#a message to my puyo followers anyway. all none of you

[iknowicanbutwhy]

Please tell me that you've got me and you're never gonna leave~

Break my bones, but you won't see me fall~

Oh, won't you hold my hand~?

@teaspoonofdragons

[dlamp-dictator]

Allen Rambles About Writing

So as I’m getting back into writing I’m starting to feel the same kind of anxiety that I felt when I started taking my drawing and art a little more serious. Back then I made a Rambling discussing how I felt about the situation, making a message to future Allen to not worry about how your drawings look when you feel down about your progress and starting to compare yourself to others. 

And looking back, I’m surprise how well I know myself since every time I thought up a counter point I was instantly shot down by the bluntness of 2018-Allen’s demands of not taking my hobby as a seriously as an actual job. 

But back on topic, I wanted to do a sort of Rambling like that again, this time focusing on writing. Though honestly, a lot of that stuff I wrote in that original post on drawing can be applied here. However, there are a few points I could add to that, so... here we are. 

But to get right to the point...

Points that Remain the Same

Just a quick rehash of the points I made in the art Rambling that still hold water:

Much like drawing, writing as a hobby, not a profession. You can fail, fumble, and fall all you like and it will not effect my daily life.

If any criticism you recieve feels pretenious and self-gratifying then it probably is. Best to remove them from your mind entirely as their points aren’t for your sake, but their own.

Again, you are not writing for money, so no need to worry about screwing people over finacially. Then only thing their wasting is their time, and their time is theirs to do with as they please.

And with that out of the way, here’s a few new things I want to say.

Your Stuff Probably Isn’t Great

This isn’t to say you should be pessimistic, but you need to understand you’re not making the next bestseller or the deepest of stories exploring the human condition. You’re just writing out what you think might be a cool story. 

For example, right now my stories consist of two fanfics and two original stories. On the fanfic side you have a tsundere aikido girl fighting a bunch of wacky characters that includes a female shounen karate fighter, a taekwondo fighter with an impoverished dojo, and goddamn Rulue from the Puyo Puyo series. The second fanfic includes a tomboy cannibal pretending to be Batman and fighting... basically anyone I think from obscure video games and lesser known/discussed manga. 

In terms of my original stories we have a story about kung fu girls being stuck in the delinquent dorm of their kung fu school forced to fight bullies, gangsters, yakuza hieresses, cultists, and evil priestesses... also yes all these things happen at school. And the second original story is about a forest ninja and her ragtag group of warriors that consist of a Black sukeban, a genderbent Goro Majima, a shy archer girl, and the main character’s sister who is a ballet dancer. 

None of these stories are exactly high art. But that’s okay, not much is. 

And this seems to be a nice segue into talking about...

The Bell Curve

This is the Bell Curve. The Bell Curve is a type of distribution method that shows the likely probability of most variables in a given equation, statistic and general data distribution. This is usually used to determine a fair average among any given amount of data to see what the majority of information lies on any give graph or form of measurement.

Okay, that was a lot of mathematic terms, and unlike my friend Infall I majored in the Humanities, not Mathetics, so I’ll stop there. 

But the point is, this graphic shows where the majority of... things will land. Most... things that make up the average of whatever... thing you’re looking at will be in the center where the curve is. Anything on the ends are the highest and lowest points of data. 

In short, most things in existence are average and will be average, middling, and ordinary. That how averages work. This is what most media and statistics falls into. Very few things created are truly bad, just below average at worse. Most things are, in fact, average. If everything was extraordinary, then there would just be a new scale to maintain some form of equalibrium. 

Hence why the Bell Curve is used in the first place.

I say this not to discourage anyone wanting to write the best story ever, but to just let you know that even if you don’t hit your target goal, if you land within the middle of this curve things show be okay. 

Again, you’re not doing this for payment or as a job, you’re doing this for fun. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t shoot for the moon, but to understand that at worst, you’ll be below average. 

And that’s okay. 

Not everything created can be great, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t good. Not everything needs to strike gold when silver is still valuable. If you get hung up on being the best, you’ll never achieve good. I’ve got a bad habit of trying to make a chapter of a story absolutely perfect before posting, and all that does is make it take a month to post when it could had taken two weeks. Sometimes I honestly need the extra time due to working two jobs, but it’s rarely needed. 

And honestly, for those that say the worse thing something could be is average, I’d like to remind your that 60%-70% if any media is average. To throw out that average and only focusing on the best and worse... I pity you.

But moving on.

General Writing Advice

In all seriousness though, there are a few things to keep in mind when writing. I’m going to be serious for a moment and give a few bits of advice and things I keep in mind when writing:

Worldbuilding is a double-edged sword. It can be cool to explore and explain how certain things in your world work, but it also means you have to adhear to every text dump of exposition you mention. Try to only exposite things that are really important for the audience to know and keeps notes on the side for you to follow as you write it out your story.

Your audience isn’t as plothole-searching as you think, nor are they as thorough when reading something out of enjoyment as you were when you’re tightening up your narrative. Don’t worry too much about detail unless your doing some mystery/intrique plot. Most people just want to read a story that interests them, so just relax and writing something fun and entertaining to you.

On that note, the human imagination is a lot more powerful than you think. You don’t have to go into extreme detail about everything. Your audience can fill in a lot more of the blanks than you think, and what they think up might be more interesting than that 3-paragraph description on your main character’s height, weight, eye-color, and each individual freckle.

Again, relax you’re likely writing as a hobby, not to pay the bills. Just write what feels right and everything else will fall into place.

Oh, and big piece of advice before I close this little motivational writing post.

Shut the Fuck Up

Seriously. If there’s one piece of writing advice you should keep in mind, it’s to not Ramble. Ironic coming from me, but keeping prose and descriptions to a minimum helps a lot more than you think. I’ve said this several times on my RP blogs and I’ll say it here:

More Words =/= Better. More Words = More Words.

 And just prattling on about a character’s backstory or exposition is boring. Be sure to keep that in mind as you write. Try not to go on for too long about a description without very reason.

Anyway, that’ll be it for this Rambling. Sadly, TW3K crashed on me today in the late game, so I guess Total War Tuesday will... be back on Tuesday.

In any case, see you later folks!