Open Thread: Oracle Hotline

[mithen]

--Share one of your weaknesses.

I guess it's only fair to do the flip side of your strengths, but I don't want anyone to get TOO negative below! I think my biggest weakness is a tendency toward hackneyed and cliched writing--I am addicted to adverbs, and I know I use a bunch of pretty tired terms in my writing. My only defense is that I write for the fun of it, and sometimes I'd rather get some writing done that's cliched than agonize over crafting a perfect paragraph for hours. It's still something I could afford to work on!

Writing this week has been slow but steady. I've finally gotten to the clinch in a longish one-shot for a smaller fandom (Blake's 7! My first fandom!) and now just need to write, um, a big showdown of...some sort. (I confess the clinch was the goal, and now that it's done, I'm like "Welp, and then things happened and they lived happily ever after THE END." NO, Mithen, you can't do that!) How about you?

Comments

[prince0froses]

I ended up listing my weaknesses when discussing my strengths: my lack of control over the quality of my prose, and the slow intuitive way I approach a plot. It is a damn good thing I don't write professionally, because I would never meet a deadline. In fact both weaknesses boil down to a lack of control. I let the work come to me rather than pursuing it, and I feel out the plot over long periods of time rather than chart it out.

I have never noticed a problem with adverbs in your writing, nor have I ever found it to be cliche (beyond hitting key genre tropes, which is an important kind of cliche). Since it flew under my radar perhaps they're weaknesses we share. I certainly suffer from the 'dangerously content after writing the good part' problem!

[mithen]

I let the work come to me rather than pursuing it, and I feel out the plot over long periods of time rather than chart it out.

I...kind of like that way of doing it! Instead of hunting down ideas, you lure them to you. :) You're right, it doesn't work as well with a deadline or a word quota that needs to be met, but for inspiration it works quite well...