What's the most difficult thing about writing story content?

[Eldoria]

Can you explain one thing you find most difficult about writing the content of the story?

We don't talk about the market (readers and their preferences), release and promotion, story packaging (cover, etc), or author's condition (mental block, etc).

We discuss the content of the story, whether it's theme, plot and conflict, characters, dialogue, action, worldbuilding, symbolism, pacing, hooks, stakes, tropes, meaning, etc.

 

[pangmida]

Writing smart characters and smart schemes. ? How do I, a certified eejit, write a big brain character??

 

[FRWriter]

Taking proper notes, suspending writing to fill my various lists of characters/skills/items/progressions/active quests.

I often slack on these things, and then every 50-60 chapters, I have to clean house and spend half a day doing the things I could have easily done by interrupting my writing for just a few minutes after every chapter.

I also struggle because if I had more accurate, extensive, and detailed lists, I wouldn't have to reread my own chapters to look for names/details to make sure I don't retcon my story because my memory is terrible.

Once you reach 500+ chapters, it takes a lot of attention to not go against the mechanics/lore of the world you have created. Since I am someone who writes without a detailed plan, just by heart, it's especially difficult not to contradict myself or even forget entire plot lines.

 

[Eldoria]

Taking proper notes, suspending writing to fill my various lists of characters/skills/items/progressions/active quests.

I often slack on these things, and then every 50-60 chapters, I have to clean house and spend half a day doing the things I could have easily done by interrupting my writing for just a few minutes after every chapter.

I also struggle because if I had more accurate, extensive, and detailed lists, I wouldn't have to reread my own chapters to look for names/details to make sure I don't retcon my story because my memory is terrible.

Once you reach 500+ chapters, it takes a lot of attention to not go against the mechanics/lore of the world you have created. Since I am someone who writes without a detailed plan, just by heart, it's especially difficult not to contradict myself or even forget entire plot lines.

It was indeed difficult to maintain the internal logic of the world and the coherence of the story. I often flipped through chapters for hours just to check for plot holes or inconsistencies between the new and old chapters.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Having both the time and energy together to actually do it.

 

[Eldoria]

Having both the time and energy together to actually do it.

Well, this is the author's condition, not about the story content.

 

[Avarice_Of_The_Seven]

I think the hardest part is when you need to make sacrifices related to the story but you can't decide what should be sacrificed.

 

[Kitsuna]

Keeping most things in my brain, so I can make call backs

 

[Macha]

Thinking the names of the chapter.
I just leave them as Chapter 1 ?.

 

[Daitengu]

Not sounding like another better story.

PS: I realized that could be read two ways. I mean it as ,I could write something, but it reads as a shittier derivative. Pretty sure that's cause I have partook too much media. Doesn't help that I'm a Jack, and not specialized. I can do a lotta things, just good enough to not be teenager dogshit, but nothing good enough to be pro.

 

[Eldoria]

Not sounding like another better story.

PS: I realized that could be read two ways. I mean it as ,I could write something, but it reads as a shittier derivative. Pretty sure that's cause I have partook too much media. Doesn't help that I'm a Jack, and not specialized. I can do a lotta things, just good enough to not be teenager dogshit, but nothing good enough to be pro.

Well, I understand what you mean... more like a desire to depict the scene in a perfectionist way, but often that is difficult to do because of the author's limitations.

 

[Fox-Trot-9]

Since I write first and edit/revise later every chapter without referring to an outline, it's keeping the details straight. Sometimes I'm reviewing an earlier chapter for editing mistakes but then find that the details don't align or there's even a blatant contradiction, at which point I kick myself and then do the fixes on my document before doing the live edits in the chapter. Other times, some of my readers are nice enough (persnickety enough) to point them out to my momentary shame, at which point I thank them and make the necessary changes to my document before doing the live edits in the chapter. Either way is fine with me, but keeping the details straight humble me like a kick in the head.

 

[Naravelt]

Writing a story you don’t like, honestly, if I don’t enjoy it, I have no motivation to do it.

 

[Leti]

Carefully avoiding certain patterns and structures to prevent a stupid is this AI comment. AI don't invent them. They just copied them.

 

[Envylope]

The most difficult thing for me is plot. I over indexed into technical skill and characters to the point that my plotting skills need work.

Writing smart characters and smart schemes. ? How do I, a certified eejit, write a big brain character??

This one is easy. You as an author have unlimited time. What may be a quick and witty character decision is actually something you can spend time on and ask other people.

But don't take it from me. I'm a midwit.

 

[Macha]

Carefully avoiding certain patterns and structures to prevent a stupid is this AI comment. AI don't invent them. They just copied them.

AI don't copy them. AI steal them.

 

[Bald-san]

Can you explain one thing you find most difficult about writing the content of the story?

We don't talk about the market (readers and their preferences), release and promotion, story packaging (cover, etc), or author's condition (mental block, etc).

We discuss the content of the story, whether it's theme, plot and conflict, characters, dialogue, action, worldbuilding, symbolism, pacing, hooks, stakes, tropes, meaning, etc.

Writing smart and cautious characters as opposed to genius, reckless and arrogant characters. Also writing a non-strategy centric fight scene

 

[L1aei]

The hardest part for me is the style I choose to write in. It's difficult, but incredibly fun.

There isn't really a standard term for it, so I called it "Temporal Bleed" narration. The idea is that the thoughts and the narrated moment occupy the same second, so narration isn't retrospective. It's a live feed from the character's mind.

That real-time monologue is a deliberate choice of mine that I absolutely love because it explains the unfiltered jumps, contradictions, and sudden humor you don't get when narrating in past or present tense. It mimics the brain's natural processing under duress. I'm not describing events, I'm experiencing them as they happen.

The best word I can use for how it works is... hold on, let me look up a term that best describes this. Okay, done: syntax. The broken pacing, the sensory overload, the panicked self-commentary; all that shit in a character's head, all that's deliberate rhythm. It's not roughness or lack of polish; it's the organic thought-pattern of a living character streaming directly onto the page.

That’s what makes it hard: you don't get to smooth things out without killing the effect. But when it works, nothing else feels as alive.

Oh, one more thing: Happy New Year!

 

[CinnaSloth]

"What's the most difficult thing about writing story content?"

I as the author know all within the story, background, past, and future lore, plots, and deaths alike.
My characters know absolutely nothing, except for what they experience, and what they can figure out, or properly assume (aside from being an, assumingly living, being of some sort).

I find, a limited few, of the books I read, often jump from character knowledge to author knowledge, and when I do come across this, I tend to sit there asking myself... "How could you have possibly ever known that?", but can't truly argue because that small tidbit of knowledge is essential to moving the plot forward for that one specific character that is needed down the road..

I don't know if this is an issue any of you deal with (I haven't read as many stories here as I would truly like to), or if you've come across this in your own reading, but I do think it's sometimes complicated finding the correct way to do things within a story, or finding a way to write a cohesive work around for these kinds of things..

TL;DR
The 'Unlikely to be readily available key information, but don't know how to give it to my character, so, I'm just going to "author god power" them the answer, or hand them the "all powerful McGuffin"' -trope.. Is very annoying, and ..(for some) might be a difficult content issue of writing a story. I think..

 

[empalgepuk]

Word count.

Realized mine are less than what they needed thanks to a certain awesome guide to shave bloats off chapters.