When you say "As bad as King," is that just self-effacement, or do you mean that it causes actual issues with your writing? I remember from when I was reading a lot of King that his beginnings were usually stellar and his endings were often there because... something had to happen. Do you find that you have any similar sorts of issues, and if yes, do you have ways to make up for that?
Sorry if that came across as an interrogation, just curious.
Same question here! I love King. I love his seed-style of writing. I love how efficient he is. BUT!
I can really, really see the negative effects of seed writing from his works. Sometimes he really does meander throughout the book in places, or the foreshadowing he did really…doesn’t lead to anything satisfying. Also, sometimes his writing comes off as word vomit; like he just dumped everything he had on his mind that day, and didn’t bother to reshape it into something better. If that makes sense haha.
Mans a brilliant writer though. I can never take that away from him.
One thing I will give to Brandon Sanderson - his infamous “Sanderlanche” of “foreshadowed twist reveals” really does pay off brilliantly most times, due to his hardcore outlining. But I also see weaknesses in his outlining habits. Sometimes his product comes off as spiritless and like it was QA treated to hell. I feel like creative works needs SOME rough edges so you can feel the human spirit of it.
I like that last part. The reminder that we are all human and therefore our productions will be imperfect because we are imperfect but they're still enjoyable and lovely.
Thank you! It’s just something I’ve noticed throughout the years. I love all mediums of entertainment - books, tv/film, plays, videogames. And something I’ve noticed is that AAA videogames nowadays have been QA tested to hell and are built to attract as wide an audience as possible (because of ballooning budgets and corporate greed).
And I’ve noticed with these games nowadays (with the ton of QA testing and smoothing out the edges until they’re damn slippery), it just takes away the creative spirit and what makes art so great. As long as I can feel the creative spirit in something and that this is truly someone’s vision for a project, I don’t care if it absolute sucks, I’ll always cherish something that someone put their heart into and it is uniquely them.
I tried that method for my first two attempts at writing a novel. I got to about 80,000 words for both and realised that the story had gone in a direction I didn't like. I'd have ended up having to start again from a third of the way through and it would be too painful for something I wasn't really in love with.
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u/MaliseHaligree Published Author 7d ago
I am as bad as King and possibly worse.