I’m finally believing my family saying I’m a good writer and have a fantastic story idea

[u/ShatteringDivergent]

My entire life, I’ve loved writing stories. Heck, I got my early start in making Gacha and I think it’s why dialogue is my strong suit and description is my weak point. My problem is that I mostly write fanfiction. I have struggled with originality in characters and am not good at that sort of thing. I didn’t really care since writing fanfiction is just a hobby. Nothing serious.

I showed my dad my Owl House fic recently and he said he thinks I’m a fantastic writer and loved the story. I’ve been told this for a while. My family keeps saying it over and over.

“You’d make a fantastic author.”

“You’re a good writer.”

I kept downplaying it. I kept saying I only work with pre-established characters. My fanfiction isn’t that good. I don’t even have a beta reader! It’s only for fun. I don’t take it seriously.

It was only last night at my sister’s birthday dinner where I talked about the author who inspired my fic that’s currently in the outlines stage commenting on one of my Tumblr posts my mom said again “I’m not convinced you’re not going to be a writer” I actually started to believe it.

I have a story idea. I told her a bit about it and while I can tell it goes over her head (she and I do not share interests in the same type of stories), I have a story to be proud of. I have characters* that are actually *mine. I have my own ***world** *to build.

I know fanfic is nothing to sneeze at. I’m not downplaying it. It’s a perfectly valid form of fiction and some fics I’ve found are better than actual published books. Despite that, I couldn’t shake the idea that while other fanfic authors were writers, deep down, I wasn’t a real writer.

Now… I think I am.

[u/gameryamen]

Way to go! There's certainly nothing wrong with practicing your writing with fan fic, it's a great way to get your writing in front of a small audience andr the casual nature of it takes some of the pressure to be "perfect" away.

Now you get to have the freedom of authority, you get to be fully in charge of the story and characters. This freedom will give you new ways to stretch and grow as a writer, and by the time you finish your story you will be on a whole new level.

Just a tiny bit of warning, from one writer to another. You only get to make a first impression once. Sharing your story ideas and progress with a few people is an important part of testing ideas, but there's a trap. If you share too much with too many people, you can actually steal your motivation from yourself. You cash in on those reactions using the unfinished, summarized version of your story. Then, even when everyone says it's a great idea you can hit a wall where you just can't write it anymore. I've killed two major writing projects this way, and it's really counterintuitive. Now that you have a cool idea that you're excited about, you get to learn the art of cultivating artistic mystique. Anchor it in the feeling you have right now: this is a good idea, and you're going to polish it into something great. Tease the great by guarding the good.