I’m failed. I’m sorry

[Maximum77]

For the last 2 years I’ve been pestering people on this forum to generate ideas for my science fiction. I apologize. I thought I was a good writer back in my childhood but I really have no talent. I can’t write anything innovative or compelling; so I can’t be a sci fi writer. I can even write a lousy Star Wars fan fic!

I tried to make my own sci fi universe but my intelligence isn’t creative or sharp enough to create something. Sci-fi writers are geniuses who can see into the future. I can’t even see past my own nose. Also I cannot think of a sci-fi technology or science idea that hasn’t been done before. I don’t think it’s possible, but my OCD won’t let me quit the search. I spoke to my therapist, but she is next to useless. I CAN’T think of anything that hasn’t been done before. I thought if I had a great novum, that I could conjure a story around it. But it isn’t working. I can’t think of any original ideas. I’m not meant to be a writer. I have polluted the Internet with my many threads on various forums. I am very sorry. At this point, I just want an idea to appease my OCD. Plus my job is really boring so I have a lot of time on my hands.

[Peelee]

I think you're looking at the wrong things, and focusing in them so hard that you can't see the forest for the trees. You want to write Star Wars fanfiction, but you're having trouble being original. The thing is, that's perfectly OK! Star Wars isn't even that original! It's a textbook example of the Hero's Journey. It's a complete rehash of The Hidden Fortress and the Seven Samurai, Japanese movies that came out before it. Lucas didn't come up with spaceships, space stations, hyper drives, droids, wizard powers, or hell, even laser swords! Literally nothing in Star Wars is original, it's just put together in a way that made a good story.

Youre so focused on the details that you're not thinking about just writing a good story. I can't say precisely, but I believe Rich Burlew one said that you could talk about a red square in love with a blue circle, and if you know how to tell a story, by the end there won't be a dry eye on the house. The details are secondary. They don't matter to the story, they're just scenery. Think about it this way: Star Wars is about a farm boy, a smuggler, and a wizard who infiltrate an enemy base, rescue a princess, and destroy the base. That's the story. You could tell that story with spaceships, cars, boats, horses, whatever. It doesn't matter, because the details aren't as important as the story.

If you really want to do this, I believe in you. You can totally write a a fanfic! But you have to stop obsessing about the things that aren't important, because all those sci-fi authors you write about don't, and that's no small part of the secret to their success.

[Maximum77]

I think you're looking at the wrong things, and focusing in them so hard that you can't see the forest for the trees. You want to write Star Wars fanfiction, but you're having trouble being original. The thing is, that's perfectly OK! Star Wars isn't even that original! It's a textbook example of the Hero's Journey. It's a complete rehash of The Hidden Fortress and the Seven Samurai, Japanese movies that came out before it. Lucas didn't come up with spaceships, space stations, hyper drives, droids, wizard powers, or hell, even laser swords! Literally nothing in Star Wars is original, it's just put together in a way that made a good story.

Youre so focused on the details that you're not thinking about just writing a good story. I can't say precisely, but I believe Rich Burlew one said that you could talk about a red square in love with a blue circle, and if you know how to tell a story, by the end there won't be a dry eye on the house. The details are secondary. They don't matter to the story, they're just scenery. Think about it this way: Star Wars is about a farm boy, a smuggler, and a wizard who infiltrate an enemy base, rescue a princess, and destroy the base. That's the story. You could tell that story with spaceships, cars, boats, horses, whatever. It doesn't matter, because the details aren't as important as the story.

If you really want to do this, I believe in you. You can totally write a a fanfic! But you have to stop obsessing about the things that aren't important, because all those sci-fi authors you write about don't, and that's no small part of the secret to their success.

No sorry but you're missing the point. I was just using this idea search to cover up the fact that I really can't write. I was a good writer back when I was 10 year old, but I never got better. I love Star Wars so I thought I could write fan fiction. Back in the day, I did write 3 fan fics, but they are worthless as Lucasfilm/Disney doesn't take from unsolicited writers. I wanted to create my own sci-fi world but I can't do it. Its too hard. Also I can't write 1,000 page books like Stephen King or George R.R. Martin. Its their brains. Their brains are different. Better. Mine just isn't.

My OCD has fixated on coming up with a sci-fi tech or science that hasn't been done before. I just wanted it. To keep it and make it mine. Perhaps I would use it in a story, but its very complicated. I can't explain it. Its my obsession. I am heavily medicated for OCD, but I guess it isn't working.

[Tvtyrant]

Obssession drives talent, nothing wrong with that. Ray Bradbury is perhaps the most popular science fiction author of all time, he took years to get published. His "The Zen of Writing" is a good read, he suggests 1000 words a day regardless of your desire and after 1,000,000 words ypu will be a writer.

[Maximum77]

Obssession drives talent, nothing wrong with that. Ray Bradbury is perhaps the most popular science fiction author of all time, he took years to get published. His "The Zen of Writing" is a good read, he suggests 1000 words a day regardless of your desire and after 1,000,000 words ypu will be a writer.

I guess I could give it a try. thanks.

[Fyraltari]

You don't have to write a magnum opus n your first try. Do not begin by creating an entire universe or writing a doorstopper. Start simple with novellas and such. Fanfictions are good training wheels, too. You say your Star Wars fics are worthless, what do your friends and family you've shown them to say? There muqt be some things worth doing in them.

Science-fiction writers are mostly not geniuses, just people who write in a certain genre. Read some old Sci-Fi and you'll see they absolutely weren't able to predict the future (else, how come I don't go to work on Mars in a rocket while rading about the lastest Cold War developments on a newspaper I printed at home?).

You sound like you have a bad case of impostor syndrome. Successive people struggle a lot too, they're not inherently better than you are.

[factotum]

what do your friends and family you've shown them to say?

Friends and family aren't the best people to ask for that sort of judgement, because if your work genuinely *is* terrible, they'll probably hide that to avoid hurting you. I would suggest the OP signs up for some sort of online writer's forum where they can post their work for critique and critique the work of others, because you learn a lot from that.

[Alent]

As a fellow struggling creative, I really feel your plight. I hope I'm not reading too wrongly into your situation, but I recall some of your other threads in addition to this one and from the impressions I've gotten, I think the following advice will help.

I would suggest writing in a different genre for a while. There's a piece of advice that goes "Kill your Darlings", wherein writers are often told that if they're too attached to something, that attachment gets in the way of their objectivity. Rather than use it to say "get rid of the things you like", I suggest you go a little more extreme:

Pick a genre you hate.

Seriously. Pick a Genre you dislike or hate, and study it then write a story in the genre. The fact you don't really care for the genre will make it easier to objectively study your own writing and it will also force you to ask yourself more abstract questions about "Why should this plot event happen?" Learning to ask these questions is important to your growth as a writer.

If you never learn to ask these questions or how to use them to sculpt a story, you will inevitably find yourself falling back on the subconscious expectations you have from being a fan of Sci-fi. This is part of how "incest" happens in writing. You hit a point where you use something you don't need in the story purely because stories you like use the same thing at the same relative point. This can be seen throughout every genre of writing, it isn't unique to sci-fi, but wherever you find it you'll find that it makes a story more boring and derivative. (If you don't believe me, just watch 10 Hallmark movies.)

This kind of blindly derivative work is especially bad in Sci-fi because the foundation of Sci-fi- Speculative Fiction- is about exploring what new science can tell us about human nature. If you copy/paste someone else's story beats, you are effectively copy/pasting their observations, possibly without adding your own insights, and from this side of the internet strikes me as most likely to be part of what is weighing you down- you keep reaching for new things to affect a sci-fi universe... but what do you want to say about humanity's nature, or what do you want to question about humanity's nature? You say you've been looking for something new, but that just makes it seem like you don't have ANYTHING to say about humanity or human nature. If you don't have anything to say or question about humanity, what is it you seek to achieve by writing Sci-fi?

Even shows that use Sci-fi as an aesthetic without any real "science", like Firefly, are better when they use the aesthetic to communicate a meaningful statement about human nature or observe the dangers of misapplied science. Consider Mal's line "I'm going to give you your dearest wish, I'm going to show you a world without sin." from the Serenity Movie, and all of the extended meanings it carried in context. Even though the concept wasn't original- I wouldn't be surprised if you told me the idea of the Pax and resulting behaviors had been taken straight out of an episode of the original run of the twilight zone or a golden age book- the show took an old question about human nature and pharmacy, and then used its own voice to explore it and communicate its own answers.

It's often said that "Creativity is a muscle you have to exercise", but it's important to be aware that Creativity is not one muscle. Creativity takes both Vision and Voice. For writing, Vision encompasses the ideas of the story, the outlining or top level composition, the WHY of the story. Voice is the actual writing, the specific decisions about how to describe things to make the story itself align with your the vision. The quality of any story you write will be equal to the weakest of these two muscles. (and the hardest part, editing, is the writer's equivalent of Olympic powerlifting.)

So pick a genre that isn't sci-fi, come up with an idea, and start writing 1000 words a day. Every so often, come up with a message for a different simple story, outline it, and devote 1000 to 5000 words to delivering that message. Afterwards, set the work aside for a few days then review and ask yourself "What does this say? Does it say what I was trying to say? How can I improve it?" etc. Occasionally switch genres. Some days, devote all your time to editing an old story to try to make it read better. Every so often give sci-fi another shot, applying your newfound skills to it. The more you exercise both muscles, the better your writing will become. After a point, you won't need to work on genres you don't like to improve anymore. (but every genre will have something in it you can learn.)

Factotum is also dead on. Find writing buddies and/or a mentor that can offer good criticism. Becoming spotblind to your own mistakes is inevitable, even professionals hire editors, so getting feedback from other writers- not random friends/family- is crucial.)

Hopefully this helps, cheer up and best wishes on your writing endeavors!

[Fat Rooster]

Firstly you need to understand your own drives. Do you want to be a writer, or is it just an OCD search for ideas. If it is the latter then you really need to get a handle on it. Obsessions are always unhealthy and a road to misery, no matter what the outcome. I wrote the following advice (before thinking about this side of things) for if you insist on becoming a fiction writer, but it looks like a dangerous road to me. It would be like asking an alcoholic to be a wine taster. They don't need to drink, but they are perpetually on a cliff edge. On the other hand, spending so much time at the edge of your obsession might be a route to getting a handle on it.

Mental health is very subjective, so you need to talk to your therapist about whether this is healthy for you.


I'll put my weight behind the 'just write' camp, and don't worry too much about the outcome. It takes 15 years to become an overnight success. I'll also add some advice from Neil Gaiman.
"Write down everything that happens in the story, and then in your second draft make it look like you knew what you were doing all along."
The giant monoliths were not written as one piece. Start off with short sections (they don't even need to be stories), and maybe find a way to glue them together later. If you rapidly improve most of the early stuff will probably be discarded or cannibalised instead though. Some days you will be reasonably happy with what you have written, some days not. Understanding where your mistakes are is step one to improving, so take some time to really look at what you have written, and don't take it personally when you find room for improvement.

Originality is pretty overrated. Moby **** is pretty much just a whaling manual with a specific whale bolted on for a story, and regarded as one of the finest books ever written. There are no original ideas in it at all. Execution and style are where the points are won. For practice, writing your own version of 'borrowed' scenes lets you write without starting from a blank slate. For example: pick an important meeting in a TV show, and write how it would appear in a book. The outcomes of the meeting should to be the same, but stuff like dialog should be different. If you want to focus on a specific area of your writing then you can target what scenes you write. Writing action is very different from tense meetings, so practice them separately. This will let you write without spending too much time on figuring out what to write (which is also hard). For you specifically avoiding finding ideas might make it considerably easier as it tiptoes around your particular OCD. If you have an idea for a scene, go ahead and write it, but steal stock characters and setting from somewhere else. If you have an idea for a character, dump them in a stock scene and write that. You don't need to start from scratch, and for you it might be beneficial to force yourself not to.

If you are going to ask friends for feedback, make sure to frame it in such a way that you are not asking for validation. If you have a section that you really don't like, but are not sure why, then asking "Hey, do you mind trying to work out what is wrong with this?" is far more likely to get a productive response than "what do you think of this?". They are probably not going to tell you it sucks if they think that will hurt your feelings, but if their starting point is that it sucks then they might be able to tell you why. It is also clear that they are doing you a favour, rather than you thinking it is the other way around.

From our side, do you think people respond because they want to see their ideas in a sci fi masterpiece? It would be nice, but I respond because I like thinking about these sort of things. I give my time freely, and for my own benefit. No apology required.

[Brother Oni]

From your previous threads, it seems that you're wanting to write hard-to-medium sci-fi, that is science fiction based on a plausible scientific or technological development.

The problem is, hard sci-fi is difficult to write if you lack the pre-requisite knowledge and scientific understanding of the topic. Attempting to write a in-depth story about the technological, scientific and cultural impacts of furthering our understanding about black holes is impossible if you don't understand the current theories of understanding of black holes.

The thing is, this is perfectly fine - it's perfectly possible to write a non-hard sci-fi story about the learnings from black holes. Take a look at Mass Effect - the core principle of a material that reduces the mass of an object is pure fantasy and might as well be magic; however they apply the impact of such a discovery in a logical manner (FTL, weapons technology, etc), making it science fiction rather than science fantasy (ie Star Wars).

You seem to be unable to accept the above highlighted point - failing to see the forest for the trees as others have stated.


Additionally, you're dead set on finding something that hasn't been done before - finding a scientific development that hasn't been done before is in the realms of a PhD research thesis. If you did the research to write a hard sci-fi story based on a novel idea and started writing it, you're effectively writing the abstract for a scientific paper or a PhD. Lower your sights a little!


Finally, the point about a story is that it's a story. If you get lost in showing off your research then you've written a scientific paper and trust me, they're very dry reads.
Not even the best researched idea would be a good story if you can't write it in an interesting manner.

[Xyril]

No sorry but you're missing the point. I was just using this idea search to cover up the fact that I really can't write.

Honestly, this was what I suspected about halfway through your second thread. The thing is, I haven't actually seen anything you've written, so I don't really know anything: It was just an inference I drew from the fact that you seemed to be finding every excuse possible not to start the writing process.

But thinking a little deeper about it, it wasn't really a fair conclusion for me to draw. It would be more accurate to say that you came off as more afraid to start writing than anything else--afraid, maybe, to put in the work and actually find out whether your writing is good or not.

It's good that you've become a bit more self-aware in the last two years, but in one major respect, you really haven't changed much at all: Whereas you were once using the lack of that one perfect idea as an excuse to put off trying, you're now just assuming that you're a horrible writer as an excuse to never try at all. The truth is, I have no clue whether you're a terrible writer, you're naturally talented, or--like most people--you've got some level of potential that could be developed given enough effort and maybe a bit of constructive feedback.

I am not a psychiatrist, so I have no idea whether pushing ahead with writing would be good, bad, or irrelevant to your OCD. However, as somebody with hobbies and skills, I can share a few observations that you might find helpful. You don't have to be the best in the world to make a living doing something. You don't even have to possess that "professional" level of skill for other people to enjoy your work. You don't have to have people who enjoy your work for you to enjoy making it. In fact, that last bit--whether you enjoy creating your work--depends far less on external facts and much more on your own attitude and expectations.

Back in the day, I did write 3 fan fics, but they are worthless as Lucasfilm/Disney doesn't take from unsolicited writers. I wanted to create my own sci-fi world but I can't do it. Its too hard. Also I can't write 1,000 page books like Stephen King or George R.R. Martin. Its their brains. Their brains are different. Better. Mine just isn't.

Writing thousand-page books doesn't take talent; it's more analogous to a peacock's feathers, the sort of risky behavior that attempts to prove your inherent literary fitness by avoiding literary suicide. It's a testament to Stephen King's talent that he can put out thousand-page books, and that people will actually read them at a time where much smaller novels are the norm, and there is so much competing media that demands only hours of your attention, rather than days. However, he also creates many shorter works where his talent still shines through. There have also been a lot of folks who argue that the short story is in fact one of the more challenging literary forms: Because you don't have a lot of excess to work with, you end up having to make each word count as much as possible.

The point is, fan fiction isn't the only genre where short stories are considered acceptable. Moreover, if your fan fictions are good stories at their core, they don't necessarily have to be kept in their original setting. You can change names and details to move them to an original setting; you can add explicit world-building to your text to replace the implicit world-building you were counting on when you said, "This is a Star Wars story, so remember that all those details you know about Star Wars apply here as well."

My OCD has fixated on coming up with a sci-fi tech or science that hasn't been done before. I just wanted it. To keep it and make it mine. Perhaps I would use it in a story, but its very complicated. I can't explain it. Its my obsession. I am heavily medicated for OCD, but I guess it isn't working.

As I've pointed out previously, it's not really "coming up with" an idea if you have a thread full of other people who originate that first spark of an idea, debate it, build up it, and polish it up all without any meaningful input from you. Similarly, I'm not really sure how you could "make it yours." But if this is the crux of what you want to do, then maybe fiction isn't the way to go: It's hard to come up with original ideas in technology if you haven't been exposed to what's already out there. Maybe a better way to hone your writing chops is by blogging about science and technology. Engaging meaningfully in that hobby means doing a lot of research and exposing yourself to the leading edge of real world technology. This way, while you're honing your technical writing skills, in the back of your mind you can be thinking about technology, how it develops, and how the people working in the field cultivate new ideas.

[Anymage]

It gives a ton of perspective when you hear authors talk about their writing process and get to see some of their rough drafts. I get the idea that this sort of brilliance flows effortlessly out of them, but once you peek behind the curtain a completely different story emerges.

[Imbalance]

Oh, you, too?

So that my music can be more authentic when I finally commit to the studio time, I've been "gathering more real life experiences" for the last fifteen years. I try not to let it bother me that I haven't penned a complete song since 1999. I mean, Chinese Democracy wasn't recorded in a day, right?

Here's a sci-fi hook for you: invent for me a digital muse that will hack into my brain, bypass my complacency, and force me to be productively creative. It doesn't need to be pleasant, but I need something to get all of these incomplete melodies and partial lyrics out of my head before I die.

[DeTess]

It gives a ton of perspective when you hear authors talk about their writing process and get to see some of their rough drafts. I get the idea that this sort of brilliance flows effortlessly out of them, but once you peek behind the curtain a completely different story emerges.

For this, I can recommend the writing excuses podcast. Its a podcast by a number of writers in a variety of mediums and genres, and they talk about a lot of different parts of the act of writing, from introductions of different genres to how to start writing to how to find a publisher. I've heard variations of a lot of the advice given here on the podcast as well.

[Maximum77]

Thank-you so much for the suggestions and words of encouragement. I'm not going to give up on writing. I will keep going.

[Yanagi]

Okay.

So I’m currently in Istanbul and not able to sleep, so I’m going to say something about my struggles with creativity because...I sympathize and want to convince you that you haven’t failed, and that the whole paradigm of black-or-white success-failure isn’t healthy...particularly if you’re already anxious and not being fair to yourself. If I can’t do any of that, I just want to say: don’t give up, be kind to yourself, and create because you enjoy the process not because the output meets an standard of greatness.

My diagnosis is PTSD, which is not the same as OCD, obviously, but the former is associated with creative blocks because art and expression both (1) summon up all the emotion and memory you’re trying to avoid, (2) anxiety plus discomfort in your own skin means hyperawareness in general and excruciating unforgiving self-critique happening in real time. Because creativity has no solid rules and no clear measure of quality, the process of making art is filled with doubt—and if you’re a person already filled with doubt, you just see the bad parts...and you see the bad parts as permanent, unchangeable, and beyond your control.

I stop posting here for a long time...1 and a half D&D editions...because of that gnawing sense that nothing I contributed was enough, because even my “coolest” ideas were derivative, and because the effort of creation specifically jabbed at the tender bits of my psyche that said I wasn’t good enough. During the same period I also checked out of gaming, world building projects, and pretty much doing anything that involved self-expression. I have slowly built back to a place where I can do some creative expression—helping people with their projects, getting backing into playing characters—and it’s taken time and therapeutic effort, and it’s not been a straightforward ascent. I struggle to contribute to other’s projects, and am still incredibly shy about my own ideas, and haven’t gotten to a place to even talk about the narrative fiction ideas (many being fan fiction) to other people.

Everyone in this thread has given good advice about writing and creativity, but I’d like to add this: be aware of how hard you’re being on yourself. In a paragraph you’ve put sci-fi writers on an undeserved pedestal—no really, I love sci-fi but they’re not prophets, not geniuses, and most of their predictions are vague to the point of cold reading—and cast yourself into a trench because you can’t pull off the biggest, most ambitious in scope, styles of epic composition that even seasoned authors foul up. I’ve felt that way, and being in a slightly healthier place and with the benefit of hindsight...it’s a skewed perspective and needs to be called out as such.

I can’t give you specifics because I’m just a dude with issues seeing a parallel, but...you’ve got an enormous knot of anxiety built up, but you’ve decided the way that it will discharge is if you do something incredibly hard, exacted to your own harsh standards, but also having made the pre-judgement that you have to get it right immediately and with no bumps. It’s not fair, man. And I say that from the perspective of someone who rakes himself over very similar coals on a regular basis, and who’s had much the same kind of ambitions that then felt stymied. I have to tell myself when I’m not being fair. And sometimes I phone my sister so she can tell me I’m not being fair.

Give yourself permission to create things because you enjoy the process of creation. It is a joy unto itself to make things, and that’s enough. It doesn’t have to be for anyone else. If you feel that self-critique making it feel futile or worthless...disarm that feeling, argue with it. And I mean that literally; say it out loud.

As to the task of creating a sci-fi setting...if it’s a fixation that you’re investing self-worth into and compounding anxiety such that’s its driving your OCD, then you should probably be engaging with your therapist specifically about that. Because the “problem” isn’t the idea of writing in general or the particular writing genre or written document, but the way it’s built into a larger architecture of fear and self-perception, and that has to be addressed. I had to address something similar; still am.

I apologize if this comes across as overly assertive, but I’m actually sitting with my own creative struggles right now, and feeling that despair, and I hate to see others go through the same thing.

Be kind to yourself and don’t give up. You have done anything wrong, and there’s no magic “right” way to be create.

Take care.

[Blackhawk748]

I feel you my dude. I am a horrendous procrastinator when it comes to my writing (I feel awful as I've backlogged a Fairy Tail Fan Fic for over a year now because I just won't sit my ass down and write a bit) but once I actually sit down I can drop a chapter without a terrible amount of trouble. However, I'm not you and I don't expect you to do what I do. But I'll tell you what I do.

I grab some reasonably appropriate background music (movie or game soundtracks work)
Put it on a loop in Youtube
Sit down and proceed to type
About 2 hours later I've gotten about 1.5k to 2.2k ish words done
I then run it through Grammarly once and then post it to the forum where I post my fan fiction.
Go back and fix the stuff Grammarly missed and everyone else didn't.

That's my system. It's very by the seat of my pants but that's how my mind works, and it's been ok. If you want to write a Star Wars Fan Fic, even if it isn't terribly original, just do it. Sit your rear end down and just get a chapter up. When you post it, just but a note at the top that says it's your first shot in years, most fanfic sites will be gentle with helping you out, because writing only really improves by doing.

Edit: Not trying to sound dismissive or anything, but I have a buddy who's a decent writer and he just gets himself so wound up stressing over the chapter that he runs the thing through like a dozen partial rewrites and winds up right back where he started, so your problem very much reminds me of his. I feel you just need to try and punch your way through this and that once you get a little bit of success under you it will snowball from there. It may not be wasy, but I know you can pull it off.

[warty goblin]

Always remember that basically any creative endeavor - and I use creative in a broad sense here - is basically an exercise in iterative failure. The key is that you should on average fail less with each successive effort.

This is true both within a single work, and across works. The first draft can suck, the second should suck less, the third should suck even less, etc, until eventually it approaches good. The second thing you write will probably, as of draft one, suck less than you first draft of your first thing. Maybe even the second draft of your first thing, and so on.

Failure is just how you make things.

[Phhase]

Poor soul. I have one bit of advice that I'm not entirely sure about, but is probably worth a try: stop or attenuate your consumption of mass media for some time. I don't mean The News, I mean entertainment media. The reason why we think that we were more creative when we were kids is because when we were kids, we had fewer preconceptions, and thus wandered in any direction equally. Fast forward and our preferences have graven lines into our souls, which we keep falling back upon time and time again. Personally, some of my best (and enduring) ideas were dreamt up in high school.

So, take some time. Sit down and dream. Forget about the things you like, the things you hate, everything. Throw things together randomly. Twist and turn them. See what you get. Basically, do some mental stretches.


Alternatively, go to TVTropes and absorb as much lore as you can about the art of fiction. Once you understand the building blocks of a tale, you can be more self-aware about how you can put them together, and how to avoid being cliche. Or, at the least, be cliche in a good way (it IS possible!).

[Kato]

Okay, I'll chime in, mostly pointing out the bits I think important to agree with, and I'll be a bit blunt, so please don't take offense at any of it.

1) just write. You can't be a writer if you don't write. Even if you don't know your story yet, write something. Dabble, experiment, write fanfiction, rewrite something you know... Nobody was born a perfect writer and you are not the exception. It's something everyone has to practice.

2) lower your expectations. You don't have to write the next 1984 or Slaughterhouse 5 or whatever. Especially not early on. Your story doesn't have to be groundbreaking, it should be entertaining. (that's also not easy but a much lower bar) Coming up with some amazing new idea/tech/??? is a crazy high bar to set after decades of sci-fi. I'm sure I could derail the thread by asking what the latest innovative idea/ story was but that's not the point. The point is, you don't have to and shouldn't try to be the next Arthur C Clarke, in part because that has become way harder than it was in the past.

3) ask yourself why you want to write. Is it because you love writing? Is it to make money? Is it because you have a story to tell? Is it to prove that you can? Is it to satisfy your ocd?
I won't say there are bad reasons to write but if it is just something you do because you feel like you have to... I'm not sure if it's the best way to spend your time, especially if it stresses you out so badly.

[Maximum77]

Poor soul. I have one bit of advice that I'm not entirely sure about, but is probably worth a try: stop or attenuate your consumption of mass media for some time. I don't mean The News, I mean entertainment media. The reason why we think that we were more creative when we were kids is because when we were kids, we had fewer preconceptions, and thus wandered in any direction equally. Fast forward and our preferences have graven lines into our souls, which we keep falling back upon time and time again. Personally, some of my best (and enduring) ideas were dreamt up in high school.

So, take some time. Sit down and dream. Forget about the things you like, the things you hate, everything. Throw things together randomly. Twist and turn them. See what you get. Basically, do some mental stretches.


Alternatively, go to TVTropes and absorb as much lore as you can about the art of fiction. Once you understand the building blocks of a tale, you can be more self-aware about how you can put them together, and how to avoid being cliche. Or, at the least, be cliche in a good way (it IS possible!).

Yes! My best writing was as a child I was MUCH more creative back then.

[Phhase]

Yes! My best writing was as a child I was MUCH more creative back then.

's cos' ya didn't know how things were "supposed" to be. Put a little distance between yourself and the knowledge of how things are "supposed" to be, and things'll lighten up. Easier said than done, of course, but still a course to plot.

[Bohandas]

Also I cannot think of a sci-fi technology or science idea that hasn’t been done before.

Behold, The Luck Engine

[jayem]

Behold, The Luck Engine

Isn't that Minority Report, Red Queens Race, (at a push) Terminator ... (and I'm sure many more, each with their own take and subversion)

[monomer]

In addition to what everyone else has said, forSci-Fi, you don't have to invent a whole new technology. The interesting stories come from the implications of what foisting that technology does to the world and society.

For example, Larry Niven didn't invent teleportation, and he didn't even posit a really good scientific reason as to how it would work. What he did do was create a universe where it was possible, and wrote a good number of entertaining short stories about what some of the side effects would be, like the creation of absolutely ridiculous flash mobs, and basically the total lack of alibis for when someone is suspected of a crime.

A more technologically feasible example is William Gibson's Sprawl trilogy. He didn't invent the internet (we all know that was Al Gore) or Artificial Intelligence, but he fast forwarded a few decades to see what a global community all interconnected would look like and what kind of effects it would have on people's lives.

[Bohandas]

Isn't that Minority Report, Red Queens Race, (at a push) Terminator ... (and I'm sure many more, each with their own take and subversion)

No, because in Minority Report the future could be changed and/or the precrime department was BS, and in things like Terminator, Twelve Monkeys, etc it is assumed that events are basically sequemtial despote time travel; the things happen and now that they've happened you can't change them; I'm assuming that because people would change them if they happened that they don't happen in the first place (if anything its like the end Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure with the tape recorder, but more extreme; I'm positing that because you could go back to rig things in your favor if you fail you won't need to)

[Craft (Cheese)]

As a fellow struggling creative, I really feel your plight. I hope I'm not reading too wrongly into your situation, but I recall some of your other threads in addition to this one and from the impressions I've gotten, I think the following advice will help.

I would suggest writing in a different genre for a while. There's a piece of advice that goes "Kill your Darlings", wherein writers are often told that if they're too attached to something, that attachment gets in the way of their objectivity. Rather than use it to say "get rid of the things you like", I suggest you go a little more extreme:

Pick a genre you hate.

Seriously. Pick a Genre you dislike or hate, and study it then write a story in the genre. The fact you don't really care for the genre will make it easier to objectively study your own writing and it will also force you to ask yourself more abstract questions about "Why should this plot event happen?" Learning to ask these questions is important to your growth as a writer.

If you never learn to ask these questions or how to use them to sculpt a story, you will inevitably find yourself falling back on the subconscious expectations you have from being a fan of Sci-fi. This is part of how "incest" happens in writing. You hit a point where you use something you don't need in the story purely because stories you like use the same thing at the same relative point. This can be seen throughout every genre of writing, it isn't unique to sci-fi, but wherever you find it you'll find that it makes a story more boring and derivative. (If you don't believe me, just watch 10 Hallmark movies.)

I disagree strongly with this: If I wrote a book in a genre I hated, like say, erotic harem fantasy litRPG, and I subverted all the things I disliked about it, the people who actually do like that stuff aren't going to be happy, because I've stripped out everything that makes it appeal to them to make it appeal to me instead.

You see folks make this mistake with Romance all the time, for a variety of reasons everybody looks at how much money the big romance writers make and go "Big deal, I can do better than that" and they fail miserably because they don't understand (and indeed, have active contempt for) the community they're writing for and what they want out of the stories they consume.

You have to be passionate about the things you create. Those same old genre tropes you subconsciously reach for because you love them... you love them for a reason.

[truemane]

I've been 'a writer' for a long time. And I've consumed reams and reams of advice over the years. I'm a systematic person and I love a good story about process. And here's what I know: There is ZERO advice that will make you a good writer. ZERO. No philosophical advice, no practical advice, no hints, no tricks, no best practices. Nothing.

First off, there's no connection between how a work was created and the quality of it. Some writers do endless drafts. Some vomit on the page and call it good. And lots in the middle. Lots of garbage gets written for love and passion and lots of great work get written because the author wanted to make bank. And the endless lists of tricks or short-cuts that this writer used or that writer used, no good. Because you're you and not them and there's no telling what'll help and what won't.

Second, no one even knows what a 'good' writer is. They can only tell you what they like and what they don't. We've been talking about what makes art good or bad since the first cave drawings, and we're no closer to figuring it out than we were then. And, even more infuriating, if you equate 'good' with 'successful' that's even worse. Success in a marketplace has as much to do with the marketplace as it does with your skill. The annals of history are littered with artists who died poor because the thing they were doing just wasn't the thing that was selling at that moment.

So I'm not going to tell you shoot for the stars, because the pressure of the stars will be too much and you'll give up. And I'm not going to tell you to be easy on yourself, because maybe if you ease up you'll lose your edge and give up. Maybe writing in a genre you hate will sharpen your view of your own genre, or maybe the forced artificiality of that exercise will kill your joy for the craft. Maybe re-writing a lot will polish your rough cut into a beautiful gem, or maybe revising will destroy what's spontaneous and fun and good about it in the first place. Any thing you do MIGHT be the thing to push you to the next level, or any thing you do might be the thing that crushes you spirit and you spend the rest of your life watching sitcom reruns.

And that's maddening. Infuriating.

However.

If you want to be a 'better' writer, as in, better than you are now, then that's easy.

1. Write every day if you can. Like working out or learning an instrument or a second language or astrophysics, you have to do it to do it. You still might not get that much better if you do, but you for sure won't get better if you won't.
2. Show your work to people who have opinions on things you respect. The better they are at articulating and justifying their opinions, the more use they will be to you.
3. Listen to what they say. You don't always have to do what they say, but you gotta listen as openly as you can.
4. Write more.

Do that, and you'll get better.

[Gallowglass]

I disagree strongly with this: If I wrote a book in a genre I hated, like say, erotic harem fantasy litRPG, and I subverted all the things I disliked about it, the people who actually do like that stuff aren't going to be happy, because I've stripped out everything that makes it appeal to them to make it appeal to me instead.

You see folks make this mistake with Romance all the time, for a variety of reasons everybody looks at how much money the big romance writers make and go "Big deal, I can do better than that" and they fail miserably because they don't understand (and indeed, have active contempt for) the community they're writing for and what they want out of the stories they consume.

You have to be passionate about the things you create. Those same old genre tropes you subconsciously reach for because you love them... you love them for a reason.

The point of this exercise is to expand your horizon.

I like writing sci-fi. I run into a writer's block. I hate romance. I force myself to write romance.

The key to this is not "writing romance to subvert all the things I hate." Yeah, if you do that, its gonna suck and you aren't going to get anything out of it and you aren't getting the point.

The point is to force yourself to open your mind, research what makes romance work, what makes it different and unique and novel and try to ACTUALLY write it, not subvert it.

And the hope is, during all that, you will learn something new, some new skill or technique or esoteric know-how that you take back with you when you go back to what you love and give you a fresh perspective at it. Maybe suddenly your interpersonal relationships in your stories are more vibrant and sparkier because now you understand that said relationships can be the meat of the story and not jsut a sideshow to the alien-harvest-holocaust.

At the very least maybe you'll stop looking down on people who love the genre you hate.


(note: probably won't work for erotic harem fantasy litRPG because that's just garbage, so, so much hot garbage.)

[Craft (Cheese)]

The point of this exercise is to expand your horizon.

I like writing sci-fi. I run into a writer's block. I hate romance. I force myself to write romance.

The key to this is not "writing romance to subvert all the things I hate." Yeah, if you do that, its gonna suck and you aren't going to get anything out of it and you aren't getting the point.

The point is to force yourself to open your mind, research what makes romance work, what makes it different and unique and novel and try to ACTUALLY write it, not subvert it.

And the hope is, during all that, you will learn something new, some new skill or technique or esoteric know-how that you take back with you when you go back to what you love and give you a fresh perspective at it. Maybe suddenly your interpersonal relationships in your stories are more vibrant and sparkier because now you understand that said relationships can be the meat of the story and not jsut a sideshow to the alien-harvest-holocaust.

At the very least maybe you'll stop looking down on people who love the genre you hate.

Perhaps I misunderstood the person I quoted, because I don't disagree with you at all. Exploratory exercises are great. If you think you can teach yourself something about writing by reading/writing romance novels, go for it. There's a difference, though, between manuscripts you write as experiments to hone your craft, and the book of your heart that you want to actually sell and put out into the world, and this is what I was referring to. I don't recommend trying to make a career out of writing romance if you don't like the genre for multiple reasons, the simplest of which that even if you're successful you'll probably be miserable.

(note: probably won't work for erotic harem fantasy litRPG because that's just garbage, so, so much hot garbage.)

In all seriousness on the subject of exploratory craft I think there's something to learn even from this darkest of corners of the fantasy market. Folks who sneer at fantasy, especially those with a more "literary" bend, dismiss it as "power fantasy." And while fantasy does have elements of it, any fan of the genre knows there's a lot more to it than that. But there's definitely a subset of the audience for whom all of that other stuff is just garnish and what they really want is the power fantasy and they want it distilled down to its purest essence, toxic masculinity, white supremacy and all. At the very least, studying litRPG willl give you a finer appreciation for what makes the great works of fantasy truly great, and perhaps how to avoid drawing from the poisoned well these works bathe in in your own fiction.