When I write, I feel the most at home writing descritions. I love dropping my audience headfirst into a scene, tumbling through paragraphs of scenary that whistle with interest and deeper meaning as they skate past, finally landing on the solid ground of exposition and story. Where I struggle, however, is writing out the dialogue between my characters. I could show you my heart on my sleeve, beating and breathing for you, and yet not be able to tell you in a way that I didn't read back and think "well that sounds cliche'd and crap." A good friend of mine (a game dev) is fantastic at dialogue. Her characters could explain to you the entire world in a few well-placed words and you wouldn't question it if you discovered that she'd simply been writing down the dictations of real people. But this friend struggles to write descriptions. She's very people focused, and doesn't feel a need to take a moment and look around at the room before she dives into the action, which is fine but makes it harder to write out a story rather than play through it.
This doesn't make either of us bad writers, or bad storytellers. Everyone has areas in their creative outlet where they feel they could improve, and that's a good thing. If you don't think you could ever improve, then you're not being challenged and that's no fun at all. I just thought it was interesting that we, as writers, struggle in completely the opposite way, and that by working together, we can compliment these writing styles, and end up with astounding and mesmerizing descriptions around heartfelt and beautiful dialogue, a lovely, collaborative story.
It's funny, isn't it, that I happened to meet a friend who complimented me in just the right way? But perhaps that's just life. We are bound to tag along with those people who draw out the best in us and add to where we struggle. Or perhaps I'm just rambling.
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