on a writing note...

[jennickels]

While I've been binge-watching That 70s Show, I started looking for some of the fic I remember reading 10 years ago. That made me think of the fic I wrote myself. I have two rather long stories posted--they were the first two fanfics I ever wrote. I decided to reread them, but before I got done with the first chapter of the first story, I was cringing. There were so many mistakes--spelling, punctuation, grammar, word usage. Ugh. I decided to revise. The farther I got, though, the more I realized there were serious problems with the story itself. Namely, the plot was convuluted and stupid. Ten years ago, I loved stories like that--whatever got the most angst out of the characters. But I've grown up and gotten better at writing.

I'm trying to decide how much of it I want to rewrite because I'm embarrassed to put the story back up with just the grammar/spelling mistakes corrected. The story is so badly written. *shakes head*

That's just the first story. The second one is slightly longer and has just as many problems.

Comments

[campylobacter.livejournal.com]

I look back on some of my old fanfic & shake my head.

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

My Stargate fic is mostly okay other than some really bad punctuation mistakes. But those have all been written in the last four years.

These stories were the first things I had written since I quit college in 1997. My writing has changed so much in ten years. Part of me wants to pull them until I revise because they are so embarrassing, but I still occasionally get kudos for them at AO3. I had a bunch of really good reviews at ff.net before I pulled all of my stuff from there.

[campylobacter.livejournal.com]

I've revised old posted stories for typos & for correcting minor errors, but overhauling them to conform to my current writing style just doesn't appeal to me.

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

Normally, I would say to leave them as a testament to my improved writing skills, but I really like the stories and know I could tell them better now. At the last I'm fixing all of the grammar errors.

I really did abuse the word "and" in my early writing days. That's actually been the hardest to edit out. Almost every other sentence is compounded with "and." It's horrible.