trying to write things of the sort you enjoy reading yourself is a bit like trying to do a magic trick on yourself or tickle yourself... kinda doesn't work when you're the one backstage rather than in the audience
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like if you enjoy murder mysteries but you've run out of books by your favorite writer, you can't really fix the problem by writing more mysteries in their style yourself
even if you have the skill... you'd know the murderer so it would be spoiled for you
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so if you want to get the same pleasure you get from reading a murder mystery by writing something, it would have to be some *other* sort of writing with a reveal at the end that you can only guess at while writing... something like that
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so like maybe, if you want to get murder mystery pleasure out of a book you write, that book has to be something like a dictionary or an ikea instruction manual (I don't mean specifically those, but an arbitrary thing that feels like a murder mystery from backstage)
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pantsers may enjoy more reading/writing symmetry than plotters, perhaps this is why I blog rather than book... blogging is close to writing-like-reading
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Replying to @lilyykim
interesting, yeah... I think pantsers can definitely have more reader-like fun while writing, but certain kinds of writing, like murder mysteries, kinda require you to know the ending early even if you're pantsing the writing and winging the details of the plot as you write
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Writers who are really into character get more of this too. Once you start seeing a character on the page your brain starts to build a predictive model of them like for anyone. Once that’s developed you start getting those “the characters told me what they wanted to do” moments.
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I’ve had very weak experiences of that with a few characters but in general I’m not good at that kind of getting into a characters skin and letting them come alive and surprise me. Mostly they’re still god-view puppets sadly.
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The other route to a form of this experience (more common in SF) is inventing an alien situation and then imagining and recording your emotions and likely actions if you were there and giving them to the character.
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