What do you find hardest?

[Tecdavid]

So, we've all got ideas swimming about in our heads, and from first lines to rewrites, we come to learn what we're best at. We learn that our narrative and dialogue are coming along so much better than several months ago, and that our stories are taking finer form. Might not be perfect, but we can tell when we're at least starting to get there.
But what about the things we're not so confident with? Which aspects of writing do we each feel we struggle with? Which aspects remain difficult no matter how often we write or redraft?
I'm curious, because I think it'd be interesting to see whether there are any patterns among us - any aspects of the craft that we can actually agree are harder to nail than others.

 

[MstrTal]

Dialog! No matter how much I write it always comes off, at least to me, as something from a really cheesy soap opera.

 

[StephenAM]

I drew a lot while growing up. As a child, I told everyone I was going to be an artist. Later in high school my interest moved to computer art/design; photoshop and autocad. Although I doodled, I didn't take traditional art serious.

Long story short, I did not 'learn' how to draw until college (the second time around). I can not explain the transistion but suddenly the art of art made sense. I went from doodling in small corners of homework to filling a 9x12 canvas. I was introduced to pencils, chalk, pastels, paint, and many other mediums.

I had a cool art teacher and awesome classmates. In writing, I find the hardest is learning how to write by myself. I have picked up a lot from "how to write" books, online articles, and reading, but as hard as I try I am still only doodling with words.

 

[Christopher Lee]

Two years ago, I feared dialogue like the plague because I was afraid of it sounding cheesy. But ever since I started reading Elmore Leonard and others like him, my dialogue has much improved and now flows like normal converstation.

Today, what I'm most worried about is getting the tone of the story down. I'm always secretly afraid that what I'm writing just sounds, to put it simply, stupid. Unimaginative. That's probably my biggest problem today.

 

[Greenwoody]

Leaving a piece, intending to come back & finish it; rarely happens. So lots of stuff hanging around in the WorkingOn directory.

Find character arcs a pain in the neck, just getting any arc at all that doesn't sound totally contrived.

But generally have a big problem with finishing things and

 

[Glisterspeck]

Leaving a piece, intending to come back & finish it; rarely happens. So lots of stuff hanging around in the WorkingOn directory.

Find character arcs a pain in the neck, just getting any arc at all that doesn't sound totally contrived.

But generally have a big problem with finishing things and

This. Finishing. I've yet to do it with a novel length WIP.

 

[BetaWolf]

Description is kind of hard for me. I do a fair amount of dialogue and internal monologue, but I have to fill in physical descriptions of characters on a second draft. I guess I'm afraid of getting too descriptive.

 

[oddhero]

Bringing out the bear, as my old journo prof used to call it. If I have a good idea (good being subjective) then I hang on to it WAY too long, I think, trying to savour the moment. Of course, there may be way BIGGER issues that I am not quite seeing ...

 

[Fishbowl Helmet]

To avoid too much crossover with editing I wrote scripts instead of prose for years. Now coming to prose description is really the hardest for me. Going from INT. WAREHOUSE - NIGHT to a more involved and engaging description has been tough.

 

[Warren_Paul]

It would have to be dialogue for me too. Sometimes I just get it, and the conversation flows smoothly. Other times I feel like I'm forcing the characters to say the dialogue just so I can move the story along.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Description all the way. I don't do it enough, but when I do focus on it (usually either on draft four, or when a beta points it out to me) I can do it. I just hate it.

Getting past 30000 words is always challenging, but I know now once I push through the pain, I'll get to the end. (usually).

I like editing and I'm lucky that dialogue comes easy to me (since my books mostly consist of people talking to each other).

 

[jastius]

what's hardest for me is switching points of view, having one character carry it and then having to change voices... i tend to echo the other character a lot.

 

[A. S. Behsam]

My writing is very simple. I think it makes me less confident sometimes, even though some people believe simple is better.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Third omniscient - it is driving me up the wall.

 

[Hex]

STRUCTURE.

Also: character arcs and getting character emotion across to the reader.

Making myself keep going when things aren't easy/ judging when I need to stop struggling onwards, go back to the beginning and start again.

 

[allmywires]

STRUCTURE.

Also: character arcs and getting character emotion across to the reader.

Making myself keep going when things aren't easy/ judging when I need to stop struggling onwards, go back to the beginning and start again.

This.

100.

Per.

Cent.

And another one: restarting the beginning when it feels wrong and not understanding that it feels wrong because I haven't got into the story yet. Yet I do it every fricking time.

 

[Jake Reynolds]

I hear you. One of the reasons I haven't been on Chrons much lately is because I've not only been hugely busy laying smackdown on the various mobs of Pandaria, but have also been consumed by a huge overhaul in which I'm not only murdering my darlings, I'm public enemy number one. I have cut/merged main characters, restructured the entire opening third, and thus far have gone from 188,000 words to 142,000 (and counting).

This highlights what I find hardest, and what my mantra has become: 'Tighten, tighten, TIGHTEN damn you!'

 

[Azzagorn]

Always dialogue and trying to find ways to describe things in a way that makes them 1. Interesting and 2. Believable. Usually when I read something back to myself it will sound like total drivel and will delete it and start over this happens a lot!

 

[Verse]

ENDINGS

I have no problem coming up with interesting concepts, themes, characters, ideas but a story needs a beginning, middle and end. Endings are hard, especially if they are to be any good.

I try not to start a story unless I can think of an ending for it but sometimes the muse is too strong. I think I have about 10 unfinished plots for every 1 that is finished.

There is a current trend for short stories that don't actually have a proper end drives me up the wall (Kelly Link, Stranger Things Happen - I'm looking at you). It's cheating to publish stuff you couldn't finish properly but maybe that's just my opinion.

 

[Tecdavid]

Dialogue seems to a recurring entry here. I think what's worst is when a piece of dialogue seems perfectly fine as it's being written, only for it to come across as utterly naff when you look at it later.