Expectations and the breaking thereof (Patreon)

I had someone leave my Patreon recently and he left me an extensive message as to why. In the end, it boils down to this. The realization that I am a flawed writer.

I replied to his message, so I’m not going to address this here, but it made me realize that maybe I need to lower my reader’s expectations to something realistic.

I am not a ‘great writer’ I’m definitely not a master at the craft. I’m an okay writer. You can believe otherwise and that’s fine, but please don’t spend your energy trying to convince me of it. You won’t succeed.

Not only are my stories not “Great writing”, but they were never intended to be. I’m not looking to write the next Canadian Masterpiece. I’m leaving those to the Authors out there. I’m just a writer.

Another step I take when I write, is to clearly mark what draft of a story I’m posting, but in the tags, in the subject line, and file name. A draft 1 will be messy as hell. Half the time I don’t know where I’m going in a draft 1, that is the point of that draft, for me to figure out what the story is. The rest of the time, I have one of Ben’s outlines to guide me, but I’m still discovering a lot about the story. Character personalities might in inconsistent, location might be nothing more than a piece of cardboard saying “set piece” on it. That’s what a draft one is. So if Stepping up is confusing you right now by Tibs not being the “Hero” of the story, well…. You’re going to be disappointed, because Tibs isn’t a Hero. He’ll never think of everything. He and his friends are kids, with the Exception of Khumdar. And kids will never be the great heroes a lot of books seem to be convincing people they are. At least, not the kids in my stories.

I will tell you that in the end, Tibs will win. But it’s not going to be a clean victory. There will be a price to play, mistakes will be made, by him, by his friends, by his enemies.

Got side-tracked, sorry.

But yeah, a first draft will be ‘bad’. That’s basically the description of what a first draft should be. It’ll get better in draft 2, then my editor will get his hand on it and improve it again. And you’ll have to be happy with that, because that’s the end of the work I do on a story.

So please, if you have a high opinion of my writing, bring it down a notch or two. It’ll make the realization hitting you I’m not that great not as painful. (and who knows, maybe you’ll continue to support me so I can keep improving.)

As usual, if you have questions, please, ask them, they give me something to talk about. If you don’t feel comfortable asking them here, you can email them to me at: S.Stpierre@thetigerwrites.com

If you want to support me, You can do so through my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/kindar, Kofi https://ko-fi.com/kindar, or . . . . Hmm, I do need 3rd thing to make this work, don’t I?

And with that. I, will wish you a good day.