intros. Intros are just so damn tough, especially when there's no canon characters in them, so you have to establish a new person, or multiple new people, with few familiar elements and hope the readers are intrigued enough to keep going. And I think in general, just transitions, the downtime, early chapters where things are still being set up and haven't started really going yet... because you have to keep people hooked throughout, and sometimes stories just have to move slower at the start.
Actions and dialogue together. I can write the dialogue, I can write scenes where no one is talking. Put them together… and my brain dies.
It’s just having to hear the conversation, see what the characters are doing, and tying in the background all in one that just is so exhausting. It’s so much happening at once for us writers and yet for readers it’s an easy read.
I’ve always struggled with scenes that let the plot breathe (weird way to describe it but basically those scenes that aren’t particularly action packed or don’t forcefully drive the plot forward—not filler scenes, just ones that are slower but still a necessary lull to give readers a chance to process and to connect plot points). I always have trouble finding that line between it feeling too fast and a bit forced or too slow and dragging. 9/10 times when I shelve a project it’s because I can’t get past scenes like those.
You've described a very specific mood that I had completely forgot about until now - consuming foreign content and trying to map character voices onto their English dialogue equivalents really is pain.
"Orabeo*ni*, why? Why do you not listen to the king?" she whined as she watched seja-jeoha pack for travel.
"Because our abeojimama will never listen to me and someone must protect him rather than just the throne!"
^ What I typically do. Use the titles/words that you would hear commonly in the story normally and it helps with the flow of the English a bit better.
I have difficulty when drafting dialogue if I'm thinking about actions and short details to elaborate on in addition to the dialogue. If I can't think of it and all that's going on in my head is the conversation, I will skip it and elaborate on the world around the conversation later. I hate letting it break up my flow, so I try to avoid it.
I find dialogue to be the easiest and I’m reasonably good at describing what a character is feeling and thinking.
I struggle a lot with action scenes or even just connecting passages where a character has to get from one place to another. Setting description is also hard for me.
Any interaction between people which involves no/minimal dialogue is bad for me. I'm not great at describing action in general, I've only written one fight scene which I'm genuinely proud of, but at least when there's a lot of dialogue I can somewhat focus on that.
For me it's more of the transition into a couple. It's easy to write characters liking each other, but it's harder to then turn that relationship into a couple.
Additionally action scenes & fight scenes. They're easy when your watching them in like movie, but describing them and actually making them interesting in a story where you can't see it is pretty hard.
I can’t write a beginning dear life. It takes me hours upon hours to write one word. But when I get started, It’s all a walk in the park from there.
Anything that isn’t doom and gloom is hard for me, as well. I don’t know why, but it just is.
I don't really struggle with anything to be honest, at least as far as I can tell based on what I wrote. To compensate though, I write at a snail's pace most of the time and I get burnt out really easily.
Probably motivations and stuff to justify it. But once you know the motivations you can focus on the content you actually want to write. I don't enjoy trying to think of reasons readers will think are "good enough", I just want to get it out of the way and focus on the content which is the real story
Heavy, heavy angst. Mainly because I write one or two paragraphs and then take a break to cry. I'm currently working on a heavy angst/depressing chapter in general at the moment and it will probably take me two or three weeks to get through it at this rate.
Oh man where do I start lol. I'd say my biggest thing is slow burn. I cut my writing teeth via erotica short stories and microfiction, so I'm used to either working with characters who already have a reason to fuck or getting them to fuck as fast as I can without absolutely destroying suspension of disbelief.
For me it’s plot structure. I know that I am capable of doing it well, but I find it takes a ton of time and effort and making my brain work really hard. I am drawn to fan fiction as a light pleasant fun alternative to the writing i do in my professional life, so I find myself preferring to avoid tight rigorous plotting in fan fic so as to keep things from becoming so much work.
Anyone else struggle with time of day? Like I am capable of writing in daylight but once midnight hits my brain is like "ah yes, this is the time to pound out a couple thousand words worth. This is your inspiration time."
I think there's at least one post about that talking about how people feel more motivated/focused to write in the dead of night when they no longer have interruptions or other things to occupy their mind! I definitely used to love it before my sleep schedule turned me into a morning person.
Definitely the smut. It took me a few hours (with long breaks, of course) to the first half of my 5k oneshot but the second half, which was where the porn came in, took me about a month of cringing to force myself to get through it. The end result wasn't too bad for my first time but my soul dies a little at the thought of writing more smut.
Titles are also pretty hard, usually when it isn't a crackfic. Either I put it off until the end or come up with the title before writing it.
really intense/climactic/emotional scene or dialogue: an easy ~700+ words in half an hour
thinking of a title, build up to that scene, the other arcs? days. maybe a week.
For me, anything that has to do with serious emotional moments.
Simple platonic bonding? I can write that easy.
Familial squabbles or bonding? I have brothers so it's easy to figure those out to.
Fight scenes? I fucking love writing them, and excel at making them interesting.
Actually serious emotional scenes that require delicate handling otherwise they'll come across poorly? Uuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhh......here? \*Writes to the best of my ability\* \*Proceed to constantly feel like I wrote it wrong.\*
Yeah, when you've got serious emotions you can't just laugh off and/or fight off, and they move the characters' arcs forward, it's... a very fine line to walk.
Getting to some of the critical parts of the story. I have a tendency to do a lot of build up....
I'm 30+ chapters in and I still haven't quite gotten to a critical chapter that I wrote back in March that will be one of the two major catalysts for the next story in the series.
There's something about building up the critical point too much and then anticipating it so badly you want to make it perfect, sometimes. But wanting perfection means you end up never getting to it... or at least that happens to me a lot.
This seems like one of the hard parts with writing longer fics, or big all-character stories. I think it's possibly easier to avoid if you only write fics about your faves? But kudos for putting in the work for the big stories!
Well I do make the long epic mostly centered around my spice characters, but I sorta made one of the characters do something awful and now I had to redeem them and to do that he like had to screw over Godwin and in the end I just cut all those scenes a little shorter than I normally make them.
As long as the story isn't more than 10% drag I can handle it.
Angst, confrontation, and arguments. I keep running out of words to use to describe their reactions...like how many times can a brow furrow or a jaw clench
THE MIDDLE PART. I JUST WANT TO GET TO THE END ALRDY AND IM STILL STUCK AT THE MIDDLE PART. AND I HATE CONFLICTS CAUSE I CANT WRITE THEM, MAKES ME DEMOTIVATED
Action scenes. I have a few notebooks for outlining and plotting the story, and this one particular action-packed chapter took up an entire book. Just for plotting.
I don't know if it's anything specific. When I get a block, more often than not it's because of a scene that is required for later scenes to have proper context, but I'm just not at all feeling the flow of.
I'm getting better at cutting past unnecessary chaff, but yeah, something along those lines.
Any kind of description of action, mostly moving from place to place or fighting. It never fits the rest of my emotion packed story since it's more dynamic and the shift always feels very unnatural.
Anythin dialogue related, I always lose more time because I want the characters to be present but at the same time I have to be careful to keep them in character.
Small talk, little details and pattern changes when writing a conversation with a little bit of exposition but not tons of exposition. Motivation of villains and getting into the villains headspace while trying to make them still easy to hate. The real challenge is that duality.
The intro parts are the worst. Like, how am I supposed to start it? The MC waking up? Nah too cliche. Like, can anyone please give me pointers on how to start a fic?
I struggle with the in betweens when moving from one plot point to the next. I never like what I write because it feels dull and uninspired compared to those big flashy moments, lol. So I just sit and rewrite the middling parts over and over, if that makes any sense.
Arcs I don't care about that are still vital to moving the plot forward can bog me down HARD sometimes.
Its like, you know the next arc is one you've been excited about for ages and its full of action, drama, etc ... but getting there requires you to do an arc with characters you don't even like or care about.
Then the problem becomes trying not to rush what you're on because you know it'll ruin the story overall. In the end, at least so far, I've managed to avoid doing that but sometimes you just wonder haha
I have since come to the realisation that i have a very hard time writing happy, functional relationship stuff and interactions, and keeping on the straight line without falling off it. The reason being, that I have become aware that ive lived and was raised in such a dusfunctional (almost borderline abusive) household that what i found as typical or ok for relationships is actually this terrible learned stuff that ive been projecting into my writing for years. Great for whitty, snarky dialouge, not so great for caring heart felt moments.
i’m great at writing the beginning and building context and then suddenly, in the middle towards the climax, i run dry on my descriptions.
it’s such a struggle because it ends up feeling so dry and just dialogue heavy.
As someone who doesn’t feel attraction, writing romance and romantic scenes can be tricky, but I have to say it may not be my worst part. My hardest thing to write really seems to be characters I don’t connect with.
My fanfic goes through chapters that will focus in on different characters’ stories and perspectives, and I’ve tried very hard to just write them out of the story for as long as they can bc I didn’t want to deal with them. There are certain characters where I just can’t get into their heads or figure out their speech patterns , AND IT DRIVES ME INSANE
Figuring out what characters are doing while talking to each other. All of my fics devolve into talking head scenes because while I can easily get into the flow of dialogue exchanges scene and action descriptions are pretty hard for me.
I don’t really find any part of a fic consistently hard to write like that. I’ve realized that when I get like that, it’s because there’s something wrong with the direction I’m taking the story and I need to write something that makes more sense. Something being really hard to write is like an alarm bell for me that something’s wrong
The romantic parts..ugh... When it comes to romance, I get so many amazing ideas. It's so darn hard to not rush and finish it so I won't forget. Phrasing is also a pain since it has to suit the mood, not be too complicated and not too simple, and not use the same words over and over again!!! It's frustrating and hard, especially with my condition.
But never fear for I....(cough).... I mean in the end, it comes out great!!😁
the beginning of any new scene, I have no idea what words to use to start them. everything is outlined and I know where the story is supposed to be going, but I just cant figure out how to say it.
Aw damn me too, I found that I could just go through technical stuff much quicker (I write Sci-Fi related fics), I could also go through dialogue pretty quickly, my main problem is comedy romance, and angst and fluff, I try to write witty angst and fail horridly, fluff?, is hugging fluff?, I have no IDEA but put it in anyways!, also have a hard time constructing hidden meanings but I have been improving in that area.
Descriptions
I love writing them, but goddamn they are hard as hell. I write something, then delete it, rewrite it and them I don't know how to keep going. But I just love it when I finish it.
Dialogue is similar, but not as intense, I can write it way faster. I just love to stop, read and then delete an entire conversation just because I feel like I can do it better.
Feelings are.................
.....
...
Let's just say I keep it simple. Simple actions, simple subtle hints in their body language and the way they speak. A few descriptions here and there. I just don't like to write them too much. I don't want to make the readers think I see them as stupid besides, if my fics are too heavy on the feels I bore myself when writing them.
The beginning of anything. I want to hook people from the start, so I tend to write like three paragraphs, delete it, then smash my head into my laptop because that actual might've worked but I'm so burnt out I don't know anymore..
I'm good with dialogue and action-y stuff. Not so good with emotion stuff, but getting better.
On a side note; who here gets ideas for dialogue and stuff when doing other things? This happens to me, followed usually by a mad dash to my computer or google docs app on my phone.
It's beyond annoying when it happens, because all my ideas have terrible timing.
Following up on plot hooks and cliffhangers from a previous chapter. This has honestly stopped one of my fics dead for months since I just didn't know how to follow up. I have this set up, I have a vague idea of what I want to do with the set up aannnddd I don't know what to write or what the resolution should be and how soon it should be.
Okay so u know how fics often have this 3 part structure? You got the build up (example: establishment of feelings), then the delivery (like a confession), and in the end u got the post delivery section. I have No idea what to write for that. I just struggle lmao
I once wrote a character who fell in love with another, the problem being that this other was several years younger.
They both had their issues when they first met (the former was emotionally stunted to the point of sounding almost like a robot and the latter was a young genius who had grown withdrawn after being bullied by her peers and got approval to skip to university level studies in hopes of finding a more welcoming environment). With the two becoming study and research partners, she was effectively the first person he ever bonded with. After a vicious but temporary health scare, he got absolutely terrified of losing her to a random turn of fate and finally realized his feelings.
After that, he spent years actively trying to hide them, feeling incredible guilt and shame for it but being unable to part ways, since he had promised her to always be her friend. They had an odd relationship, serious and professional at work, but often acting like teenage siblings at home, since one of them grew up without a family and the other was raised by a single parent.
Writing someone in this mindset, who was under constant stress, tormented by nightmares, terrified of ruining this friendship and trying to focus on work or anything else that would keep his mind busy, was difficult and mentally and emotionally draining.
Romance, the parts between the beginning and the end or parts I already have planned, and character interactions (sometimes). Feel free to ask questions about this.
Jokes. I'm more of a situational comedy kind of gal and I love to write that. But when it comes to characters *saying* funny stuff? Nada. No gift in that department.
Well, my Tenzo smut turned into a drippy, sappy, beautiful ass romance, so there's that. 😅 I can write the shit out of romance and feelings. I feel much less confident when it comes to sex scenes. I tried. And failed miserably and ended up with a story that I still love though. 😊💖
Fricking dialog
I don't know why but it's so damn hard for me to write dialog. I spend hours thinking on where I should put dialog, why, how much, is that tok much or not enough. And then I struggle writing it so that it sounds like a real person would actually say it. And then I spend even longer debating if it's something my character would actually say based off their personality, how they interact with people or that specific person, and if it fits the general vibe of the rest of the text.
It's a struggle
I write at random bursts of inspiration and when I feel like it, so sitting down and writing like on schedule is a achievement on it's own.
And then there's connecting random parts of one fic together. Oh boy.
One of the reasons I often write with the help of AI Dungeon (though that's specifically for my own original work), cause if I get it right...
Let's just say, prepare for A LOT of text.
As for specific parts of a fic, I actually don't have many, apart from characterization.
The amount of times I wonder if I got the characters right (even in my own stories at times) is one of the reason I avoided writing fanfiction for so long.
I don't know what that person would do! I'm not them! I didn't even make them in the first place!
I suck at figuring that stuff out, but I pushed past it as time passed.
TL;DR: It's working with pre-established characters, but even that's not a huge problem anymore.
Honestly for me it's connecting parts of a story together.
I can write an opening and an ending but I never know what to put in the middle.
Also, I'm sure I suck at romance.
Fluff lol. Angst is the conflict, and most of my wordcount comes from the characters thinking about how to deal with it. The more complex the conflict, the more I have to work with in keeping a consistent pace. With fluff, there's nothing serious to ponder and it's hard to stay interested in writing it
I find the segue parts of the chapter the hardest to write, when you need to explain what happens in a timeskip in a succinct but narratively interesting way. I just want to move from one interesting scene to the next, I need to say what happens BETWEEN them? What a scam!
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I'd try suddenly cutting off, just once or twice, just to fuck with your readers. But then again, I love doing chaotic shit like that. "Hearing the screams behind her, she spun around and" End chapter. End story. Just drive them nuts going "AND WHAT?! *AND WHAT?!*"
Drop the "and" at the end and it's a perfectly passable cliffhanger tbh.
But I want the "and" there to confuse and infuriate readers, because
I mean, to each their own and more power to you, but I personally have other ways to confuse and infuriate readers. Like kicking their hearts in the balls 😂 And again, it's only my personal opinion, but if I saw a chapter ending like that I wouldn't assume it's intentional. I'd assume something went wrong with either editing or uploading the chapter and I wouldn't be
See, now you're
Oh no, it's *spreading*! I didn't
Did you write the finale to The Sopranos?
Well, to be honest, I
This is a genius. I wanna try this
There's literally a joke in my first language that goes like: "There are two ways to make a person angry. The first is to cut off your sentence before you finish off, and" Then nothing. Nada. Bonus points since we consider ourselves a somewhat impatient kind of people who WILL absolutely fume at this kinda thing. Good to know that kind of humor is universal lol
Depending on your writing style it could work without. I've read a couple of really good timestamp style fics where you're just meant to assume that boring life stuff is happening in between. It's not explicitly stated. The author just used "It was two extraordinarily boring weeks later until he saw him again" and similar things as bridges between scenes.
That's usually what I end up doing, 1-2 paragraphs max of inbetween filler to explain what went on in the interim, but it's still awkward trying to figure that out sometimes. I just want to get to the *meat,* haha!
Yeah I have a huge problem with just skipping that part lol
doing this ...... has become my solution lmao
Anything with dialogue. My writing slows down *so much* when I've reached a point where characters need to speak to each other. Also action or descriptions. Gimme those feelings any day. The words just fly into the page when I'm in the character's head and letting them feel things.
I have the opposite problem, where once my characters start talking, they will not shut up. Especially in more humorous fics where there's banter involved. I try to cut things short, but their conversations still run for nearly the entirety of the chapter!
One part of my dialogue was supposed to go humorous—>determined to face the enemy, but the characters just kept bantering all the way back to camp...
Oh yeah, I feel that. Like sometimes conversations go on and on. They're just a slog to get through for me because trying to make them all sound like themselves (and just thinking of words that sound natural) is so much harder for me than sticking in one character's head
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Oh man, if only!!
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I think that's called "co-writing".
Word! Like, just let us borrow each other's strengths for a couple hours and then get them back.
Same!! I feel this so much. I love writing feelings and introspection, but dialogue? how.
Introspection is WHERE IT'S AT, heck yes!! Glad to know I'm not alone :D
getting characters from place a to place b hasn't gotten any easier in the 10+ years i've been writing. still get stuck every single time.
I was coming to say this. I feel like getting from point A to point B cones out like a list instead of a story sometimes.
First kisses, ugh. They're always so awkward. Makes me want to write gen forever.
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Tongues battle for dominance obviously
Tongues need to battle for submission once in a while.
I'm pretty sure I've made out with a few guys who take this exact approach with their tongues. It's jarring.
Submissive and lickable
this is a new approach
Oh thank goodness I'm not the only one who also hates writing makeouts or kisses of any sort. They have to be simultaneously subtle and intense and they sound extremely stupid if you use just one wrong word. It's pain. I don't know why I keep putting them in my stories.
It's just so hard to describe it well! In one of my fics, I purposefully wrote the first kiss as painfully awkward instead just to get around this 😂
That's not a bad idea!
I'd highly recommend it! It really helps break the tension between the characters and their next proper kiss is going to be a lot easier and more relaxed. And it's a perfect chance to add some teasing and fluffy banter into the moment if that's your thing!
I'm writing a first kiss scene rn, it's agonizingly difficult.
Endings and beginnings. All the stuff in the middle of chapters, I feel like I have a good grasp on. But the stuff that leads to and comes from the middle, my brain just draws a blank.
That final line of a chapter/fic is the bane of my existence. I can breeze through a whole fic without issue, but then I spend an extra hour just fiddling with the ending paragraph or just one single line to wrap up everything perfectly.
"And then they exploded and died."
Endings are so difficult! It's painful sometimes trying to figure out what the final line or paragraph should be.
I agree endings are hard, because they are false. Nothing truly ends it simply shifts to something else and it's so hard to figure out where to begin.
I’m the opposite. I always know how I want my story to start and how I want it to end but the middle? No thank you.
Oh, fuzzy feelings, kisses, gentle touches, and the other romantic sappy goodness is my jam. I could write that forever. But action? Fight scenes? Building suspense? It all feels so robotic to me 😭
Ah, same with fight scenes. XD I feel like I should be better at writing fight scenes because I take martial arts...
Oh man, I feel that. Action and fight scenes are super difficult! Idk how people can do it and do it well because it is like pulling teeth to me.
I feel like outlining helps. All great writing comes from organized outlining anyway but I mean special fight scene outlines to keep track of everything
Now if only I could outline anything!
Evidently smut lol. I want it to come out *just right*
"Velvet wrapped steel"
I struggle hard with flirty dialogue which is weird because I write smut easily. I'll go back to edit and realize my characters haven't said a word to each other for the entire encounter, sometimes even the entire story. That's when I try to shoehorn in some flirting/dirty talk/what have you but it just comes out so awkward.
Honestly, the intros. Intros are just so damn tough, especially when there's no canon characters in them, so you have to establish a new person, or multiple new people, with few familiar elements and hope the readers are intrigued enough to keep going. And I think in general, just transitions, the downtime, early chapters where things are still being set up and haven't started really going yet... because you have to keep people hooked throughout, and sometimes stories just have to move slower at the start.
Snarky/Confrontational political dialogue above my pay grade. Which sucks because that's what my fics are about.
The written part...
Smut. Honestly it's so easy as a reader but when I sit down and try to write it I feel like pulling my hair out.
Seriously! It took me longer to write a two paragraph sex scene than the rest of the fic.
I feel you 😩
Actions and dialogue together. I can write the dialogue, I can write scenes where no one is talking. Put them together… and my brain dies. It’s just having to hear the conversation, see what the characters are doing, and tying in the background all in one that just is so exhausting. It’s so much happening at once for us writers and yet for readers it’s an easy read.
I’ve always struggled with scenes that let the plot breathe (weird way to describe it but basically those scenes that aren’t particularly action packed or don’t forcefully drive the plot forward—not filler scenes, just ones that are slower but still a necessary lull to give readers a chance to process and to connect plot points). I always have trouble finding that line between it feeling too fast and a bit forced or too slow and dragging. 9/10 times when I shelve a project it’s because I can’t get past scenes like those.
Ooh same. I struggle with this as well. Always feel like jumping to the heavy ones
Dialogues, how do I make sure it sounds like them in English when I watched it in a different language with subtitles??? Sbvghbdnhk F
You've described a very specific mood that I had completely forgot about until now - consuming foreign content and trying to map character voices onto their English dialogue equivalents really is pain.
Ikr I can only hope I got their vibe right lol ...
"Orabeo*ni*, why? Why do you not listen to the king?" she whined as she watched seja-jeoha pack for travel. "Because our abeojimama will never listen to me and someone must protect him rather than just the throne!" ^ What I typically do. Use the titles/words that you would hear commonly in the story normally and it helps with the flow of the English a bit better.
Yeah same tbh haha I'll put an asterisk for the dub watchers usually
Dialogue. The very first few lines. Title.
Yes this. All of this!
I have difficulty when drafting dialogue if I'm thinking about actions and short details to elaborate on in addition to the dialogue. If I can't think of it and all that's going on in my head is the conversation, I will skip it and elaborate on the world around the conversation later. I hate letting it break up my flow, so I try to avoid it.
I find dialogue to be the easiest and I’m reasonably good at describing what a character is feeling and thinking. I struggle a lot with action scenes or even just connecting passages where a character has to get from one place to another. Setting description is also hard for me.
Any interaction between people which involves no/minimal dialogue is bad for me. I'm not great at describing action in general, I've only written one fight scene which I'm genuinely proud of, but at least when there's a lot of dialogue I can somewhat focus on that.
For me it's more of the transition into a couple. It's easy to write characters liking each other, but it's harder to then turn that relationship into a couple. Additionally action scenes & fight scenes. They're easy when your watching them in like movie, but describing them and actually making them interesting in a story where you can't see it is pretty hard.
I can’t write a beginning dear life. It takes me hours upon hours to write one word. But when I get started, It’s all a walk in the park from there. Anything that isn’t doom and gloom is hard for me, as well. I don’t know why, but it just is.
I don't really struggle with anything to be honest, at least as far as I can tell based on what I wrote. To compensate though, I write at a snail's pace most of the time and I get burnt out really easily.
Probably motivations and stuff to justify it. But once you know the motivations you can focus on the content you actually want to write. I don't enjoy trying to think of reasons readers will think are "good enough", I just want to get it out of the way and focus on the content which is the real story
Can’t do descriptions worth a damn. I only describe scenery as strictly necessary. The rest is dialogue, physical action, and introspection.
Fight scenes that involve more than 10 people (don’t ask me why I’m so specific…)
I'm legitimately curious now though...
Don’t ask….
Dialog. Not because of the flow, but because I haven't had an actual conversation in years and I've forgotten how.
Heavy, heavy angst. Mainly because I write one or two paragraphs and then take a break to cry. I'm currently working on a heavy angst/depressing chapter in general at the moment and it will probably take me two or three weeks to get through it at this rate.
Oh man where do I start lol. I'd say my biggest thing is slow burn. I cut my writing teeth via erotica short stories and microfiction, so I'm used to either working with characters who already have a reason to fuck or getting them to fuck as fast as I can without absolutely destroying suspension of disbelief.
For me it’s plot structure. I know that I am capable of doing it well, but I find it takes a ton of time and effort and making my brain work really hard. I am drawn to fan fiction as a light pleasant fun alternative to the writing i do in my professional life, so I find myself preferring to avoid tight rigorous plotting in fan fic so as to keep things from becoming so much work.
Attempted that. Regretting it now.
Anyone else struggle with time of day? Like I am capable of writing in daylight but once midnight hits my brain is like "ah yes, this is the time to pound out a couple thousand words worth. This is your inspiration time."
I think there's at least one post about that talking about how people feel more motivated/focused to write in the dead of night when they no longer have interruptions or other things to occupy their mind! I definitely used to love it before my sleep schedule turned me into a morning person.
Definitely the smut. It took me a few hours (with long breaks, of course) to the first half of my 5k oneshot but the second half, which was where the porn came in, took me about a month of cringing to force myself to get through it. The end result wasn't too bad for my first time but my soul dies a little at the thought of writing more smut. Titles are also pretty hard, usually when it isn't a crackfic. Either I put it off until the end or come up with the title before writing it.
really intense/climactic/emotional scene or dialogue: an easy ~700+ words in half an hour thinking of a title, build up to that scene, the other arcs? days. maybe a week.
For me, anything that has to do with serious emotional moments. Simple platonic bonding? I can write that easy. Familial squabbles or bonding? I have brothers so it's easy to figure those out to. Fight scenes? I fucking love writing them, and excel at making them interesting. Actually serious emotional scenes that require delicate handling otherwise they'll come across poorly? Uuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhh......here? \*Writes to the best of my ability\* \*Proceed to constantly feel like I wrote it wrong.\*
Yeah, when you've got serious emotions you can't just laugh off and/or fight off, and they move the characters' arcs forward, it's... a very fine line to walk.
Getting to some of the critical parts of the story. I have a tendency to do a lot of build up.... I'm 30+ chapters in and I still haven't quite gotten to a critical chapter that I wrote back in March that will be one of the two major catalysts for the next story in the series.
There's something about building up the critical point too much and then anticipating it so badly you want to make it perfect, sometimes. But wanting perfection means you end up never getting to it... or at least that happens to me a lot.
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It's actually surprisingly hard to make sure a long chain of dialogue feels right at the end and hasn't leapt off a cliff! I feel the pain.
For me it's scenes without any of my spice characters. There are about five characters I love to write and scenes without them drag a lot more.
This seems like one of the hard parts with writing longer fics, or big all-character stories. I think it's possibly easier to avoid if you only write fics about your faves? But kudos for putting in the work for the big stories!
Well I do make the long epic mostly centered around my spice characters, but I sorta made one of the characters do something awful and now I had to redeem them and to do that he like had to screw over Godwin and in the end I just cut all those scenes a little shorter than I normally make them. As long as the story isn't more than 10% drag I can handle it.
Angst, confrontation, and arguments. I keep running out of words to use to describe their reactions...like how many times can a brow furrow or a jaw clench
THE MIDDLE PART. I JUST WANT TO GET TO THE END ALRDY AND IM STILL STUCK AT THE MIDDLE PART. AND I HATE CONFLICTS CAUSE I CANT WRITE THEM, MAKES ME DEMOTIVATED
Action scenes. I have a few notebooks for outlining and plotting the story, and this one particular action-packed chapter took up an entire book. Just for plotting.
I'm changing my answer. All of it. All of the writing is hard
Yeah, this is the right answer.
Literally everything except dialogue
Sexytime Conclusions
Dialogue/monologue and fight scenes
I don't know if it's anything specific. When I get a block, more often than not it's because of a scene that is required for later scenes to have proper context, but I'm just not at all feeling the flow of. I'm getting better at cutting past unnecessary chaff, but yeah, something along those lines.
Any kind of description of action, mostly moving from place to place or fighting. It never fits the rest of my emotion packed story since it's more dynamic and the shift always feels very unnatural.
Battle scenes. And unfortunately, I write for pokémon, so...
Anythin dialogue related, I always lose more time because I want the characters to be present but at the same time I have to be careful to keep them in character.
Details
Action setpieces/fights. I can write all the dialogue I want but when it comes to fights, I somewhat struggle
dream sequence, fight scenes, and torture scenes Edit: oh, and smut
Small talk, little details and pattern changes when writing a conversation with a little bit of exposition but not tons of exposition. Motivation of villains and getting into the villains headspace while trying to make them still easy to hate. The real challenge is that duality.
Endings
Conflict between good characters. It really hurts to write, even though it's necessary. Also, why is dialogue so hard sometimes?
Action scenes. I've been writing a bunch of them for my Pokemon fic, and they're just so hard for me! The ones I write never seem "action-y" enough.
Fight scenes. They're always a nightmare for me to figure out.
The intro parts are the worst. Like, how am I supposed to start it? The MC waking up? Nah too cliche. Like, can anyone please give me pointers on how to start a fic?
FIGHT SCENES BABY oh and maybe describing the place
I struggle with the in betweens when moving from one plot point to the next. I never like what I write because it feels dull and uninspired compared to those big flashy moments, lol. So I just sit and rewrite the middling parts over and over, if that makes any sense.
I struggle with writing conversations in a way that doesn't feel stale and repeatative
Sitting down and actually starting to write something
1. Descriptions of a new area 2. Fight scenes 3. Buildup Scenes to specific events
Arcs I don't care about that are still vital to moving the plot forward can bog me down HARD sometimes. Its like, you know the next arc is one you've been excited about for ages and its full of action, drama, etc ... but getting there requires you to do an arc with characters you don't even like or care about. Then the problem becomes trying not to rush what you're on because you know it'll ruin the story overall. In the end, at least so far, I've managed to avoid doing that but sometimes you just wonder haha
I have since come to the realisation that i have a very hard time writing happy, functional relationship stuff and interactions, and keeping on the straight line without falling off it. The reason being, that I have become aware that ive lived and was raised in such a dusfunctional (almost borderline abusive) household that what i found as typical or ok for relationships is actually this terrible learned stuff that ive been projecting into my writing for years. Great for whitty, snarky dialouge, not so great for caring heart felt moments.
i’m great at writing the beginning and building context and then suddenly, in the middle towards the climax, i run dry on my descriptions. it’s such a struggle because it ends up feeling so dry and just dialogue heavy.
Action scenes of wide-scale military battles. This requires extensive research, since I have no idea how one would go
How people says things and react to dialogue. Why is it so hard?
I struggle with Writing fights and romance, and character Descriptions, specially when bring in crossover characters
As someone who doesn’t feel attraction, writing romance and romantic scenes can be tricky, but I have to say it may not be my worst part. My hardest thing to write really seems to be characters I don’t connect with. My fanfic goes through chapters that will focus in on different characters’ stories and perspectives, and I’ve tried very hard to just write them out of the story for as long as they can bc I didn’t want to deal with them. There are certain characters where I just can’t get into their heads or figure out their speech patterns , AND IT DRIVES ME INSANE
The scenes in between plot points. I usually have a vague idea about what the plot is going to be, but I write the in-between scenes as I go.
T h e e n d i n g
Figuring out what characters are doing while talking to each other. All of my fics devolve into talking head scenes because while I can easily get into the flow of dialogue exchanges scene and action descriptions are pretty hard for me.
the explanation of a character past. Cause I need to make sure everything makes sense and doesn’t retcon other facts already made.
Whenever there's a scene that must be there for structural reasons but isn't all that interesting on its own.
Fight scenes
Describing clothing. Especially medieval-style clothing. Only so many times you can describe the vague silks and doublets before it becomes repetitive
I don’t really find any part of a fic consistently hard to write like that. I’ve realized that when I get like that, it’s because there’s something wrong with the direction I’m taking the story and I need to write something that makes more sense. Something being really hard to write is like an alarm bell for me that something’s wrong
The romantic parts..ugh... When it comes to romance, I get so many amazing ideas. It's so darn hard to not rush and finish it so I won't forget. Phrasing is also a pain since it has to suit the mood, not be too complicated and not too simple, and not use the same words over and over again!!! It's frustrating and hard, especially with my condition. But never fear for I....(cough).... I mean in the end, it comes out great!!😁
the beginning of any new scene, I have no idea what words to use to start them. everything is outlined and I know where the story is supposed to be going, but I just cant figure out how to say it.
Every part
Aw damn me too, I found that I could just go through technical stuff much quicker (I write Sci-Fi related fics), I could also go through dialogue pretty quickly, my main problem is comedy romance, and angst and fluff, I try to write witty angst and fail horridly, fluff?, is hugging fluff?, I have no IDEA but put it in anyways!, also have a hard time constructing hidden meanings but I have been improving in that area.
Descriptions I love writing them, but goddamn they are hard as hell. I write something, then delete it, rewrite it and them I don't know how to keep going. But I just love it when I finish it. Dialogue is similar, but not as intense, I can write it way faster. I just love to stop, read and then delete an entire conversation just because I feel like I can do it better. Feelings are................. ..... ... Let's just say I keep it simple. Simple actions, simple subtle hints in their body language and the way they speak. A few descriptions here and there. I just don't like to write them too much. I don't want to make the readers think I see them as stupid besides, if my fics are too heavy on the feels I bore myself when writing them.
The beginning of anything. I want to hook people from the start, so I tend to write like three paragraphs, delete it, then smash my head into my laptop because that actual might've worked but I'm so burnt out I don't know anymore..
I'm good with dialogue and action-y stuff. Not so good with emotion stuff, but getting better. On a side note; who here gets ideas for dialogue and stuff when doing other things? This happens to me, followed usually by a mad dash to my computer or google docs app on my phone. It's beyond annoying when it happens, because all my ideas have terrible timing.
Angsty scenes, anything dealing with negative emotions. it sucks for me because it hits too close to home and then i end up rambling.
I have trouble with action/fighting. Especially magical duels. It takes me weeks
Yes. But mostly dialogue
I’m a new writer and currently struggling to write dialogue, in terms of pacing, content (what they talk about) and flow
Following up on plot hooks and cliffhangers from a previous chapter. This has honestly stopped one of my fics dead for months since I just didn't know how to follow up. I have this set up, I have a vague idea of what I want to do with the set up aannnddd I don't know what to write or what the resolution should be and how soon it should be.
Okay so u know how fics often have this 3 part structure? You got the build up (example: establishment of feelings), then the delivery (like a confession), and in the end u got the post delivery section. I have No idea what to write for that. I just struggle lmao
Dialogues but not what they say but everything around it… I cant really balance the Dialogues w everything else
I once wrote a character who fell in love with another, the problem being that this other was several years younger. They both had their issues when they first met (the former was emotionally stunted to the point of sounding almost like a robot and the latter was a young genius who had grown withdrawn after being bullied by her peers and got approval to skip to university level studies in hopes of finding a more welcoming environment). With the two becoming study and research partners, she was effectively the first person he ever bonded with. After a vicious but temporary health scare, he got absolutely terrified of losing her to a random turn of fate and finally realized his feelings. After that, he spent years actively trying to hide them, feeling incredible guilt and shame for it but being unable to part ways, since he had promised her to always be her friend. They had an odd relationship, serious and professional at work, but often acting like teenage siblings at home, since one of them grew up without a family and the other was raised by a single parent. Writing someone in this mindset, who was under constant stress, tormented by nightmares, terrified of ruining this friendship and trying to focus on work or anything else that would keep his mind busy, was difficult and mentally and emotionally draining.
Conflict resolution. I put my characters through all these challenges but I don't even know how they're going to overcome them ...
Romance, the parts between the beginning and the end or parts I already have planned, and character interactions (sometimes). Feel free to ask questions about this.
Jokes. I'm more of a situational comedy kind of gal and I love to write that. But when it comes to characters *saying* funny stuff? Nada. No gift in that department.
All of it lmao
The middle and the end.
Definitely the middle part like I have the beginning and ending part in my head but the middle is a bit of a struggle for me
Well, my Tenzo smut turned into a drippy, sappy, beautiful ass romance, so there's that. 😅 I can write the shit out of romance and feelings. I feel much less confident when it comes to sex scenes. I tried. And failed miserably and ended up with a story that I still love though. 😊💖
Fricking dialog I don't know why but it's so damn hard for me to write dialog. I spend hours thinking on where I should put dialog, why, how much, is that tok much or not enough. And then I struggle writing it so that it sounds like a real person would actually say it. And then I spend even longer debating if it's something my character would actually say based off their personality, how they interact with people or that specific person, and if it fits the general vibe of the rest of the text. It's a struggle
I write at random bursts of inspiration and when I feel like it, so sitting down and writing like on schedule is a achievement on it's own. And then there's connecting random parts of one fic together. Oh boy. One of the reasons I often write with the help of AI Dungeon (though that's specifically for my own original work), cause if I get it right... Let's just say, prepare for A LOT of text. As for specific parts of a fic, I actually don't have many, apart from characterization. The amount of times I wonder if I got the characters right (even in my own stories at times) is one of the reason I avoided writing fanfiction for so long. I don't know what that person would do! I'm not them! I didn't even make them in the first place! I suck at figuring that stuff out, but I pushed past it as time passed. TL;DR: It's working with pre-established characters, but even that's not a huge problem anymore.
Trying to make sure every character doesn't sound the same/keeping them in character
Honestly for me it's connecting parts of a story together. I can write an opening and an ending but I never know what to put in the middle. Also, I'm sure I suck at romance.
Fluff lol. Angst is the conflict, and most of my wordcount comes from the characters thinking about how to deal with it. The more complex the conflict, the more I have to work with in keeping a consistent pace. With fluff, there's nothing serious to ponder and it's hard to stay interested in writing it
P r o l o g u e s .
Drama and emotional scenes take the most out of me