What I’ve Noticed: Directing Vs Writing

Personally, I’ve noticed that a lot of writers get really good at directing. They start to master some really complex advanced directing and their stories look amazing!

But they often don’t build up their writing skills to the same level. In fact, I see so many stories that use complex branching to the point where their stories suffer for it. It’s a shame that we don’t promote good story writing as much as we do good directing.

What are your thoughts?

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I totally agree with this. :raised_hands:t2:

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I feel this. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that my two favorite authors who excel at writing excellent characters, compelling narratives, distinct dialogue, and heavy branching prefer Spotlight, which = no directing. Not to say I haven’t read a story that has good writing and good directing, because they exist! But! Most of my favorite stories happening to have limited directing can’t be coincidence for me at least.

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It is something to be thinking about. Can good visual make up for bad writing? It’s something I notice in film today too. The audience just look at the awesome directing and visual effect that we forget that there is a story and give it a pass.

cough Game of Thrones cough

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@ShanniiWrites
how do you mean that ? like story wise it all doesn’t add up? but the directing is great? or that there isn’t anything original inside of the story ( like it’s a gang love story for example)

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I have been thinking this for the longest!! There are a few stories that have amazing directing but the story needs a lot of work as for me the story either seems rushed or makes little to no sense. It’s great that your story has amazing directing skills but I’m not reading your directing, I’m reading your story lol

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I love writing but directing is so hard :sob::sob::sob:

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I agree, although I love the story of Game of Thrones. My big beef is with the books, which are written so terribly. Good plot, bad writing style

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Sometimes there’s an amazingly directed story that just really doesn’t grab me by the storyline. It feels rushed or the pacing is bad or the characterisation is off.

Let’s take Galileo School of Magic as an example. It’s an amazingly directed story with so much branching and little mini games to play.

However, she gives so much choice in love interests and everything that the cast is way too big and you never get to really get to know any of the characters

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Most the stories I read have good writing and visuals, but as someone who suffers from bad writing and advanced directing skills, big rip.

I’ve always been better with visuals rather than words. It’s why I partnered up with a friend to write stories.

Some people don’t have the gift of amazing writing. Though, the more episode stories I read, I think I get better.

Reading a lot of stories and books help improve writing and creative ideas.

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I’m hardly one to say too much, though. I’m the opposite way around. My writing is pretty good, if I may say so myself, but I suck at directing :joy:

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Well in that case yeah I have the same problem. I mean not to brag but my directing skills are pretty good :joy: but story wise? Well I have a lot of idea’s but the don’t flow well together if you know what I mean? like I have so many idea’s for my stories! point is I can’t get them to look realistic. I also have a problem with placing myself in different views.

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I believe that learning to code for episode platform and to direct (to a certain extent) a story is way easier than learning to write properly.
Writing is not just a skill that you can practice with tutorials and guides. It’s also your life experience, books you’ve read (both fiction and nonfiction), people you’ve met, places you’ve been to, knowledge you’ve gained and more and more and more. While coding is pretty much following rules.
Surely you can be creative with your code, and you need to be creative with your directing, but still it’s kind of easier (or so it seems to me).

Another problem is that a lot of authors’ first language is not English. I myself have this problem. I’ve been writing in my own language for my whole life. I know how to play with words, let the narrative flow and change character perspective in one word. But it’s not like that with English. I struggle a lot trying to make characters in my story talk like real people as I’m not even sure I have a distinct voice while speaking and writing in English. So I always google, check, read articles and so on. And I can see how one can be lazy and miss this step (like I’m missing it while writing on forums haha).
The coding, on the other hand, is a universal language. And all of us made our baby steps with it in the beginning.

I had one more point but I forgot it haha so I’ll probably be back later.

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agree I have the same thing. ask me to write something in my first language? well that is easier for me then in english at the end when I wrote it down it looks like my characters are all some kind of robots

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There’s definitely all of that! Although I think sometimes the emphasis placed on good directing contributes towards bad writing, too! People are so focussed on making their stories look visually interesting that they drop the quality of their plot. This is especially true during competitions when writers are aiming for the best directing award!

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because of this I will write my story in my first language first! each chapther I will do it that way because other then that it’s just trash! Yes this means I can’t update fast but rather a slow and perfect update then a rushed and unlogical update

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One of my friends plans in her native language and then writes in English. That way she can get all her thoughts out in the language she’s most comfortable speaking and then work out the more technical parts in English

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It seems one focuses more on the other.

that’s the real reason I’m slowly planning out AI story for future hahaha I’ll have exuse for my poor English

I tried that buuuuut
I hate the outcome even more haha so now I’m trying to teach myself to think in English
I believe there’s still hope for us, girl haha and the good thing is that all that hard work actually makes me want to improve plot and characters more. Like I’m not doing all this shit-load of work for nothing haha

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I try to read stories that have both , good directing and writing but I keep having stories that the coding is well done but the story doesn’t make sense and I end up running away
I like at the moment: galactic games ,envy 2 , competitive edge and the infected because the story paired with the directing are really good and it doesn’t revolve on finding love