Insecurity with writing is normal (hell, so is insecurity in general life, especially when you’re younger).
Don’t judge your writing by a first draft; they aren’t meant to be good.
First drafts are just for getting the story down. Second drafts are for fixing everything (yes, everything) and polishing it up just enough to get it to beta readers and critics. Third drafts are where things start looking like your actual skills, but the stuff you find in bookstores is usually draft #5, or more, critiqued and edited by a professional team.
Judging your own writing by what you produce in a first draft is no different than judging an artist by their proportion lines or a dancer trying out a new, complicated routine for the first time. Yes, higher skill will result in a better first attempt, however you don’t send a dancer to perform with only one run-through of the choreography.
It’s easy to think that writing just comes out “good quality” once you reach a certain skill level, but in reality, each story needs its own form of practice. Every story has its own choreography that needs consistent practice and evolution to find its real potential. So don’t worry about your writing being bad; you can’t be afraid to write badly or you’ll never write at all (and everyone was bad at one point). Editing exists for a reason.
Comparing yourself to others is a waste of time– learn from them instead.
If your instincts are to see good writing and say: “That’s so good– why do I suck so much?”, then try these steps.
1. Pinpoint exactly what you like about it rather than using generic terms: “That writer characterized that guy really well. It’s like I can imagine myself going to dinner with a real person. Why do I suck so much?”
2. Turn the generic self-hate into a goal (rephrase it). “That writer characterized that guy really well. It’s like I can imagine myself going to dinner with a real person. I’d like to write a character like that.”
3. Work on that goal. “That writer characterized that guy really well, so I took note of the writing techniques used and now I can incorporate them into my own writing.”
Rephrasing your negative thoughts isn’t going to magically solve anything, but it can give you the power to act on what you want to work on rather than just insulting yourself and getting nowhere. If you do it for long enough then the more positive phrasing will naturally come (with a bit of regression now and again– it’s normal). You have to build and consistently work on your own self-filter for the way to think or your attitude about yourself and your writing won’t improve to where you’re happy.
Everyone is constantly improving, even the good writers. In one of my old writers’ groups, there was an older man who’d been writing for 40 years and had many published works under his belt. He once said “You couldn’t pay me to critique something I’d written five years ago.”
He knew he was still improving, even with all his knowledge and prestige. No writer ever stops improving unless they stop writing and looking back at your old work will probably make you cringe. That’s good. It means you see what you did wrong and now you can make it better.
Getting better takes hard work and discipline.
Everyone sucks when they first start writing– most not seeing any real improvement until they’ve been consistently working with numerous completed pieces and have had their work thoroughly critiqued over and over again.
I know this comic is about art, but the idea still applies (all rights to the original artist):
I’m not going to say that natural talent can’t play a part here, because that would be a outright lie. Some people are going to have more talent than you and that’s just life– however don’t assume that everything you see is talent. Most of it is actually hard work. Talent is a foundation for a skill; hard work is the actual story you read. (And yes, hard work can substitute for talent as a base.)
Your writing is going to be bad for a long time and time doesn’t automatically fix the issue. The person writing a few times a month in “inspiration bursts” is not going to improve at the same rate as the person who busts their ass every day regardless of their inspiration. Practice is what makes you better, alongside real critiques that give honest (not the same thing as cruel) assessments of your work. A writer doesn’t improve if they don’t learn to accept that they’re going to write a lot of terrible things as they build their foundation, and then even once they can be considered a “good writer”.
Insecurities aren’t fixed by validation or praise from others; the change has to come from inside you and it’s going to take a while.
If you want to change your attitude, then you have to work to actively change your attitude. It’s just like writing– nobody gets better by never working on it.
Saying a few nice things to yourself here and there isn’t going to solve anything when majority of your thoughts are still negative. Changing a mindset is hard, it’s slow, and it’s entirely possible that you’ll slide back once in a while. It’s okay. What you shouldn’t do is choose to give up if you really want the outcome of feeling better about yourself (and subsequently, feeling better about your writing).
Be careful not to fall into the trap that posting writing is going to get you praise because a lot of it goes unnoticed. If you want your stuff out there, you have to market it properly and consistently, and be patient because it takes a while to build up a following.
Do not rely on internet posts for confidence– you’re much better off finding a community of writers who all support each other if you aren’t ready to take everything on alone. (Sometimes it’s just more fun that way, even for people with confidence.) If you want to post, then by all means, post! Just don’t do it to get attention, critiques*, or to fulfill a fantasy of a certain public response.
*Posting work to get critiques is generally a bad idea because few people want to put in the effort that a real critique requires. Either trade work with someone, find a critique oriented community like Scribophile, or pay an editor.
You are often your own worst critic.
It’s not uncommon for people to dislike their own work, especially when they have just enough skills to know what looks bad but not enough to truly fix it. It’s a sucky place for novice writers to be in, but it’s a reality of any craft. There’s a point where you just have to say “screw it” and continue writing while fully knowing that it sucks or else you aren’t going to get better.
You know how you can write something and be proud, then look back a few months later and cringe? Totally normal. Experience changes what people think of as good writing, and just as looking back at your own work can make you cringe, looking back at someone else’s work that you once thought was good will produce the same effect.
Self-critiques can be a healthy part of writing if done properly. Instead of generically saying something sucks, identify the issue and make a plan to fix it. Turn that negative voice into a force of improvement that puts the power in your hands. A bit of self-doubt is healthy because it keeps you constantly assessing your skills for improvement, but don’t let your inner self critic push you down so hard that you never get anything done.
If you think your writing sucks, then it probably does, and that’s perfectly fine. Everyone sucked at one point– even your favorite author or fanfic writer. Writing is a skill and skills take a lot of practice, so if you want to get better then you need to practice more and you need to learn to be kind to yourself during this process. Putting yourself down isn’t going to help, so turn those unproductive thoughts into something useful and get back to writing if you really want to improve. It’s your choice to get better or not.
Good luck with everything– and keep writing! It’ll be okay if you stay patient with yourself and keep trying.
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