Strengths vs. Weaknesses

[Tarin]

At this point in your writing, what would you say is your greatest strength - and your biggest weakness?

[ProfessorAlan]

strength -- dialogue, starting novels
weakness -- description, finishing novels

[Tamera]

Strengths - dialogue & character developement.

Weakness - Getting ahead of myself in the plot.

[Ransom v. Unman]

Strengths - Coming up with ideas
Weaknesses - Verbosity, archaic style, writing said ideas down, and making sure they're really original ideas.

[kerrig]

Strengths-Description, character sketches, and starting the novel.

Weaknesses-Dialogue, not revising constantly, finishing the novel.

[Lookin^Up]

Strength: writing novels

Weakness: selling novels

[Ransom v. Unman]

Strength: writing novels

Weakness: selling novels

LOL! Yeah...

I feel for ya', mate. :o

[Tarin]

Strength: writing novels

Weakness: selling novels

LOL! Yap, I read ya!;) Unfortunately...

My strengths: Dialogue, character, research.

My weaknesses: Beginnings, beginnings, beginnings.:mad:

[Tommie Lyn]

Strength: I don't know if I have any strengths
Weakness: too straightforward - not enough complexity

[righter1]

Strengths: Plotting/pacing, stick-to-it-iveness, developing characters around the worlds I've placed them in.

Weaknesses: Seeing the weak areas of the story, feeling confident enough in my work to be comfortable letting others reading it, being brave enough to send it to an editor or an agent, knowing when a scene is 'just right', knowing when I've gone too far in a scene or when I need to go further...

[technoczech]

Strengths: Honestly the only strength I feel I have is knowing that God wants me to be doing this right now and that He will somehow show His strength through me if I'll get out of the way. He gave me eyes to notice details; He gave me a tough English professor (a long time ago) to make me learn grammar; He gave me a creative brain; He gave me a drive for researching; He gave me a great web forum to go to to learn from those more experienced than myself... :)

Weaknesses: Prioritizing my writing with the rest of my life; Experience; Making my scattered thoughts flow together so that they make sense to other people... (Actually, documenting my scattered thoughts verbatim might make quite a hilarious book... There's some really silly stuff that goes on up here!) :)

[MissyKay]

strength: keeping story moving, action

weakness: I tend to let my characters take over and end up in left field :D

[righter1]

weakness: I tend to let my characters take over and end up in left field :D

Missy, I have this happen, but to me, it's part of the fun! :p

[Phy]

Strengths:
Looking at things in slightly different ways.
Finding exciting ideas for stories.
Thinking big.

Weaknesses:
Honing those ideas into portable glittering utensils. I had an idea about androids that prayed and it took me over a year to get that one central idea horsed into salable short story format.
Thinking too big about every silly thing, even stories that should just be distilled down to one, easily digested idea. It seems that every short story idea could easily turn into a bloated three novel trilogy. Sigh.

[MissyKay]

Missy, I have this happen, but to me, it's part of the fun! :p

:D In all honesty, I agree. But it does mean that making an outline for my stories is often a waste of time. As I start writing, I get a feel for the characters and that tends to dictate what happens... and it often works better for me.

But it does mean that sometimes things meander a tad. :rolleyes:

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

Strengths -- originality, research, interesting characters/story etc.

Weakness -- definetly realistic dialogue and P.O.V, flowing sentences - sometimes, description - sometimes, and ordering my notes properly

[righter1]

:D In all honesty, I agree. But it does mean that making an outline for my stories is often a waste of time. As I start writing, I get a feel for the characters and that tends to dictate what happens... and it often works better for me.

But it does mean that sometimes things meander a tad. :rolleyes:

Missy-- this is what I found has worked for me this go-round... I write my first draft, however messy, as a free-flowing work, going wherever my brain takes me, as do the characters. Then, on my 2nd draft, I go back, find where the holes are (since I write mysteries, what people need to be introduced earlier, where do I need to sink some clues in, that sort of thing) and write a detailed outline (the one for my current book was 20 handwritten pages front and back by the time I was done--and some of the scenes I prewrote, so I said 'see scene' for several huge portions of the story). The outline still allows for the characters to do their things--for instance, in my outline, I indicate that my MC and her father have a disagreement, but when I wrote the scene, it turned into a full-fledged donnybrook, and the MC's father said some stuff that I'd never expected!

An outline is kind of like those rules from Pirates of the Caribbean... They're more of a guideline. :rolleyes:

[Ransom v. Unman]

Weaknesses:
Honing those ideas into portable glittering utensils. I had an idea about androids that prayed and it took me over a year to get that one central idea horsed into salable short story format.
Thinking too big about every silly thing, even stories that should just be distilled down to one, easily digested idea. It seems that every short story idea could easily turn into a bloated three novel trilogy. Sigh.

Dove-tailing on that, another one of my weaknesses is writing short stories.

I guess one could say that's covered by "verbosity", but seriously writing a story that isn't epic and voluminous is one of the most difficult challenges I face as a writer. :eek:

[Tarin]

An outline is kind of like those rules from Pirates of the Caribbean... They're more of a guideline. :rolleyes:

LOL! Good one!;)

It seems that every short story idea could easily turn into a bloated three novel trilogy. Sigh.

Boy, does this sound way too familiar. Guess that's why I don't write short stories anymore...:rolleyes:

[Phy]

Dove-tailing on that, another one of my weaknesses is writing short stories.

I guess one could say that's covered by "verbosity", but seriously writing a story that isn't epic and voluminous is one of the most difficult challenges I face as a writer. :eek:

I think what I'm getting at predates the writing of three volume epics, it's mental.

I struggle being disciplined enough to find one central idea for a short story and hone it to a glinting razor point. When I start conceiving ideas, they tend to get away from me and I have a whale of a time focusing in on that one thing that really makes a good short story great.