There's Always Room for Improvement

"I crave to read a good fanfiction."

I haven't read a good fanfiction since 48 Hours. I would try to write my own fanfics, and I have tried. Many times. One of the problems is, I'm as bland as brown rice... I've read a few nicely written fanfictions before, like Arbitrage (my ultimate favorite), 48 Hours, and Anterograde Tomorrow. Those authors set the fanfiction bar very high... my writing is almost elementary compared to theirs. I wondered what the difference between theirs and mine was, until one of my friends on Tumblr told me that there's a difference between telling a story, and showing a story. I was telling; they were showing.

I can't create beautiful analogies or utilize beautiful figurative language. I'm literally the equivalent of Christian de Neuvillette in the Rostand play Cyrano de Bergerac... I can't write poetically for my life. I used to think my writing was good, but it wasn't until I read those fanfics like Arbitrage until I realized my writing was very elementary. My sophomore English class justified that fact. (I felt like my life had been lying to me all these years...)

Like I said, I tried many times to change my writing style... but I look it over, and then I feel like I'm just trying too hard to make it sound poetic. The thing is, like almost everything in existence, writing is not something that you can improve overnight. You have to read books, you have to learn from experience. I'm okay with reading more books, but I'm scared to experiment on my writing. I'm too much of a perfectionist. I can't take constructive criticism. I try to take it, I try to nod and agree, but in the end I start crying. My mind keeps pounding me with thoughts like, "What you did was not good enough," or even "You're not good enough."

But putting that issue aside, I feel like I do have the potential to become a better writer. Grammar is not an issue; even though I might write like an illiterate elementary school student on my Facebook statuses, I'm very anal about my grammar. It's just the content of my writing that needs major work. I can't create a story that will cause a person to think after they read it... I also need to learn how to "show" a story instead of "tell.." I thought it wouldn't be that difficult, but showing a story is very, very difficult, especially for people like me who have a habit of telling.. I just automatically slip into it.

I was thinking about creating a separate blog solely to improve my writing.. that way, people technically won't have to read it, but maybe if people want to, they will. Maybe I could use some kind of generator to help me create story topics...

I should stop going on Facebook too much as well.. but I'll contemplate that another day.