In the next post of the series of how not to be a writer, of which the first post can be found here. For this post, we will cover the art of not daydreaming. It is important to never daydream because if you do, then you can succeed as a writer.
How do writers get ideas? One of those ways is to daydream, dream of worlds that don't exist. Dream up of strange animals, of strange, evil governments and dream of magical talisman. When you read a book, you enter into these worlds and you start dreaming about them. The what ifs! The plot twists! The buildings and fashion!
That's why some love fan fiction so much, because they can continue daydreaming about the characters and the world they loved reading or watching about. That's why you also shouldn't read, but that's another post for another time. The topic here is about dreams.
Sure, there are pre-existing worlds we could dream about, but if you never dream up your own, then you will never be a writer. You will always be a fan fiction writer. Is that what you want? Nothing wrong with fan fiction, I'm a supporter of them because they let you practice writing. But they don't really let you practice world-building because that work is already done for you. That is the bad side of fan fiction.
THough, nothing stops you from building a new world with some of the characters of that world and make it yours. Just try not to be too obvious with what you are doing. It might be an enjoyable book, but people will always criticize you for copying characters straight up from someone else's work, a la 50 Shades.
So, dream. Dream a lot, and write down snippets of those dreams. Mine this information, and you will become a writer. If you don't want that, then don't dream.
No comments:
Post a Comment