You In The Past

[thedyingauthor]

I've been curious about when each of you started writing your own stories. Was it recently, like a few weeks ago? Or have you been writing for years? And have you noticed any big changes in your writing since then?

For me, I started writing my own stories when I was just 6 years old—18 years ago now. Back then, I began with simple romance stories, eventually mixing in some fantasy elements. One of the biggest changes over time has been my shift in perspective: I used to enjoy writing each chapter from a different character's viewpoint, rotating through them. Now, though, I've gravitated toward an omniscient narrator, which gives me more freedom to explore the entire story world at once.

I’ve also found ways to work through writer’s block, like jotting down notes, sketching maps, and letting ideas build up gradually. Writing has always been my sanctuary, and I can't imagine life without it.

What about you all? I’d love to hear your stories!

 

[Amrasil207]

My first writing was literally 17 years ago. It was your usual all sunshine and rainbow kids writing, nothing too serious with barely any plot.

Strange, it made me nostalgic all of a sudden...

 

[Puji-Maki]

In the middle of pandemic, which is in 2020. After four years of writing, I've written around 2 million words. Still a nobody though.

 

[KersenBloemNL]

Long ago when I was a kid. I only started really putting my fantasy to a legible story a few years ago.

 

[yinjenxie]

I started around 2021 when I was too bored, and my mind was saturated with the Courting Death chants, face-slapping scenes, and stupid MCs. Tried to do away with systems and such (though I ended up leaning with them at some point), and had burnouts due to the technicalities that come up with worldbuilding and integrating both it and the plot with minimal inconsistencies.

Then I realized writing a novel/story isn't just about making a character perfect, or flawed, and trying to balance in between is too much work at that time.

I am unsure if I have improved since then, though criticisms still lurk in the corner and some provided areas for improvisation.

 

[ThisAdamGuy]

I started writing my first story, Terry Traxter and the Secret of the Dragon's Nose, when I was about seven or eight. Harry Potter was all the rage, but I wasn't allowed to read them or watch the movies. My parents couldn't stop me from seeing the commercials on TV, though, and they inspired me to write about Terry Traxter, a magician (which is different from a wizard, MOM!) who learns magic at Shmog Shmorts (I wish I was kidding) and has a scar shaped like a star on his forehead. One day he finds out that there's a dragon that kills people with star shaped scars with an all powerful wand that's stuck in its nose, so he goes to find it (because what else would you do?). I was just trying to make my own version of Harry Potter, but since the only reference I had were the movie commercials, the story literally went "And then Terry found a rock troll. He killed it. And then a giant snake came out of nowhere! He killed it too."
I never finished the story, but I was so proud of it. It was over 100 pages long! (Only because I made the computer font ridiculously big, but still...)

The first story I ever actually wrote seriously was North Pole: Chosen One, a godawful story about an orphan boy being kidna-(ahem) adopted by Santa because he's the chosen one who will end the war with the Winter Warlock. Haha, yeah. Turning Christmas stories into weirdly serious and completely tone deaf fantasy books. Sure glad I outgrew that phase...

 

[Hans.Trondheim]

I've been curious about when each of you started writing your own stories. Was it recently, like a few weeks ago? Or have you been writing for years? And have you noticed any big changes in your writing since then?

For me, I started writing my own stories when I was just 6 years old—18 years ago now. Back then, I began with simple romance stories, eventually mixing in some fantasy elements. One of the biggest changes over time has been my shift in perspective: I used to enjoy writing each chapter from a different character's viewpoint, rotating through them. Now, though, I've gravitated toward an omniscient narrator, which gives me more freedom to explore the entire story world at once.

I’ve also found ways to work through writer’s block, like jotting down notes, sketching maps, and letting ideas build up gradually. Writing has always been my sanctuary, and I can't imagine life without it.

What about you all? I’d love to hear your stories!

I was originally an aspiring mangaka, and in fact, I created chapters of my works though it didn't get past the first chapters because of the need for an assistant.

However, I didn't wish to give up my drawing and storytelling, so I switched to novel format. Like almost everyone else, I fell to the same 'newbie' thinking that I'm exceptional and my ideas are the best.

But yeah, having first to publish in Royal Road, I got slapped by reality that I'm untalented. This was in 2017.

Nevertheless I was an idealistic fool, even up till now. Did that discourage me? Yes. Did I give up? Hell no. Having failed my very first novel, DECK, I dabbled in manga writing again (Paulina Rex, 2018) before I dedicated myself to novel writing with my longest project to date, The Human Saint is Bored (aka the Saint Series).

Starting from May 2019, I wrote that series. Still hoping that I'm a good author, I uploaded again in the almighty Royal Road...only to get slapped by reality that it won't work.

So, I thought of going to another site. Maybe my luck is there. I found ScribbleHub sometime in July 2020, and began uploading my novel here. However, again, readers said I suck, so I removed my novel here (I returned earlier this year, though I already expected the worst, which happened indeed. No hard feelings. I'm just a bad writer.)

Yeah, I'm foolish enough to think I'm a talented author, until three years later, reality sank in. Lack of novel comments. Loyal readers disappearing. And increasing drop counts made me lose my delusions about myself. Did I give up? Nope. Now that I'm not talented, I just switched my goals, and tried making up with what I lack with hard work.

The result? 20 books (21 if I finished my rewrite), 1 million plus words, 400+ chapters later, I completed the Saint Series.

My author journey is one heck of a roller coaster ride, but what I learned is that, I should never listen to random people. I should know what to do and what direction my story should take. And finish anything I started.

I lack talent. Readers don't read my works. But I can proudly say I finished my story and properly did my assignments. Maybe I'm just unfortunate with the trends, and my inherent lack of social skills jeopardized my ability to advertise. Nevertheless, I don't let that get to me nowadays, compared to when I started writing.

Edit: will I stop writing? Nope. I love to tell stories, even when no one reads my works.

 

[KersenBloemNL]

Snip

Wow this sounds familiar to my own experience! Mainly the mentality of "I want to write what I want to write"
Right now I have 3 consistent readers, my best friend, my gf and one person who checks up on my chapters here. That's legit all I need. I know my writing is... mid, but that doesn't stop me. I have a story that I want to tell, and I'm gonna stick by it.

fast forwards 2 years, part 1 is now complete, it's what I had envisioned when I concepted AURA, but the scope grew a bit bigger and i'm on my way to start part 2 now. I can't wait to see what the journey for that will be like.

 

[Hans.Trondheim]

Wow this sounds familiar to my own experience! Mainly the mentality of "I want to write what I want to write"
Right now I have 3 consistent readers, my best friend, my gf and one person who checks up on my chapters here. That's legit all I need. I know my writing is... mid, but that doesn't stop me. I have a story that I want to tell, and I'm gonna stick by it.

fast forwards 2 years, part 1 is now complete, it's what I had envisioned when I concepted AURA, but the scope grew a bit bigger and i'm on my way to start part 2 now. I can't wait to see what the journey for that will be like.

Mine's completely done, having followed through my plans, though I'm rewriting some parts coz I'm not satisfied with the ending. But whatever. Like you said, yes, I want to write what I want to write.

I'm proud to display my arcs in my signature.

 

[DeOwl]

Started writing only a month and a half ago, so I'm a newbie here.
I think this was a natural process for me. It started with me binge watching over 100 anime titles in half a year. After having a burn out, I switched to light novels and read well over 150 different volumes. After heaving a burnout there's I switched to manga. Today, I have 1900 manga titles in my library(though I finished only half). After that I turned to web novels, and after about a year of reading web novels I was like: sure, why not try writing my own.
Another factor that pushed me to writing novels was the fury at the amount of times I see people in novels make the worst decisions (and I do not mean dumb from my perspective, but from theirs) and the amount of inconsistencies and unexplained things I encounter.
After this one and a half month of writing I learned is that it is so f*cking hard to write something without introducing a million inconsistencies while not making chapters of info-dump. Because of this I try to write from the perspective of my MC as much as possible (I sometimes switch to other pov's, but rarely) to try to make learning about the world as organic as possible.

 

[ImaMelonFarm]

Quite a while ago, when I was a kid.

I was really obsessed with Shadow Fight 2 at that time, so I just took up my dad's laptop one day and started writing of 'shadow's journey, a fanfiction, if you will xd.

Sadly, however, the device I wrote it in is gone, and nobody but I remember it. Still, it will forever have a special place in my heart, the start of my writing journey when I had nothing to worry about... when I didn't care about the end, nor about how good it was, just about how good it felt when I sat on the couch with a laptop in hand, painting a story with taps of my fingers.

Novels on the web, I found them in 2023, very late if you ask me, but that rekindled my passion. Though I'm probably not as fervent as half the people here, I simply... like to write, and that is all I need.

 

[Bartun]

I never wrote anything but I started creating stories like 25 years ago. The core of my story began as the 'lore' of my toys. My brother and I created worlds, characters, and backstories for each character, ultimately creating a massive universe that could rival any science fiction universe. But we never put it into words.

I never stopped dreaming though, and it was something that I always returned to, even if it only was in my thoughts. I began writing around 2012, just snippets of the story as it was too large to write on my own. I finally got serious about writing around 2018 but again, the story proved too large for an amateur like me, so I decided to write separate stories set in the same universe. My current book is just one of those stories.

 

[LilRora]

For me the answer to that question really depends. If we're talking about my very first attempts, then it was sometime in primary school, I don't really remember when. To say they were bad would be an understatement though. Nothing came from them and I completely dropped writing for a long time. My first serious attempts though were when I was fifteen and got into webnovels. I quickly started trying to write one myself, and the first attempts were obviously really damn bad, but I kept starting and dropping stories for a few months, maybe about a year, until I wrote the first one that broke 20k words and ended up publishing that one after some time.

 

[ArcadiaBlade]

I was an aspiring mangaka before transitioning to novels because I had average art skills when I was a kid.

I was so into zombie type of stories that my first comic was a battle hardened warrior who had a sexy succubus spirit(probably because I stumble on porn which I got scolded and used that inspiration here). He had a problem communicating with people because he was bullied in the past before the apocalypse started and was betrayed by a girl and vowed to never fall in love(I was transitioning puberty before this and thought that girls were scary). The zombies could talk(dunno why) and the villain was about a vampire who had a OP gauntlet that used sexual energy which he was controlled by the MC's traitor girl who was actually a yandere. I remember that he uses the succubus as a physical weapon and beats the vampire....

And that was it. I didn't continue that story because the MC was defeated by a mech controlled by a japanese zombie(I was a bit influenced by my gramps and his hatred for japs at that time). And I didn't continue on with that story because I had inferiority complex over another classmates who had better art skills than me and wanted to be better rather than continue with my story.

My first novel after transitioning from comics was about a guy which has a talent that could see future events through a game but kinda stop because there were too many inconsistent plot points and it was more into slice of life(focus on romance with a yandere and a stalker). Plus I was trying to think up of a story to write in Wattpad which got the idea of Naruto/fairytail type of short story.

 

[thedyingauthor]

My first writing was literally 17 years ago. It was your usual all sunshine and rainbow kids writing, nothing too serious with barely any plot.

Strange, it made me nostalgic all of a sudden...

Hehe that made me giggle. Sometimes we gotta think about those time, right?

In the middle of pandemic, which is in 2020. After four years of writing, I've written around 2 million words. Still a nobody though.

We don't have to write for others to find us, but much rather to find ourselves in this process. If it is meant for you, you will be a successful author!

Long ago when I was a kid. I only started really putting my fantasy to a legible story a few years ago.

If it's not too private, why did you take such a long break?

I started around 2021 when I was too bored, and my mind was saturated with the Courting Death chants, face-slapping scenes, and stupid MCs. Tried to do away with systems and such (though I ended up leaning with them at some point), and had burnouts due to the technicalities that come up with worldbuilding and integrating both it and the plot with minimal inconsistencies.

Then I realized writing a novel/story isn't just about making a character perfect, or flawed, and trying to balance in between is too much work at that time.

I am unsure if I have improved since then, though criticisms still lurk in the corner and some provided areas for improvisation.

Interesting way of getting into writing! It was always somewhere inside you, but I guess life makes us forget the important things by rushing for work, school, university and all those other draining activities ... And yeah, there's always room for improvement, and that's the key!

 

[KersenBloemNL]

If it's not too private, why did you take such a long break?

Mostly to learn how I could do it. Also nervousness of putting what I did online. My first story (Infinity) was a hot mess when I started it, wayyyy too overscoped, so I went back to the drawing board and got one of my other oneshots I wrote to mold it into an actual story, that's being uploaded right now.

 

[thedyingauthor]

I started writing my first story, Terry Traxter and the Secret of the Dragon's Nose, when I was about seven or eight. Harry Potter was all the rage, but I wasn't allowed to read them or watch the movies. My parents couldn't stop me from seeing the commercials on TV, though, and they inspired me to write about Terry Traxter, a magician (which is different from a wizard, MOM!) who learns magic at Shmog Shmorts (I wish I was kidding) and has a scar shaped like a star on his forehead. One day he finds out that there's a dragon that kills people with star shaped scars with an all powerful wand that's stuck in its nose, so he goes to find it (because what else would you do?). I was just trying to make my own version of Harry Potter, but since the only reference I had were the movie commercials, the story literally went "And then Terry found a rock troll. He killed it. And then a giant snake came out of nowhere! He killed it too."
I never finished the story, but I was so proud of it. It was over 100 pages long! (Only because I made the computer font ridiculously big, but still...)

The first story I ever actually wrote seriously was North Pole: Chosen One, a godawful story about an orphan boy being kidna-(ahem) adopted by Santa because he's the chosen one who will end the war with the Winter Warlock. Haha, yeah. Turning Christmas stories into weirdly serious and completely tone deaf fantasy books. Sure glad I outgrew that phase...

First of all: You made me laugh too often I was like ... "Shmog Shmorts"... and I repeated that 2-3 times to realise its HOGWARTS What was the reason for your mom not allowing you to watch it back then? And then about your story North Pole: Chosen One, the German writers in the past would've loved you, as they also made everything 10x worse, while Disney (later on) made these stories love stories

I was originally an aspiring mangaka, and in fact, I created chapters of my works though it didn't get past the first chapters because of the need for an assistant.

However, I didn't wish to give up my drawing and storytelling, so I switched to novel format. Like almost everyone else, I fell to the same 'newbie' thinking that I'm exceptional and my ideas are the best.

But yeah, having first to publish in Royal Road, I got slapped by reality that I'm untalented. This was in 2017.

Nevertheless I was an idealistic fool, even up till now. Did that discourage me? Yes. Did I give up? Hell no. Having failed my very first novel, DECK, I dabbled in manga writing again (Paulina Rex, 2018) before I dedicated myself to novel writing with my longest project to date, The Human Saint is Bored (aka the Saint Series).

Starting from May 2019, I wrote that series. Still hoping that I'm a good author, I uploaded again in the almighty Royal Road...only to get slapped by reality that it won't work.

So, I thought of going to another site. Maybe my luck is there. I found ScribbleHub sometime in July 2020, and began uploading my novel here. However, again, readers said I suck, so I removed my novel here (I returned earlier this year, though I already expected the worst, which happened indeed. No hard feelings. I'm just a bad writer.)

Yeah, I'm foolish enough to think I'm a talented author, until three years later, reality sank in. Lack of novel comments. Loyal readers disappearing. And increasing drop counts made me lose my delusions about myself. Did I give up? Nope. Now that I'm not talented, I just switched my goals, and tried making up with what I lack with hard work.

The result? 20 books (21 if I finished my rewrite), 1 million plus words, 400+ chapters later, I completed the Saint Series.

My author journey is one heck of a roller coaster ride, but what I learned is that, I should never listen to random people. I should know what to do and what direction my story should take. And finish anything I started.

I lack talent. Readers don't read my works. But I can proudly say I finished my story and properly did my assignments. Maybe I'm just unfortunate with the trends, and my inherent lack of social skills jeopardized my ability to advertise. Nevertheless, I don't let that get to me nowadays, compared to when I started writing.

Edit: will I stop writing? Nope. I love to tell stories, even when no one reads my works.

Oh... that is really hurtful, when people say you lack talent, when it's just them not liking the topic of your story... I believe that if you are feeling happy with writing your story and feeling the plot of it, you are on a good path! The Saint Series sounds interesting and if I have time, I'll most likely take a look into it! 21 books finished is a HELL OF AN ACHIEVEMENT !!! Never give up writing!!!!

Wow this sounds familiar to my own experience! Mainly the mentality of "I want to write what I want to write"
Right now I have 3 consistent readers, my best friend, my gf and one person who checks up on my chapters here. That's legit all I need. I know my writing is... mid, but that doesn't stop me. I have a story that I want to tell, and I'm gonna stick by it.

fast forwards 2 years, part 1 is now complete, it's what I had envisioned when I concepted AURA, but the scope grew a bit bigger and i'm on my way to start part 2 now. I can't wait to see what the journey for that will be like.

Yes, indeed! It's always better to have a small circle who READ what you write, than to have 100 readers where some just read one chapter or suddenly start at chapter 7(?!) Anyway we all have our own time and process! Never give up!!!!

For me the answer to that question really depends. If we're talking about my very first attempts, then it was sometime in primary school, I don't really remember when. To say they were bad would be an understatement though. Nothing came from them and I completely dropped writing for a long time. My first serious attempts though were when I was fifteen and got into webnovels. I quickly started trying to write one myself, and the first attempts were obviously really damn bad, but I kept starting and dropping stories for a few months, maybe about a year, until I wrote the first one that broke 20k words and ended up publishing that one after some time.

INTERESTING! And after publishing, what did happen? Were you happy about your process and do you have any plans for the future?

I was an aspiring mangaka before transitioning to novels because I had average art skills when I was a kid.

I was so into zombie type of stories that my first comic was a battle hardened warrior who had a sexy succubus spirit(probably because I stumble on porn which I got scolded and used that inspiration here). He had a problem communicating with people because he was bullied in the past before the apocalypse started and was betrayed by a girl and vowed to never fall in love(I was transitioning puberty before this and thought that girls were scary). The zombies could talk(dunno why) and the villain was about a vampire who had a OP gauntlet that used sexual energy which he was controlled by the MC's traitor girl who was actually a yandere. I remember that he uses the succubus as a physical weapon and beats the vampire....

And that was it. I didn't continue that story because the MC was defeated by a mech controlled by a japanese zombie(I was a bit influenced by my gramps and his hatred for japs at that time). And I didn't continue on with that story because I had inferiority complex over another classmates who had better art skills than me and wanted to be better rather than continue with my story.

My first novel after transitioning from comics was about a guy which has a talent that could see future events through a game but kinda stop because there were too many inconsistent plot points and it was more into slice of life(focus on romance with a yandere and a stalker). Plus I was trying to think up of a story to write in Wattpad which got the idea of Naruto/fairytail type of short story.

Ngl the first story sounds interesting

Mostly to learn how I could do it. Also nervousness of putting what I did online. My first story (Infinity) was a hot mess when I started it, wayyyy too overscoped, so I went back to the drawing board and got one of my other oneshots I wrote to mold it into an actual story, that's being uploaded right now.

Oh! Yeah, it's about taking that first step. You're right! Uploaded on Scribble Hub?

 

[SirDogeTheFirst]

I first started writing back in start of middle school. Mostly published fan stories of whatever franchise little me with uncontrolled and unlimited internet access was obsessed with in AO3 or Wattpad. I stopped it around 7th grade and returned to writing during in Covid because I had too much free time.

Probably the biggest change I had happened in recent times as I finally started being more serious with my writings even if they were still my hobbies I spent at best 3 to 4 hours a week. Show not tell, preplan your story, flesh out your characters more and give them flaws, have a coherent theme, etc. I heard about these but never knowingly applied to my stories. I mean my older work is still there and it's basically a giant slop of inconsistent tenses, info drops, and edgy asf main character with nearly no flaws and quirks, albeit I still think the over the top, 2010s stick fight esque fighting scenes I wrote had their charm.

 

[KersenBloemNL]

Oh! Yeah, it's about taking that first step. You're right! Uploaded on Scribble Hub?

Yup! Its in my signature (and here: https://www.scribblehub.com/series/740799/aura-the-souls-true-nature/)

 

[ThisAdamGuy]

What was the reason for your mom not allowing you to watch it back then?

Because we were a Christian family, which meant anything having to do with witchcraft was completely off limits. My mom (who is a total Disney nut) eventually lightened up when one of her church friends told her she couldn't say Harry Potter was bad while watching...well, pretty much any Disney movie. She decided to read HP herself first to make sure they were appropriate for me and my sister, and ironically became way more obsessed with them than either of us did.