Hi! Your question makes me quite sad. If you like to write, then you should pursue it. It’s that simple.
School doesn’t help much in terms of creative writing. Over the summer, when I was little, my mom would make my sister and me write short stories. It kept me in the habit of writing even when school wasn’t in session.
(Wanna know a secret? I often got stuck halfway through my story, so I’d coerce my sister into showing me hers. Then I would write the same events but in my own words. I did this for quite a while one summer. Maybe two.)
Not only does school keep you ridiculously busy, but it also doesn’t like teaching creative stuff much either, because math and science are deemed as more important than anything related to the arts.
All those negative voices banging around in your head along with all the good ideas you have? You need to learn to silence them. Those things are what you are being trained to think.
Here’s what nobody seems to know about writing: you have to start
somewhere. No one starts off as an amazing writer.
People expect writers to have this magical well of intuition, but honestly, it just comes from practice.
You know that thing about practicing 10,000 hours in order to become a master at something? It applies to writing, too.
Writers write.
You need to watch and write things down–what you observe can be the basis for characters or plot or whatever. Eavesdrop on a stranger’s phone conversation to get a peek into other people’s lives. Sit on a bench in the mall and watch people go by.
Do you know how babies learn? They observe other people doing things and then try to mimic them.
I don’t mean that fledgling writers are babies, of course, but I mean that you can get your best work by reading other people’s work.
Figure out what you like to read, what you don’t like to read. And then ask yourself WHY.
What is it about that book you hated? Was it the characters? The plot? The slow story-telling?
What did you love about that one book? How did it make you feel? What parts made you feel that way?
I was in middle school when I began reading a Series of Unfortunate Events (I’m 25, for comparison’s sake). Do you know what my writing sounded like while I was reading those? Lemony Snicket. It wasn’t on purpose, but that’s just what happened. (Also for comparison’s sake, I now have had a short story published in an actual anthology and completed a 60-page poetry collection as my creative thesis, as well as a book that I’m trying to get published.)
The more you read, the more you gain. If you read enough books, then you’ll have influences from all over that create a unique writer: you.
You are the sum of everything you have ever read or seen or thought about.
Yes, you’re a teenager. But that doesn’t stop you from observing the world and teaching yourself to understand other writers’ work.
If you want to write something but are worried that it sounds too much like somebody else, then figure out why it sounds that way. Is it just you that thinks it sounds that way? Or do other people tell you that as well? Find out what it is that makes it sound like that. Is it the narration? The plot? The themes?
Regardless of your answers, you are able to make it unique to you.
You are a writer, and whatever you write will be yours and yours alone.
As far as plot development goes, I find that outlining helps. I don’t always keep to the outline, but asking yourself “Then what happens?” after each event that you write down is the best thing you can do for yourself.
A plot is a series of events. If you know what happens naturally after something, then you write that down. It also helps if you understand WHY something happens.
She goes to the mall.
Then what happens?
She ends up going home and crying in her room.
Why? What caused this? What physical actions caused her to want to leave the mall? What mental actions occurred because of the physical actions?
She runs into someone she used to be best friends with, and they get into a fight. This makes her feel disappointed in her friend but also unsure of herself because she doesn’t know what she has done to make her friend act that way. She places the blame on herself instead of on her former friend. This is because she has been told growing up that everything is her fault and that her younger brother can’t do anything wrong.
See what I mean? And it’s okay to ask yourself what you would do in that situation. But your characters are not you. They probably won’t react like you would. And that’s okay and important.
As I told my students last year, ask yourself WHY and HOW after each sentence, after each paragraph, after each plot point, after each whatever. It will keep your story going until it reaches its natural conclusion.
Okay, this ended up being way, way longer than I intended it to be, haha. But I’m completely serious and obviously very passionate about this. And I can say way more on the subject at the drop of a hat, so if you have any more questions, then just give me a shout. 🙂
Best of luck. And don’t stop writing.
I mean it. 🙂
—————————————————————————————————-
Feeling generous and want to thank me for my work on this blog? Then please click here and donate to me via PayPal!
You can also become a patron of me on Patreon.
In addition, I am now editing blog posts and reviewing websites for $5 each via Fiverr. I’m an awesome editor, and I’d love to help you out!
Don’t have a dime to spare? That’s totally fine! 🙂 Thanks for your support~! <3