Frustration through Inability.

[Ultimate Charizard]

Im getting fed up lol.

Generally im happy to admit im a bad writer. My grammar/spelling/format is bad although has slowly improved but the problem i have is that im what i like to think of as an Idea-machine. I have ideas for stories, books, series, scripts, films etc rattling through my head but no real way to express them.
Im one of those people who's happy to sit with writers and say 'Hey, you know what might work' and then sit back while the idea is developed, only stepping in to keep what i feel is the core of the idea in place. Maybe thats a lazy way to do it and i hope that doesnt sound like 'i prefer others to do my work' but any of the bunch that used to write RPG's with me will know im like this after our many collaborations over msn.

I have a few things written, a couple of chapters of story even posted here but no responses which i attribute to my inability to translate the story from my brain to the page.

Im not even sure why im posting here, maybe for suggestions on what i could try etc because after looking over 'tutorial sites' im still confused at how to go about it. I learn by doing and without the ability to do its kinda hard to learn lol.

*End of Rant*

[Lune the Guardian]

Hm. Well, judging from the stuff in your sig, there's probably no interest in those genres. I don't know if people are even reading because the fandoms that you're writing about are not as popular on a TPM board. That's possibly why you haven't gotten any replies, people don't feel qualified to comment on a fic that's about a fandom that they are not familiar with. Your choice of genre could've scared readers off. I know I wouldn't even try to read a Dragonball thing or a story about football. Maybe you should pick a safer genre, and try writing on that before attributing the lack of readers to a lack of skill.

[Lady Vulpix]

I must admit I haven't even checked those fics out. As Karin said, they're not very popular subjects, at least here on TPM, but I'll try to take a look at them and see if I can provide some feedback.

[Gavin Luper]

You might not like to hear this, but the best way to improve your writing is to keep trying to write, frustrating though it may be. Reading a lot helps too in most cases.

I've looked at both of your fics before during my routine modding duties, and you aren't a bad writer at all. Your stories are fairly well formatted and your writing style is lucid. You have plenty of potential - the onus is on you to hone and develop that potential further.

Keep writing, and keep sharing that writing here, even if you don't particularly like it. In my experience, it can be very helpful to post something you're not 100% happy with - that way, people can tell you what's not working, and maybe you can work out where you can improve.

I do have to agree with Karin and Gabi, though - readers here will, not always, but often, shy away from fandoms that they aren't familiar with, myself included. Have you ever thought about trying a more accessible fandom - or have you thought about writing about things you are familiar with in day to day life, like original fiction?

Don't give up. I hope to see you post something new soon.

Cheers!

[mistysakura]

Or... have you tried posting your work where it will be better-received? I'm sure there are Dragonball fanfic forums out there 'Cause I'm going to have to disagree with Karin and Gavin up there and say that you should write whatever you want -- stuff audiences Not to chase you away from TPM or anything, we want you here!

[Gavin Luper]

I'm not saying people shouldn't write what they want to. Of course that's the case: writing what you want is very freeing and should be totally encouraged. But if you want to open yourself up to attracting more feedback and an audience to give you comments and criticisms, I believe you're more likely to get it if you write something that your prospective audience can relate to, or find accessible, than if you write something based on a fandom that they may have never heard of. That seems to make sense to me.

[PancaKe]

I read your dragonball fic, but then you never posted anything else!

I know not having readers is very discouraging; its hard to post things and only get two or three replies. It's just the nature of the board these days - there are only a few core readers/writers left, life has weeded out all the weak ones.

The more you read other peoples fics, the more inclined they are to read yours. It sounds cliche, but its true. And if you have two or three replies, then you're off to a good start. I know of fics where there is only one reader or two - and they're good fics too! But its just the way the forums are.

P.S. your writing isn't bad. Of course, it could always improve. Everyones can. But its not terrible like you seem convinced it is

[Lune the Guardian]

Similar thoughts as Gavin. I was trying to tell UC that he shouldn't so quickly blame his writing skills first. My argument would've been shot down if UC had already written a popular fandom based fic and received no readers, though. What I was trying to say was that his lack of readers was probably due to the genre, so he shouldn't get discouraged just based on that experience. That said, I totally don't believe in tailoring towards an audience just to get readers; your writing is your writing, and if you wanna write about something then don't force yourself to change it. But if you know that what you're writing about isn't very popular, you have to prepare yourself to stick it out, sometimes with no comments at all. Pray for at least one dedicated reader and you're good to go.

Years ago when I started posting "Lune", I got spoiled because I had an incredible amount of readers. A lot of them were people I knew from ASB, and even some "enemies" that had heard that I had snuck in some people as my characters and some ASB events into the story "Lune" even won some nice awards back in the day, my favorites that I can remember being Best Character in a Supporting Role (Shockwave) and Best Unromantic Relationship (Lune/Shockwave). But slowly as TPM had a decline, and people started leaving, my readers disappeared. I vanished from TPM too, not because I'd lost my readers, but because I hated it at the time due to things that happened at the ASB forum that made me want to resign as a mod. "Lune" became slower and sometimes I stopped posting chapters for months at a time, but whenever I posted a chapter, Gabi would always be there and that encouraged me to keep going. At one point I thought I'd abandoned the fic (I no longer had strong feelings about ASB or TPM, which made me lose most of my reason to write), but keeping in touch with Gabi made me want to start it up again, so it's back now and improved into my own story, less influenced by my juvenile anger at ASB history than the first time I kept some key characters the same of course, but I changed some of the people-based characters so they weren't as flat as my biased 15-year-old self wrote years ago. Fortunately none of the antagonists noticed their unflattering personas but the guy who inspired Shockwave figured out pretty much everything Élan's original picked up his character without me telling him, too.

This time around, I started with only Gabi reading, but with her support I felt like I could finish the fic even if she was the only one there through the end. Then mistysakura came back and started to read again (she was one of my old readers). Then MeLoVeGhOsTs started reading, and now PancaKe is reading too. Makes me feel all good inside to have this circle of dedicated readers. ^_^ I guess my point is that even though you don't seem to be getting any response, you should believe in your writing and believe in your story. If you keep going long enough, someone wonderful will start responding your story and you'll be so glad to have such a dedicated reader. I'm sorry if it sounded like I was telling you to change what you wrote about, that was not my intent whatsoever. I was just saying that just because you're getting no readers does not mean that you're a bad writer. It's just that some of your subjects were not very popular and that was the probable cause of the lack of readers.