Diana's Writing Blog

I remember hearing about a famous novelist who had a briefcase with his only copies of all his early work stolen at a train station or something. At the time, he was devastated, but looking back years later he said it was the best thing that ever happened to him. I can kind of relate.

Writing is hard, no doubt about it, but going back and editing what you wrote is even harder. The stories congeal somehow over time, and its hard to spot the places that need to be picked apart and redone. It’s a lot easier just to throw up your hands and say its too broken to fix–or worse, that you’ll fix it later. Someday.

Inevitably, I’ll look back at something I wrote even just a few months ago and decide that I hate it. The story is contrived, the characters are boring, the narration is clunky, and it’s just a complete loss–too much work to fix right now. That’s the hardest part of editing. Deciding when a work is really just a complete loss and actually walking away. It’s something I struggle with a lot, being somewhat of a packrat in general. I’ve probably got every story I’ve ever written in a box somewhere in my house. Or my parents’ house, more likely.

Still, I think it can be healthy to look back at where you started and how you progressed. Granted, most of my early stuff is just awful. The first story I ever wrote is one I started way back in 5th grade. The premise is too stupid to even relate, and the writing is so bad it’s laughable. For the first few pages, I began every–every!–sentence with suddenly. Suddenly, she did this. Suddenly, he said that. Suddenly, the door opened.

Yep. Just awful. But I can forgive that because it was my very first attempt, and despite all its horrifying aspects, it’s got some glimmers of hope in it. The dialog isn’t all together terrible, for instance. Best of all, no one has ever seen it but me, and they never will.

Unfortunately, a lot of the stuff I wrote in high school did see the light of day. One story even won a writing contest at UW-Whitewater and was then read aloud to all the Freshman and Sophomore English classes by my English teacher.

It’s bad. It’s not every-sentence-starts-with-suddenly bad, but it’s clunky, and its entire premise is cliched, and I really hope no one who heard it remembers any part of it, because it was soooo bad.

Worse, in my delusional state, I decided that it was so good it should be part of a series of short stories. Some aspects of the other stories possibly show the teeniest glimmer of promise, but the premises and writing is just terrible.

Still, you can’t improve without making (horrible, cringe-worthy) mistakes, so I’ve posted them for the world (or the 3 people who read this blog) to see. Except that very first story. Cause I burned it. Anyway, please don’t reproduce all or part of any of these anywhere without my permission. And if you take all or part of a story (even if you rephrase a lot of it) and claim it as your own, that’s plaigarism. And also, very, very sad. So don’t.

The terrible series that I was talking about is the "Evil" series. (Hey, I warned you. I’m not being modest here. It’s pretty bad.) It’s about a paranormal investigator who investigates…paranormal stuff. I had grand plans to delve into the mysterious back story of the main character, but that never quite reached fruition. There are five finished stories. (I had more at least two more outlined. Oh, yes. It was going to be epic….) In (story world) chronological order, they are:

1. Evil Unearthed
2. Reflections of Evil (the prize winner)
3. Evil Rising
4. Acts of Evil
5. Evil Revisited

If I ever go back and try to salvage this series, well, I’d change a lot. First, I’d be a lot more subtle with my paranormal elements. More Jaws, less Stephen King. Which is to say, less gore and more wondering if there even is really a paranormal presence, and if so where is it and what can it do to you. (Seeing the shark is scary, not knowing where the shark is exactly is even scarier.) Also, the actual paranormal scenarios would be far less done-to-death. Seriously? Haunted Inuit spear? What was I thinking? Also, I’d probably go an entirely different way with Nick’s shady past/his mother’s death. Witches/black magic as a bad guy is not only done-to-death but a bit insulting to those who practice real magic(k). In my defense, I was young and sheltered.

Next comes a really weird experiment I started where I decided to write a series of short stories each set in a different room of an apartment. Characters can enter and leave the room, but the focus always has to stay in that room. It’s…not as stupid as it sounds, actually. Anyway, I got two stories in and I don’t totally hate them.

1. The Kitchen
2. The Bathroom

Next is a story called The Bad Day. It’s about a man who…has a bad day. In fact, he has the worst day of his life. And there’s a psychic who told him so. I think I must have been watching a lot of Outer Limits at the time.

Delving farther into my experimentation with the Scifi genre are four gems I wrote late in my high school career. Dirt Girl is the story of a stowaway on a mission to colonize a new planet. Unlike the other colonists, she’s from Earth, which has basically become one big, barely inhabitable slum. It’s my first try at both first-person narration and a diary-style story. It’s pretty clunky.

Bonding at least has a better premise, if the execution is a bit lacking. Basically, a hundred years in the future science has developed a way for two people to be continuously and irrevocably mind linked. It’s touted as the ultimate commitment for couples. Of course, being together 24/7 isn’t something everyone can handle. Oddly, this one is also in first person and instead of a diary its a transcript of a speech given to a bunch of prospective couples.

Next is The Unfortunate, which despite the misleading name is a comedy about a band of mutineers and their attempts to overtake their ship and get clear of the war they were all drafted into. It’s got a few bizarre elements, like names and things, because it’s the product of a writing challenge my friends and I set up. I don’t totally hate this one.

Last is Planet Zerol. It’s another first-person, not because I fell in love with that POV but because our Senior English class got an assignment to write a first-person story about a memorable day or something. So basically it came about because the teacher didn’t specify that it had to be nonfiction and I didn’t want to be another boring speck in the sea of 9/11 and first car stories. It’s pretty terrible, nonetheless. And I had to read it aloud. Anything to give the teacher another 15 minutes to flip through magazines at her desk.

For the last one we have to fast forward about two years to Sophomore year of college. I took the first of two writing classes offered by my university. Unfortunately, it was run by a poet who pretty much hated "genre" fiction and didn’t understand why everyone wasn’t interested in writing "real" fiction. Sheesh. Anyway, I’m not morally opposed to "real" fiction or anything; I just happen to prefer stories where most of the action occurs externally. Still, I like to experiment with new writing styles, so I gave it a go. The El is my attempt at a story where not much happens and the character sits around thinking about their life and where it went wrong. I don’t totally hate it and I worked hard at the imagery in it, so I have to be a bit proud.

And that’s it. A look back at my early writing. I like to think I’ve improved greatly since then, but I’m still far from perfect.

I remember hearing about a famous novelist who had a briefcase with his only copies of all his early work stolen at a train station or something. At the time, he was devastated, but looking back years later he said it was the best thing that ever happe…

I remember hearing about a famous novelist who had a briefcase with his only copies of all his early work stolen at a train station or something. At the time, he was devastated, but looking back years later he said it was the best thing that ever happened to him. I can kind of relate. [...]