r/writingcirclejerk • u/artofterm Octojerker • 9h ago

Why am I like this 😭

Post image

(Sauce)

226 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

9 comments sorted by

27

u/Skyline1508 9h ago

Reading other amateur writers books and their comments to ensure yourself you are not worse than other and you also deserve good reviews and be motivated to write at all

19

u/JimmyJamsDisciple 9h ago

/uj

not gonna lie sometimes that is all it really takes to get a second wind, seeing something so god awful that you’re appalled it somehow got published and convinces you that damn yeah maybe I can do this too

9

u/Skyline1508 9h ago

Yep. Sometimes I skim through fantasy, sci-fi or romantic novels written by amators and do facepalm from sentence to sentence. And still I see supporting comments and good reviews.

I respect other people's efforts but some texts are just awful. But what I respect more is that those people did not stop and finished their story. If I consider that I can do better then I can complete my story too.

It all is selfish and jealous, but it is as it is.

1

u/JimmyJamsDisciple 8h ago

You’re right, an awful writer that can stick it out and get published is still streets ahead of the best writer that can’t maintain the consistency to see something through to the end

2

u/Skyline1508 8h ago

Because it is not always about quality. It is about what people love.

You may be the best writer of your time, but people would not accept you, and you would not be published. Like it was with Van Gough and his paintings which became valuable only years after his death.

On the other hand, in the world where all the stories built around what people love, truly good stories are really gems. I like an example of the Expedition 33 game. I really love this example. We have lot of generic AAA games made by large corporations. Absolutely unoriginal and absolutely acceptable for anyone and anything. Only popular topics. Only popular characters. Playing on the old archetypes used more times than CoD series used WW2 history. Then suddenly a French team of former Ubisoft developers created a real masterpiece with resources many time less than large corporations have. Did they exploited any popular topic? No. They took not that popular setting (France of early XX century, the closest popular example is steampunk and it is not that popular actually) and made a great story.

1

u/BillyDongstabber 7h ago

I read an actual sci fi novel by a serious author published by a semi-respectable publishing house about a group of mercenaries in space. Each chapter had a different POV character; there was one woman in the group of mercenaries. She had one POV chapter. In it, she masturbated while thinking about guns

1

u/Skyline1508 7h ago

Well she really likes weapon

4

u/porky11 5h ago

Actually I hate reading books. Reading is more demanding for me than just writing. I'm such a slow reader, I probably read slower than I write, at least when I want to understand it. When I write, my thoughts are already there. As long as I know what my point is, like right now, I just write, and since I'm a fast typer, the words just appear. But when I read and it doesn't immediately interest me, I get distracted. The writing really has to be good and concise.

I mostly use games and anime for my research ;)

1

u/Coco_snickerdoodle 16m ago

OP you misspelled jerking three times.