Skip to main content

Wasting Stories by Mary Deal




Many people say they could have written a better story, that they should be a writer. These people talk about the negatives of writing or the supposed flaws of stories they’ve read.

It’s okay to critique.

Perhaps these people would make great critics or book reviewers, providing they can temper their egos.
Many people complain about others’ prose because they feel they can write a better plot, better characters and so forth.
My wish is that they would begin to write. Put their thoughts into solid form and stop wasting their own stories and creativity.
Often times, when those who complain will take the time to write out their gripes, they either learn they are correct, or they find they are way off beat. Many of these people could easily become writers because writing our thoughts and ideas often form stories of their own accord.
One such friend began to write out her frustrations and learned from others who read her scribbles that she had a dry wit, at other times, a raucous sense of humor.
We stand to learn a lot about ourselves as writers if we will simply examine our thoughts, motivations and frustrations.
This is a great way for a writer to improve. When you read another author’s prose and feel you can write better, at that moment is when you should delve deeply into your thoughts and come up with that better story—as long as it’s your own creation and not plagiarized from the story you read.
Your muse is trying to tell you that you have it in you to write and write well. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be seeing the flaws in the writings of others.

Your muse is ready to help you write a better story. Why waste opportunities to create your own great prose?


Mary Deal

Author, Painter, Photographer
Eric Hoffer Book Award Winner
National Indie Excellence Book Awards Finalist (past)
Pushcart Prize Nominee
Global eBook Awards Nominee
2014 National Indie Excellence Book Awards Finalist
Global eBook Awards Bronze
Global eBook Awards Silver
Art Gallery: http://www.MaryDealFineArt.com
Gift Gallery: zazzle.com/IslandImageGallery*



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

MARGARET FIELAND INTERVIEW (guest blogger)

When did you first know you were destined to be a writer? LOL, I never realized I was destined to be a writer -- I fell into it. I'd written poetry for years, collecting it in notebooks stacked in my attic when I wrote one I wanted to keep. This led me to several online sites and ultimately to discovering the Muse Online Writers Conference where I hooked up with Linda Barnett Johnson and joined her writers forums. She required everyone to write both fiction and poetry, so, with much trepidation, I started writing fiction. Then I got hooked on it, wrote a chapter book, took the ICL course and actually learned how to write it. Then in 2010, I was seized by a desire to write a sci fi novel, so I spent six weeks or so on world building, mostly, with a bit of plotting thrown in for good measure. Who would you cite as your influences? I'm a way-back sci-fi fan, and Robert A. Heinlein influenced me heavily. I took a lot away from his writing, notably the value of surpris...

A Tip for Authors: What to Put on the Back Cover of a Book

If you have accomplished the arduous task of writing a book, you may not embrace the job of choosing what to put on your book's back cover. Maybe you think that a short biography, along with a few endorsements should suffice. Actually the material on the back cover can carry out its intended job, without the presence of a two or three line bio. It does pay to highlight any endorsements you have received from experts within the industry, or from recognized members of government or society. Still, you may not have on file an endorsement that can stir up the emotions in a potential reader. Yet you have little reason to hope that the reader of the rear covering piece will elect to look at the pages between the covers, if you fail to trigger that same person's emotions. With that fact in mind, you must consider what emotions might push a book lover to purchase the publication that bears your name. Maybe that potential reader feels challeng...

Those S and ES Endings by Mary Deal

These endings have always troubled me until I finally decided to get it right. Compare the versions and pick out the correct usages in this name ending with the letter s . The Joneses came for dinner. The Jones’s came for dinner. The Jones came for dinner. John Joneses car stalled. John Jones car stalled. John Jones’s car stalled. That Jones’s girl. That Joneses girl. That Jones girl. The correct sentences are: The Joneses came for dinner. John Jones’s car stalled. That Jones girl. Some tips: When a name ends with an s, and when speaking of the family as a group, add es , as in Joneses. When speaking about something John Jones owned, it is his property and, therefore, an apostrophe and s shows ownership, as in Jones’s . When speaking about a person in the singular, use only the name Jones. However, when speaking about a group of girls all named Jones, you would write that sentence: The Jones girls . Notice that the name stays...