{"id":722,"date":"2015-07-24T11:27:02","date_gmt":"2015-07-24T08:27:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/suchwanderings.wordpress.com\/?p=722"},"modified":"2015-07-24T11:27:02","modified_gmt":"2015-07-24T08:27:02","slug":"blast-from-the-past-writing-advice-from-sara-aged-13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/snuu.kapsi.fi\/saranorja\/2015\/07\/24\/blast-from-the-past-writing-advice-from-sara-aged-13\/","title":{"rendered":"Blast from the past: Writing advice from Sara aged 13"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was randomly browsing a couple of my old diaries last night, and came across a rather interesting entry from when I was 13. In it I angst profusely about how my stories are shit: my plots are shit because I don’t plan them in advance, my sentences sound terrible, I’ll never write anything decent! But at the very end of the entry I give some surprisingly sage advice to myself: just keep writing something<\/em> even if it’s shit. Yes good, 13-year-old self! <\/p>\n

Anyway, the entry includes some more writing advice from 13-year-old Sara, so I thought I’d share it with you for the lulz! It was originally written in Finnish – I used to write my diary more in Finnish; these days it’s almost entirely in English, interestingly – so this is a translation. But I’ve kept the original capitalisation and excessive punctuation for your reading pleasure. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

SARA’S WRITING ADVICE, AGED 13:<\/p>\n

If you don’t have a proper plot, you don’t have anything. And a proper plot won’t happen unless you have a proper main character and bad guy. The main character MUST NOT be blah and boring – but somehow special. And they DON’T NEED TO BE perfect or anything, but they have to have FLAWS AND BAD HABITS AND PREJUDICES!!!!! [drawing of three angry-looking skulls]<\/p>\n

And the bad guy – they’re REALLY IMPORTANT. They have to be really merciless, but not stupid<\/u> and PATHETIC! They have to feel REAL and sensible<\/u> too!!<\/p>\n

And the plot has to make at least some sort of sense and must be COMPLEX and above all INTERESTING!!!!! And especially the beginning<\/u> needs to be good, otherwise the reader’s interest will stop right there…<\/p>\n

AND THE TEXT HAS TO FEEL ALIVE!!!!! You have to carry the reader with you and the text has to sound GOOD… <\/p>\n

So there’s the basic guidelines \u00e0 la Sara.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

13-year-old me definitely loved her exclamation marks times five, huh? \ud83d\ude00 This is very much navel-gazing, but I think it’s fascinating that even when I was that young, I was analysing my own writing (even if from an angsty “IT’LL NEVER BE GOOD WAAAAH” perspective). And from the perspective of potential reader response, too! I also note in the same entry that inspiration needs to be fed for it to keep going, which is actually surprising, considering that when I was younger I basically believed in the magical sort of “strikes you like lightning” inspiration and not so much the “bum in chair, fingers on keyboard” practical approach. <\/p>\n

My diaries also include some rather adorably effusive descriptions of how awesome writing is. This is from the entry quoted above: <\/p>\n

“At its best writing is like a drug… a LOVELY drug you get addicted to… when you’re writing a SUPER GOOD story, you’re dancing on the clouds and go to amazing places and drink from the chalice of the gods…”<\/p>\n

A purple-prose way of putting it, sure, but I still agree. At its best, writing is<\/em> magic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was randomly browsing a couple of my old diaries last night, and came across a rather interesting entry from when I was 13. In it I angst profusely about how my stories are shit: my plots are shit because I don’t plan them in advance, my sentences sound terrible, I’ll never write anything decent! […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,10],"tags":[39,52,12],"class_list":["post-722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discussion","category-personal-babble","tag-discussing-the-craft","tag-the-power-of-memory","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/snuu.kapsi.fi\/saranorja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/snuu.kapsi.fi\/saranorja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/snuu.kapsi.fi\/saranorja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/snuu.kapsi.fi\/saranorja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/snuu.kapsi.fi\/saranorja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/snuu.kapsi.fi\/saranorja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/snuu.kapsi.fi\/saranorja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/snuu.kapsi.fi\/saranorja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/snuu.kapsi.fi\/saranorja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}