RUINER: Plotless Self Destruction
#6 of Ruiner
M ~ E ~ T ~ A
Hello.
So I don't know how many people on here were actively following RUINER, but the last chapter went up more than two months ago. I wrote the next one but...I mean, I don't know. It's difficult to explain. I like Ruiner's concept, a lot. My boyfriend actually came up with it and I think it's a good premise, but I'm not sure I know how to write ordinary life anymore.
Even if you look at my other stuff, I think Slave Brand is the best I have on here, and that's fantasy. I just finished a non-anthro novel length science fiction story, and I just started another. I've been working really hard on those, and I'm actually proud of them, although I can't fully articulate why - the world of being a published author seems impossibly complex, I don't know if I have the fortitude or writing ability to ever break into it. And I'm not fishing for compliments; this site has a tendency to praise anything that really tries hard, but I'm a realist; though maybe traditional philosophy would call me a pessimist.
That said. Ruiner has two major problems; the first is that it has no plot, and the second is that it's too depressing. I love depressing things, I love stuff that crushes you again and again, and the only light moments exist to break you down farther. I think Slave Brand had a good balance, and maybe I was even too lenient sometimes. I assume nobody has thought about the stuff I write to the extent I have, but Home Again is very meandering, it has only the brother / statutory rape plot to keep it going. Welcome to the Family is just awful.
I like character driven media, but I write plot driven stuff. Ruiner was an attempt to get into character-driven stuff, but I can't do it. At least not like this. The characters, they're too broken for me to fix in a story. Nico, I love him, but he's been so destroyed by his family and what happened to him that I don't know how to have him climb out of that hole. I can't fix him, not realistically like I wanted. I wrote the next chapter, but it hasn't been posted because it's too much. There's nothing good about that world. I mean, it is called Ruiner I guess. I wanted it to be happier and instead it's the most emotionally horrible thing I've written.
I'm thinking about a new story idea here. Something based off an album, or a post apocalyptic western style thing. I don't know. It's nice having this less serious stuff to post on here. The other issue is that SF as a site doesn't like super depressing shit. I managed to trick people into Slave Brand, wherein by the time we got to the end people were invested enough to keep going. But part of me is...sick of seeing story after story just be about fucking, or some terribly constructed thing about two brothers falling in love (wat?) or whatever. I'm sure there's awesome story content on here, but I don't know how to find it anymore. There was one I loved, but it just became this bizarrely pretentious rambling, that ultimately seems to be going nowhere, even after twice as many chapters as anything I write. I don't mean to tear other writers down, and I'm not trying to put myself above them, I just think these things have different places to be; and maybe the stuff I want to create doesn't belong on here. Maybe I'm arrogant or conceited, I don't mean to be.
I don't think of myself as a very 'skilled' writer. But I want to.
So RUINER is on pause now. For now anyway. I might pick it up later, but I feel like it needs to be restarted, and I don't get excited by writing things set in our world anymore. Before I was wish-fulfilling a closeted gay, who wanted a cute college style romance, and now I'm less interested in that. I've been avoiding this site, because I don't want to give up on this story, but I don't want to keep writing it either, right now anyway. The people I chat to on here would have noticed how it took me waaay longer to get back to them than normal.
Still. SF might like a western style thing? Or a science fiction adventure in space. I've been listening to a lot of Behemoth and Gojira, and the two albums 'Evangelion' and 'From Mars to Sirius' have given me.....some kind of inspiration, though I don't know what exactly yet. So I might be posting something soon, I might not. It might have flying whales in it, it might not. I'm sorry if you were really liking Ruiner, my boyfriend did apparently (not sure I believe him but).
Is what it is. If you have any thoughts on this all, feel free to share