To creative writers and novelists: What do you write about? Why do you write?

Greetings,

As the title suggests, I have posted this thread for creative writers to discuss with one another their tastes concerning writing.

Please note that this thread is strictly about fictional story writing--not poem writing.

Anyhow, to any creative writers whom may dwell in this board, what do you usually like to write about? What is your preferred genre? What habits or quirks in writing, world building, or character creation have you in general? What strengths or weaknesses have you had in writing and how might they have changed over time? Is there a special reason why you write or why you began writing (i.e. Mere fun, self-expression, escape from reality, ambition, etc)? What audience(s) do you target the most? Lastly, what do you want potential readers to learn from your stories?

Feel free to discuss.

I primarily started with NaNoWriMo, where I wrote a survival tale. It was a goofy and overall poorly written story, but very fun to write all the same. I'm taking my time with my current project. It's an EroRom/adventure story, and I think it has some cool potential. Part of the reason the survival story sucked was because I launched in with absolutely no forethought or planning, so it seems more of a random collection of thoughts than a linear story progression. This time, I'm mapping out character motivation sheets, plot summaries and details, all that fun stuff. Overall, it's kinda fun. I hope to get some real work done over the summer.

I tend to write short stories where the main character is suffering from psychological trauma. Lot's of voices in their heads, dark, claustrophobic spaces, lots of pent up tension in the character. I tend to stay away from dialogue because my english teacher hates it and drops me a grade if I use "too much".

A lot of the people I know just jump right into the story with no planning, but I like to write down what my character looks like, their secrets, friends, nerveous habits to flesh them out before I get into the story. I also like to write action scenes, but don't have too much experience with them. My setting is usually very fantasy like.

The problem with my writing, is that sometimes people aren't sure what's going on or if it's the characters thoughts or their mind. I don't usually make this clear enough which I need to work on.

Most of my shortstories are just spin-offs of my dreams :D

I mainly write surreal/absurdist stories in the vein of Kafka, Sartre(his fiction), Borges, Breton and Kerouac. Im still working out my style but ya overall I aim for the cliche dreamlike/surreal/symbolic style of fiction. Ive been experimenting with automatic writing lately as well.
My weakness is I haven't really carved out a voice of my own (yet) and sound like Kafka 2.0 as well as starting short stories and not finishing them.:(

I write for the same reason I read: to find out what happens next :cheeky: There's also a rush you get throughout any creative process when you're just "in the zone." Seeing how people respond to what I wrote is also pretty cool--I was a Creative Writing major in college and did a ton of workshops.

What I write tends to have some elements of science fiction and/or dark fantasy/horror, but with a strong strain of surrealism and/or magical realism and/or general mind-bendyness. I've started a lot of novels that haven't gone far, and am currently working on something you might classify as urban fantasy.

Believe it or not but i write really good fiction stories :D. I like writing about fantasy... but not that generic OMG there is a dragon and he kidnapped someone rescue her cheesy cliche shit. Thats boring to write.... my fantasy stories are MUCH to complicated and there are always plot holes at the end though :/ I write because it is fun :D making characters seems to be the hardest part of writing. I just cant get them right :/ Building worlds are SO fun..... I LOVE WRITING :D

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Originally Posted by stormcrow

My weakness is I haven't really carved out a voice of my own (yet) and sound like Kafka 2.0 as well as starting short stories and not finishing them.

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Yes, I seem to suffer from a very similar problem. Though I have for the most part developed mine own patterns and whatnot, I have noticed that my style of writing sometimes tends to be a rather blatant cross between Jim Butcher, Jane Austen, and Aurthur Conan Doyle.

I strongly agree with those whom prefer to plan things out before leaping strait into the project. Although, I do occasionally like to scrawl down various lines and scenes just to get them out of my cluttered mind so I can later organize and polish them.

I do not know about others here, but character creation has always been fairly easy for me. I usually prefer to keep my cast(s) varied rather than focusing on only one or a few personality types. Whether it is a main character or a minor character whom only appears a handful of times, I always do my best to give each and every character his or her own unique upbringing, burdens, connections, and experiences, and how they have shaped the person he or she has grown up to be. Heck, I have even created people whom I doubt I would get along well with were they real.

...But, anyhow, it is nice to know there are other creative writers here.

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Originally Posted by gameoverlord345

Believe it or not but i write really good fiction stories :D. I like writing about fantasy... but not that generic OMG there is a dragon and he kidnapped someone rescue her cheesy cliche shit. Thats boring to write.... my fantasy stories are MUCH to complicated and there are always plot holes at the end though :/ I write because it is fun :D making characters seems to be the hardest part of writing. I just cant get them right :/ Building worlds are SO fun..... I LOVE WRITING :D

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I thought you'd be the type to write erotic sex books.

Once I went to the computer in my local Waterstones and on the screen was Bend Over! The Complete Guide To Anal Sex. I almost pissed my pants.

Did you happen to holiday in Scotland earlier this year gameoverlord? :cheeky:

i like writing about sexual fantasy

LMAO just kidding :D

srsly I LOVE WRITING

When I was a teen, I wrote a lot and my stories were based on dreams. The dreams would plague me until I wrote the story and at each junction, more of the story would play out in my dreams. It was both a blessing and a curse, My first real novella was about magick and a monster named Sarthaz. Every night I saw him slay characters. My first novel-length story drove me insane. It was a futuristic tale about the planet being devastated by natural disasters and disease, the fall of governments, the rise of a tyrant, and the exodus of a group of people. Dreams of that story plagued me for over a year and I rushed through the ending just to be done with it all. Looking back on it, the story was WAY too similar to the Stand :lol:

Once I reached my mid-20's and stopped believing in magic and monsters, I found it impossible to write anymore :(
I'd like to say I'm now a poetry writer, but even that stopped several years ago...

I like writing because its a chance to construct an entire world through text. Its hard work and sometimes I take breaks for weeks before returning to writing a story, but its enjoyable to craft words into a quality piece of literature.

I like writing in present day. I sometimes base the main character off myself, so I can make decisions as if I'm actually "inside" this world I've created for amusement. :3

Adventure stories, although mostly its for the fantasy campaigns I write for my rpgs. When im older I definitly want to write fantasy novels of all kinds. I find that by reading fantasy and adventures, one can experience many things they normally would not and learn from those things, thats why writing has such a special place in my heart.

-Evan

I've been story writing since I can remember, it is such a part of me and my personality that I don't know what I would do if I wasn't writing. I've written fantasy and horror, but I've come to find out my favorite is actually historical romance/erotica. Sounds strange, I know. :lol:

I write about young girls from ages 12-20, depending on my mood, who always seem to get possessed or see death or something, my stories always deal with mystery and dead things and the creepy. I'm not really sure why, if the girl is younger she always seems to be wearing a dress for some reason. I've written other stories that don't deal with creepy young girls, but they don't really come out as good. A lot of my ideas come from my dreams, night or day, because I never seem to have happy dreams :/ which I think makes better stories.

I write mostly fantasy stuff. One setting that I use often could be described as lord of the rings mixed with dragonball and final fantasy. My characters are based off of rp characters that my friends and I made years ago. Normally my main character will have control over water. I write mostly just for the fun of it. I let people read it but I never actually finish anything except for non-fiction essays such as a paper I wrote on lucid dreaming just for fun.

I've never gotten into actual novels or stories, but I do paragraph Role playing, specifically player versus player role playing. Basically, you write an epic entrance post about the scenery and your character entering it; their attire, weaponry, features, etc.. From there, the opponent does the same, then maybe a taunt post, and fighting moves. The rules are that your opponent must be aware of your attack 1 move before, and attempt to dodge/deflect it. I do this on Chatango, my account name is FaaabsXIX, addme! ^.^

and occasionally I will write some philosophy when it's on my mind :P

Oh and also a lot of time my writing actually teaches me. As the story comes out on the paper it seems like a lesson plays out that I didnt consciously think of but when I read the story I can see how it fits into the story and how it is applicable to my life at the time of writing. I dont purposfuly make something that will teach me something it just happens

When I write prose, short and extended? I have multiple inspirations. I mainly write either alternate history, science fiction, psychological tales or tragedy, and am inspired by different things for different genres.
When I write alternate history, I am often inspired by the obvious "What if" conversations, but I am also inspired by people's misinterpretations of history when discussing "real" history. What I often do is take what they say and extrapolate it to see where it goes.
When I write science fiction, I like to look to two main things for inspiration. The first is nature. I look at the world around me, and imagine environments where a species had adopted, say, hemp as their primary construction material, and expand from there. As a subset of the first inspiration, I also look at what would happen if we changed doing x or using method y in year z. The second is to look up something fairly unfamiliar to me (stromatolites are a recent example, I know a bit about them, but not much) and imagine what other directions they could have evolved from there.
Psychological tales? A combination of introversion and turning the experiences of those around me into allegorical tales, again, extrapolating and changing things from a real inspiration.
Tragedy? I either write based on concepts that have arisen in my mind when writing some of my poetry (for example, I have a million ideas on writing a tragedy based around the life of Van Gogh as a result of writing some rondeau where I tried to place myself in his mind), or write based on real events or allegorical inventions with classical tragic form.

Sorry, that all probably isn't very clear, but I tried to answer :P