Working against yourself

[Dom]

Do any of you have to "work against yourself" when you write at all?  Do you have any tendancies/quirks/whatever that you know are bad for your writing and you work to overcome?

One of my biggest flaws as a writer is that I very deeply want people "to get along with one another".  I don't like conflict in real life.  That's a problem in writing, where it only gets interesting when there's conflict!  So I have to work really hard to get my main characters disliking one another.  I want all my "baby" characters to play nicely, even to the detriment of their own personalities.  But that would hurt the quality of the writing.

The reason I fight it is because I don't want to be bland and boring with everyone being friends.  There are some good writers who do well without interpersonal conflicts between major characters, but I always think they could have been greater if they'd thrown more conflict in.  Anne McCaffrey for example--love her books, don't get me wrong, but her characters are generally very nice to one another unless they're specifically cast as a villian.  I would have liked to see Robinton, for example, be more vicious at times to underline his political mind (everyone knows politics holds no prisoners).  It would have been interesting to see villians have more mud to sling at him aside from "He drinks like a fish!" and "Robinton and Lessa are so close they're probably sleeping together".

[Danielle/Evie]

one of the biggest problems i have is making my brain shut up. i sit down to write, but many times drift off as the story continues in my imagination..and i forget to actually write.
in the actual story (when i finally get to the writing) im still struggling to make the character's lives a little bit harder for them. Part of it is similar to you, Dom...i like people to get along with eachother, and i like things to work out  for them. But...sigh..it's not always going to.

[Richelle Mead]

I too have a "can't we all just get along" mentality.  I also tend to use too many characters when merging a few makes things simpler.

Oh yeah.  I'm also hanging out on boards when I should be working toward my December 15 deadline...

[SirThinks2Much]

I have a problem with wanting everyone to be good inside, so a lot of my villains become good guys or at least not-so-bad. I'd like to think of it as "character development" but there are many ways a villain can develop...

[WonderandAwe]

I too have an issue with putting my ideas on paper.  The brain works faster then I can type!

My big issue with writing stories is having characters do "stupid" things based on thier personality quirks.  Having do things that they know will cause them issues later on but they don't care and do it anyways.  I'm working on getting over it in my head, but putting it down on paper is hard. 

I also unconciously borrow ideas from my own stories.  For some stories it's okay (they are basically fan fics that will never see the light of day) but for stories set in my own world, it causes issues.  I hope that when I actually get a complete story out, it will stop happening.

[Belial]

My biggest problem is getting myself to sit down and write. I tend to wander off and do other things when I should be writing (for example; I have a 6 page report due tomorrow that I should be working on... right now).

As for making everyone get along, or wanting everyone to be good... I don't really have that problem. A lot of my characters are bastards. And among the good guys, I like to play off of polar personalities (e.g. I have two main characters in one story; one is an overly flamboyant wizard, and the other is a dark and reserved warrior); that tends to breed a good, healthy amount of conflict.

[prime_spirit]

I tend to let my mind wander around until it got stuck in the kitchen. It won't come back until I bring along my stomach. I really am easily distracted. This happens when I try to get new ideas when I'm stuck and so I look for references online or from other fiction or pc games. Three hours later, a ton of references but not a word written. Oddly enough, inspiration comes best when I suddenly wake up at 3am.

Story-wise, I tend to get hero and heroine misunderstand each other. It's conflict but now I'm older and have read more, this kinna conflict is cliche'. I've decided to try a different writing style, where everything should be more focused on the heroine and let the plots draw out whose's the end-story hero.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

I have a problem with wanting everyone to be good inside, so a lot of my villains become good guys or at least not-so-bad.

Very few people are villains from their own viewpoint.

[Roaram]

Other than getting distracted, or having more story in my head than I do on paper, my biggest problem is descriptions. In real life I look at people... Oddly. Not in some deep sense, but literally. Most people see the strongest attribute a person has like redhair,  or good looks. I tend to  notice jewlry, the way a person walks, the persons mood. I notice the facial expression before I notice the face. I think it is because of being an actor that I look at people this way. But in writing it just doesn't work to leave out identifying factors and give all the subtle stuff. The only other thing I have to work against myself on is explaining too much back story. So much of a persons life is tied to the past, and my characters are the same way, where if you knew their past the way I do (in my head) everything they did would be perfectly understandable. Everything else I have trouble with is not so much me activly working against my self, but just working, period.things like word choice, and making sense to the reader, leaving important stuff out, I hope everyone has those problems every now and again, or maybe I just suck. I don't know yet?

[SirThinks2Much]

I have a problem with wanting everyone to be good inside, so a lot of my villains become good guys or at least not-so-bad.

Very few people are villains from their own viewpoint.

True. But I usually have them start off doing nasty dastardly things and then do nice things later on. Occasionally dying a martyr's death. Things like that. If I kill them off early they stay evil.

Perhaps they mellow with age...

[Jack_of_Names]

Aside from putting all the chaos in my head on paper, and getting distracted by the overly shiny internet, and books, I have trouble not making my characters Supermen. Not that I don't want them to have powers, but, I have a real problem letting them loose, at all. The best I've been able to  do is a very painful draw so far. But that is progress... I dream of the day when my character is bruised and bloody, maybe tied to somthing with no genuine hope of escape... That's when I'll know I've made it...

[Tersa]

I have a problem of introducing too many characters at once, but my major problem is that I want to know everything about every character with a decent sized part, and you just can't freaking do that when you're writing from first person POV.  I have real problems focusing on my one main character, not because he doesn't interest me, but because I try to make all my characters interesting and I keep going "Hey, wait!  YOU!  Get back here!  Why'd you do that?!" and trying to figure out every detail of their minds while my main character is neglected and sitting forelorn, asking "But... What about me?" Because of this little habit, I know less about my main character and how he thinks than anyone else, a slight problem when you're writing from his perspective...

[blgarver]

I have a problem of introducing too many characters at once, but my major problem is that I want to know everything about every character with a decent sized part, and you just can't freaking do that when you're writing from first person POV.  I have real problems focusing on my one main character, not because he doesn't interest me, but because I try to make all my characters interesting and I keep going "Hey, wait!  YOU!  Get back here!  Why'd you do that?!" and trying to figure out every detail of their minds while my main character is neglected and sitting forelorn, asking "But... What about me?" Because of this little habit, I know less about my main character and how he thinks than anyone else, a slight problem when you're writing from his perspective...

I'm familiar with this issue, also.  In my method, I start with story concept, not character, then I try to come up with some characters that would compliment the story.  Kind of a clunky way to work.

I was having a discussion about character backstory with my roommate last night and we came to the conclusion that some stories don't need backstory.  Or, a lot of it, at least.  The one I'm writing now isn't a backstory piece.  It's just a story.

The Dresden Files, however, is a backstory piece.  Lots of vibrant characters with all kinds of histories.

I've often thought that character personality is sort of a two way street.  You can either build the character outline, get to know him in your head, have all the traits and reactions and quirks laid out beforehand and then make him/her act accordingly as you write...or, the reverse: just write and let the character live in the story, and then his actions/reactions build the character outline naturally. 

Try to think of yourself as a character.  Did anyone write an outline for you?  What makes you act the way you do?  Do you always act consistently?

In other words, I think the way I act makes up my personality more than my personality governs the way I act.  I try to apply that to my characters, too.

[Tasmin21]

Oddly, a lot of my consistent troubles come from the actual mechanics of writing.  I am famous for comma splices, using contractions outside an informal context, run on sentences...  I recently went back through the first chapter of my current fiasco and eliminated all contractions that weren't in speech, cut up some of my lengthier sentences, and generally polished a little.  It added almost 200 words to the length.

These are problems I know I have, and yet I can't seem to stop doing it.  I know the "team" of editors that I rely on are about ready to strangle me because they keep having to point out "Here, you did it again..."

[waywardclam]

Wait a minute -- we're NOT supposed to use contractions?