How to Have Fun Writing Fiction

Be a geek. Really, it's the only way.

I've seen many aspiring writers complain about the more technical side of creative writing. I freely admit I also feel worn out by being so conscience about grammar, spelling, punctuation and formatting. It's all very tiring and downright overwhelming.

Many of the complaints I've seen and heard pertains to a rhetorical question, why do I have to bother with all this tedious work? Readers don't even care as long as it's a great book!

Well, it's a two-part answer. One, all those technical details are half the fun of creative writing. And yes, it is supposed to be hard work. If it were easy, we'd all be international best-sellers living in mansions. So of course there's hard work involved.

Two, communication. From an artistic perspective, technical details such as proper grammar are communication tools. Unless these tools are used in the right way that's appropriate for the story, the story itself with never be communicated. It will never matter how brilliant and original the story idea might be, without those communication tools the story will seem like bad writing and not worth the effort of reading.

It was Thomas Edison who said, genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.

For writers of fiction, the technical side is the 99%. There aren't any shortcuts, no easier way of jumping to the end and reaping the rewards. That's life.

There is such thing as taking the technical a little too far, but that depends on the type of author and also the type of fiction. I write emotionally-driven stories. If someone who saw my writing said, wrong modifier or too many filters, they might as well speak gibberish to me. Yes, I know what these technical terms mean, but because my stories are founded on emotional connections, any feedback I might receive also has to provide, at least in a small way, an emotional connection. That's my chosen language for writing.

Now back to the title of this article. How do you have fun writing? I memorize the things needed for the 99% so I can sit back and enjoy the 1%.

And that's more than enough for me.