I’m not very confident with my new writing style. Dunno why, tho.

[Deleted member 93348]

If I had one wish, it’d be me having high self-esteem even when I’m rocking on a wheelchair.

Anyway, my prose evolved again into something I enjoyed writing more often, but I don’t know if it’s a step up or step down. It’s all thanks to a short story I cooked up last week due to a month long of procrastinating.

Before deleting my novel, here’s how my prose would’ve sounded like:

John’s eyes darted around the dim, dank dungeon. He heard the water drip faster and faster above the ceiling. Just as his shirt got soaked wet on the next drop, the remaining orc shrieked behind him. It charged. Its roars shook the walls, but he grunted at it. One swing, and the green head rolled away unto a staircase below.

Notice the mind-blowing monotony as your eyes pause every split second after the next short-ass sentence? Many times, it was just too much vague info with too little explaining. There’s a reason why I called my own work cringe, and now, I hope my new prose flows better this time.

Here’s the same paragraph but actually from my short story:

Oh joy, another generic-ass dungeon lacking general maintenance.

John fucking loathed roaches, so who could ever tolerate ones that grew the size of kittens? Now, he wished his mind would’ve never made that beyond fucked-up analogy. Leave them alone, for god’s sake! Appearantly, rat analogies were an afterthought—or rat bastard analogies—because they were never human even when he met that goddamn phony as a toddler.

That was the jist of it, though: roach or Jehovah’s witness, they were all phonies. He’d stomp on the latter if it was legal, as he did now for the former. But the biggest posers of all just had to disturb the ambient water droplets above the ceiling; it soothed his migraine, goddamn it.

Once again, another orc bastard had its “fully severed” neck dangling as it roared at John; once again, his side swings were still mid at best. Oh, just fuck right off!

Thankfully, that annoying war cry failed to collapse the entire dungeon to kingdom come—but after kicking the rotten green head downstairs to the lower levels, John massaged his temples. He’d fucking sit on this wall and never get up if he wanted to. Yet the most head-splitting problem awaited him below: more phonies. Whatever goddamn, stupid, useless, ax-wielding dipshit would charge at him again in full swing, he always had spare pieces of paper he’d shove down where the sun didn’t shine. Hearing loss and muteness was all he yearned for at that point.

«Quest 3 Complete» Enter deeper level or go back to spawn?

And that’s about it. My preffered prose is pretty lengthy but with tons of inner monologue to combat info-dumping. I also tend to add in references whenever I can to incorporate them into my own story.

Sadly, this still legit bugs me, even right now: is this writing style a step-up or a step-down?

 

[RepresentingWrath]

It's the same.

 

[Deleted member 93348]

It's the same.

How same, tho? Not really trying to be unique or whatever, but the longer paragraphs serve to slow the pacing enough for the reader to get a grip on what’s really happening. Still, I’m learning how to let go of my dreaded tendency to tell rather than show.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

How same, tho? Not really trying to be unique or whatever, but the longer paragraphs serve to slow the pacing enough for the reader to get a grip on what’s really happening. Still, I’m learning how to let go of my dreaded tendency to tell rather than show.

I won't be able to explain why. It's the third time I've seen your prose, or maybe the fourth. When you came back with a revamped style after our discussion in my thread, I felt your prose had improved. More readable, and so on, but at its core, it was the same thing. Your choice of words, idioms, and sentence structure doesn't change. Something along these lines, I guess? Though we are on a completely different wavelength. I doubt you will be able to understand me, and I won't be able to understand you.

 

[Deleted member 93348]

I won't be able to explain why. It's the third time I've seen your prose, or maybe the fourth. When you came back with a revamped style after our discussion in my thread, I felt your prose had improved. More readable, and so on, but at its core, it was the same thing. Your choice of words, idioms, and sentence structure doesn't change. Something along these lines, I guess? Though we are on a completely different wavelength. I doubt you will be able to understand me, and I won't be able to understand you.

Well, I am still learning how to make my sentence structures flow better. I will guess, though, that we have more of a language barrier problem here. I can write in my own tongue well enough, but I’ll never need a translator for English, and I suppose I’ve always had a firmer grasp on it than you do.

 

[Immortal_17]

I suggest being professional when your main character isn't thinking to himself, otherwise he can swear like a sailor in his head. Swearing for no reason just causes a person's reading experience to worsen. An author's story has to be rated. Imagine being rated 1 star because your reader didn't like the way you wrote some situations.

"Fuck, this is so annoying. Why are you in my way, you fucking bastard!? I'll split your heads in two!" said John as he pulled out his longsword, its blade thicker than his own arm.

Those were spoken-out words.

John found the situation annoying as fuck. He pulled out his gigantic ass sword so that he could fucking split the orc's head in two. Those bastards don't know what's coming to them. Pieces of shit never should've blocked his way.

And those were the author explaining the situation.

Dunno about any of you but both examples seem completely different even though they are conveying the same thing. Just that one is spoken out words while the other is the author speaking. There's a reason things like writer tone exists. Find your own writer tone and stick to it.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

Well, I am still learning how to make my sentence structures flow better. I will guess, though, that we have more of a language barrier problem here. I can write in my own tongue well enough, but I’ll never need a translator for English, and I suppose I’ve always had a firmer grasp on it than you do.

Yeah, especially with the way you use all the technical terms about writing. I don't bother to re-learn it. As for sentence structure flowing better, as I said above, it does flow better. But in my opinion, you reached your peak. You constantly change the wrapper, but the insides don't change.

 

[ACertainPassingUser]

Another copy paste

 

[HellerFeed]

I think you should try writing in the first-person perspective if you love to write monologues.
Monologue in omniscient view is better kept short than long.

Also, I don't think there's a need to delete novels.

Actually, it's not about being 'confident' in your writing.

It's actually about not caring 'about what might others think of my writing'.

I had been in this position, you just need to write long enough until you can find those readers who will stick around till the end.
I get simple 2-3 likes in the chapter and that's more than enough to keep going to write the next chaps.

You'll gradually improve with experience.