I don't mind at all if you keep writing long epics. :D It's great news that you're already working on another story!
I always have self doubts when I'm working on a story. What kind of doubts I'm facing mainly depends on the kind of story I'm writing on, but it's usually the same kind of doubts for the same kind of story. One of my favourite things to worry about that goes for all of my stories is language, at least whenever I'm writing a story in English. I'm always wondering if my stories wouldn't be better if I'd write them in my own language, if my writing comes across as too "simple" or repetitive because I might lack the necessary vocabulary, or if some of it sounds awkward.
With longer stories, pacing is always a concern for me, too. At least part of it has to do with the fact that I tend to be really bored when I have to write the parts of a story that are necessary to explain things, to get from here to there, or to wrap things up. Those parts never appear to be as long and boring to the reader as they appear to the writer, in my opinion (which doesn't stop me from constantly worrying about boring the reader to death).
What I also find difficult is to find the right balance between angst and humor in a story. Whenever I try to write something really angsty, one of the characters will inevitably suddenly say something humorous and I never know if this is a good thing, like stress relief, or if it's completely inappropriate at that point (especially since it often leads to extended bantering between two or more characters, who won't listen to me when I try to shut them up, which usually means I end up re-writing that part of the story lots of times). I don't know if anyone else has to wrestle with that particular problem, but it's driving me crazy.
I submitted some of my old LotR-stories and the result cracked me up: "I write like J. R. R. Tolkien" *laughs* Okay, I'm feeling flattered now. ;-) I tried it again with an 9k chapter from my H50 AU and got, "I write like Stephen King". Huh. I guess I don't need to worry about too much humor in that chapter after all.
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Date: 2012-03-18 07:47 pm (UTC)I always have self doubts when I'm working on a story. What kind of doubts I'm facing mainly depends on the kind of story I'm writing on, but it's usually the same kind of doubts for the same kind of story. One of my favourite things to worry about that goes for all of my stories is language, at least whenever I'm writing a story in English. I'm always wondering if my stories wouldn't be better if I'd write them in my own language, if my writing comes across as too "simple" or repetitive because I might lack the necessary vocabulary, or if some of it sounds awkward.
With longer stories, pacing is always a concern for me, too. At least part of it has to do with the fact that I tend to be really bored when I have to write the parts of a story that are necessary to explain things, to get from here to there, or to wrap things up. Those parts never appear to be as long and boring to the reader as they appear to the writer, in my opinion (which doesn't stop me from constantly worrying about boring the reader to death).
What I also find difficult is to find the right balance between angst and humor in a story. Whenever I try to write something really angsty, one of the characters will inevitably suddenly say something humorous and I never know if this is a good thing, like stress relief, or if it's completely inappropriate at that point (especially since it often leads to extended bantering between two or more characters, who won't listen to me when I try to shut them up, which usually means I end up re-writing that part of the story lots of times). I don't know if anyone else has to wrestle with that particular problem, but it's driving me crazy.
I submitted some of my old LotR-stories and the result cracked me up: "I write like J. R. R. Tolkien" *laughs* Okay, I'm feeling flattered now. ;-) I tried it again with an 9k chapter from my H50 AU and got, "I write like Stephen King". Huh. I guess I don't need to worry about too much humor in that chapter after all.