So, I've been writing...

A lot lately. Ever since I was a kid, I've always loved to make stories, creating worlds, messing around with my characters, et cetera et cetera. I also made a great deal of fanfiction back then; cross-overs, self-insert fics. You name it.

Amazingly, a story I made when I was around 6 years old or something is still continuing today, although it was never written fully and is all in my head. It started as a self-insert cross-over fanfic, then it grows like an abominable mutant into something... not quite the same. More mature, definitely. Feels like it's growing as I do.

But I'm not going to talk about that right now. I'm talking about the now.

So I like making stories, from the normal slice of lifes to the most bizarre fantasies. Sometimes I like to write them down too. The thing is, while my head can be stuffed with the most amazing details, it is not quite easy to put them on paper. There's word diction, grammar, punctuation marks, language; stuffs that my head really don't have to bother while creating the story itself. It's how to tell the story that's difficult.

And then there's the problem with length. Until today I've never finished a single story. Every time I start on a story, it'll just go on and on and on. Even if I do have the whole plot ready, it just never reach its conclusion. And since my head is like some sort of generator which can create new ideas every 5 minutes, I am most likely to just start a new story and abandon the one I already have.

Until today, yeah.

I just discovered the core of the problem which caused none of my stories to ever be finished: they're just too dang long. The world is too big, the plot too loose, there's too many nooks and crannies for my characters to visit. There's also a kazillion room for improvisation, which I use gladly without thinking about the long-term consequences.

So here's the current deal I made for myself: I'm going to try making stories that are just a snapshot of the character's life. A little piece of it, like a random interesting conversation between two characters, or a short but effective problem-solving. No more hunt for the mysterious artifact, no more fight between two ever-warring kingdoms, and no more quests to defeat the Big Bad. From now on I'm just going to try making a simple but meaningful story.

Well, that, and I'm going to stop describing every freaking thing in the story. The ones I made have a borderline Purple Prose. Sure, I describe the details in an interesting way. But how I write now is just not efficient and make the story way longer than is bearable. 

I made a Touhou fanfic this morning. Finished it in one sitting. I felt absolutely brilliant. Might post it here someday, after I'm done proof-reading it.