5 Confessions of a Writer

As per usual, I was going through my Google+ feed when I came across an interesting blog post by Victoria Grefer (author of the Crimson League series). She addressed a list of confessions she had as a writer which I think every writer should take the time to make. It’s interesting to see what all you think and feel when it comes to things regarding your characters and your own books.

I TEND TO TALK TO MYSELF.

Now, call me crazy, but when I’m preparing to write a big scene involving lots and lots of dialogue I tend to talk to myself. I like to have the conversations out loud so I can hear how realistic and in-character they sound. If it sounds too false or doesn’t fit in with the character who is speaking, I change it or take it out. It seems to have become habit because now I do it in public places if I’m brain-storming, but can’t actually write it down. :shrug:


ALL OF MY CHARACTERS ARE BASED OFF REAL PEOPLE.

I may have talked to them once, passed them on the street, eavesdropped into one of their conversations, or they could be my friends and family. Either way, I have seen or met every character I have ever written.  This can be troublesome when involving friends and family because if they are my beta readers, they can usually figure out right away who their character is. It only gets worse when something bad happens to that character and they assume it’s because I want to punish them for something. I would be lying if I said this wasn’t true sometimes, but most of the time it is just a natural course of the plotline. No hard feelings – maybe.


I AM VERY, VERY, VERY PROTECTIVE OVER MY CHARACTERS.

Because they are real people to me, I feel like I should protect them. It’s strange and I’m sure I should have gone to a therapist about it a long, long time ago, but it’s true. It hurts to put them through bad situations, and I especially don’t like when people focus solely on a character and rip them apart. I take it gracefully, but I also take it to heart. :shrug: That’s the pain of basing characters off people you know and love, it can come back to bite you.


I LOVE ADVERBS. IT’S A CURSE.

For whatever reason, in my first draft I find that every two sentences have at least one adverb in them. Most of my editing involves going through and removing every unnecessary adverb I can find (which is usually all of them). Adverbs can be a writer’s worst enemy if you don’t watch out. They just seem to… sneak in… They work and weave their ways into my words, sentences, and paragraphs. Infiltrating and adding to the wordiness… This is probably another reason I should go see a therapist. :shrug:


A MAJORITY OF MY STORIES STARTED OFF AS FANFICTIONS.

It’s no mystery that I am a self-proclaimed nerd. I love anime, Doctor Who, etc… so, I tend to be influenced by them a lot more than real world events. Thus, a lot of what I write tends to start out as fanfiction. I used to post them all the time and that was my main source of writing material. Eventually, I would find my fanfictions just gathering dust amongst the vast interwebs. It wasn’t long before I realized just by changing a few of the names and details, the work would become a completely independent and original piece. Thankfully, most of my fictions never truly resided in the worlds that they were based on so it wasn’t hard to make the switch, but it was a great tool to utilize and get some writing going.

Well, that is a good chunk of my writing life. As writers I am sure we all have similar feelings (and psychological issues), but I would like to read some of yours! Comment and let me know!

Thanks for reading!

-Lissy