What genre of writer am I?
Transformation as a writer
I've been writing for what feels like both a long time and a short time, at the same time. It feels long because at the age of 23, almost seven years feels like forever. It has been short because I love writing. I know it probably doesn't seem it based on how little I tend to publish (I think that I have gotten better about it more recently though).
Excluding high school writing (since we had no freedom, just prompts), I did only poetry for over six and a half years. I refused to even try anything else. That entire time, I was too scared to try anything. I thought anything I tried would turn out terrible. I thought that about all my poetry too but I decided it was okay enough to let other people read. I have become friends with several people from the Vocal platform and with their support, I ended up writing my first fictional piece (without a prompt) ever. I, personally, thought I did a terrible job but I received a decent amount of positive feedback from other creators on here. Even though I asked for constructive criticism, I only got positive comments on it. I hope that wasn't just to be nice but I'll never know for sure.
While my writing, both poetry and fiction, are almost all dark and depressing, going from one to the other was an odd experience for me. With my poetry, it is almost always written when I am highly emotional.
When I wrote my first fictional piece, The Girl, I was struggling with the beginning. I had an ending in mind from the beginning of my attempt. I didn't have any idea how to write any of it. I had trouble with wording the ending too, even with a mental image of what I wanted to happen. I have no idea how I had an image but could not for the life of me get the image into words. However, after I figured out how to start, it seemed to come easily. It was almost as if it was meant to be written. (Based on the feedback I received, maybe it really was meant to be written.)
While I did have fun with trying out fiction, there is a high likelihood that I will stick with primarily poetry. It's easier for me to write when I am emotional. I believe it's easier because it has been a habit since I was 16. It became my coping skill very quickly. For a long time, I journaled and then burned whatever paper I wrote on. Even those journals were poetic in nature (ya know, before they turned into ashes).
I would absolutely love to create more fiction but I lack the inspiration to have any idea what I would want to write about. I commend the writers who do it seemingly effortlessly. (Seriously, if you guys have suggestions on how to be inspired, it would be greatly appreciated.)
Here is a link to "The Girl" for those of you who have not read it, since I keep referencing it...
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Thank you for reading my piece! If you enjoyed this article, please let me know with a comment and/or heart.
Again, any help with getting better at fiction (mainly getting ideas) would be a huge help.
About the Creator
Rene Peters
I write what I know, usually in the form of poetry. I tend to lean towards mental health, epilepsy, and loss/grieving.
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Comments (3)
I can't write poetry. Frankly, I don't read it. Much less try to write it. However, that's not to Diss You and your poetry. It's just me. If that's what you're comfortable writing and you get a good response from it. Keep doing it. I would offer some ideas, for stories: Take one of your poems and build a story around it. Either use it as a jumping-off point for a story, or write the backstory to how and why the poem was written. Or maybe even incorporate some or all of a poem into a story. Or even characters based on the poem, and what got them to that point, or what happens afterward. Those are just some random ideas of ways you could start to write short stories and still use poetry as the basis for the storytelling process. Whatever you do, Keep writing the poems,
It's no problem at all that you wanna stick to poetry because it's good that you know what you want. I do write a lot of fiction. As for me, I don't force myself to write but would only write when I get an idea for a story. So maybe in the future, if you get an idea, you can write fiction. Until then, you have poetry ❤️
💙💚💜🖤 You've come a long way. You're doing well.