Welcome to Gaia! ::

I keep everything, no matter how bad it is. I am always improving the story and pulling old ideas and re-using them in places that better suit them.

I...tend to cringe at old work. I recently looked up some of my work on Fanfiction.net (same username). There are two stories there I could not get more than a few paragraphs without feeling immense shame. I still leave them up, though. Proof that I have improved. My newer works, while not without their faults, I am proud of looking over again.

Sometimes, I can still recall where I got a certain idea. Often, they "jump" into my head, though some come with some sort of stimuli---for example, I was listening to "Valentine's Day" by Linkin Park, and heard the lyrics: "And the ground below grew colder, as they put you down inside." I used to take that line figuratively: someone was making this person feel depressed about themselves. I then thought about this line literally, and had a thought that someone was buried on Valentine's Day, which triggered a scene with a widow and her child visiting his father's grave, which in turn gave way to a scene that may or may not make it into canon, but it gave me a strong idea of something to try later. Even if the loved one was buried on a different day, the emotion of the song and scene gave me an idea. Currently a useless one, but one that can be neat if I find a place for it.

The biggest change I see is my voice. I was looser and kind of silly when I first started. Now I am more controlled and serious (and I never use contractions in the narrative unless it is a first person). I also have clearly different word choice, and a different method of approach, and the way I express detail has changed too.

I used to be really bad at setting up a character description right off the bat (and still occasionally fall into this trap). Even if they are never longer than two sentences, or purple-prosey, it can still be overbearing. Detail has been one of my bigger writing issues: I tend to put in too much, too little, or add something relevant, but put it in the wrong place. It is something I am really working hard to fix before someone points it out to me.

Just today, actually, I had someone read over part of a story, and she pointed out a descriptive detail that would work better later on. She was right. I moved it, all was well.

I still like a lot of my old characters; a lot of them are simply useless and have no place in any story at the moment.

Nightmare, description might just be my biggest problem too. In fact, I tend to forget description... I tell myself I'll slowly throw it in there- mention the green eyes here, or the blonde hair there, but it doesn't happen.
This 'person' that you mentioned- does she often read your work? I would like to find someone who would read and comment on my work. My younger brother will, but I don't get any real critique or advice from him cause he's not an experienced writer and... he just kind of loves everything I do (bless his heart). And although online support is fun and great, I need it in the real world too.

Desert, I did that caps thing. I have to resist the urge to erase it.
I found I don't like comparing my old work to my new work so much. Rather than realizing how much I've improved, I just feel silly.
I prefer to compare my work to other people's. I know that you're not really supposed to do that, but it actually turns out alright for me- I find out what they're doing that I'm not, and I usually do pretty good compared to 'them'. So I'm not left with this self doubt 'I'm an awful writer' feeling.
I also remember most of my old inspiration, but mostly because I can just tell what movie I was copying. XD

I love looking back at stuff I wrote ages ago. Sure, it's all poorly crafted and loaded with plotholes, but I like to see the progress I've made over all this time. The manuscript I'm attempting to get published at present is around my 60th version. On this computer. Every time I made a huge plot change, I saved a new draft. I also gave it a new number every time I did a read-through/edit. Adds up fast, but you can definitely track the improvements.

There are scenes, though, that are better in the older version than the newer ones. That's what I'm usually looking for, because those scenes, and the writing around them, is usually some of my best. If I'm reading it, I'm more apt to write like it. Which is why I never write just after I've read something. Then again, mimicking an author also helps you tweak your own style a bit.

But I'm getting off topic.

We had something called "Young Author" books in elementary school. They gave us a little blank book--the pages were maybe the the size of a 4x6 index card--and let us write our own stories. Of course, they were written on that obnoxious yellow paper first, until all the spelling and grammatical mistakes were gone. But then we transferred it into the book and illustrated them. We wrote one each year from first to fourth grade.

I'm in my twenties and I still have them.

And they seemed to be cat-themed. Except they upgraded in each book. My mcs started as house cats. Then they were tigers. Then they were magical tigers. Then they were magical colorful flying tigers.

Ahhhh... If nothing else, old works are good for a laugh.

Phade: Sort of like your "Young Authors" books, I remember my first-second grade teacher would give us pieces of paper with a sticker in the corner (I got a blue hat and a ladybug. No I do not remember what I wrote). We were given twenty minutes to half an hour to just write a quick little ditty about whatever sticker we got (and sometimes we cheated and traded with other students. The teacher caught on and wrote our names on the papers in pen so we were stuck with what we got). I wish I kept them, but I threw them away years ago when I was cleaning out my room. To be fair, I was in...fourth grade? and felt they were just garbage. I kick myself now.

My third-grade teacher had a different kind of book report for us to do. We could pick an activity (one I remember was a star where we would draw a character in the middle, and write a descriptor about that character on each of the five "points." Another was a blue paper that looked like a fancy scroll where we had to write a brief synopsis of one of our favorite scenes). We would pick books and do an "activity report" when we finished---while I do not remember what the others were, I know they were tailored to meet certain aspects of the book: plot, characters, themes, climaxes, etc. I think these greatly helped me in how I read and maintain information today, as well as structure of stories.

We also "made" books in sixth grade. We had to write a story (I think minimum ten pages, max fifteen), and we actually made (with cardboard and this thin plastic-like coating) covers for our books, and went so far as to carefully glue the pages together and then glue them into the binding so they looked like actual books. I do not know where mine went (it might have been ruined and thrown away), but I remember mine was about a swamp monster and a bunch of kids trying to get out of the swamp alive. It was a lot of fun to both write the story and make the book.

Princess: Sometimes, a paper doll is all you need, especially for those, "only going to be in this scene once and never seen again" characters. I do put in "placeholder" characters just to progress, but I always go back and edit.

Certain members of the Writer's Forum would probably slaughter me for this, but part of what got me out of the "paper doll" habit was actually fanfiction (the other part being good teachers who helped with original work and stood their ground when they told me my work was terrible and showed me a few different approaches I could take to fix it). I have always taken it as seriously as my own work, and I learned quickly that paper dolls/bad characters would make others frustrated and angry. Plus, playing with established characters did force me to think, "Well, how would this character likely act in this situation?" It made applying that line of thought to my own work easy.

I consider myself lucky that I had a few teachers over the years that I was able to go to and have them properly critique my work (this is how I broke another bad habit I used to have: I loved that "graciously" word. XD). Honestly, I could trust their criticism much more than my friends' or family's. One of them inspired my first overhaul of my main canon because she pointed out so many contradictions and moments that simply made no sense (she also once told me she believed in everything---vampires, witches, fairies, etc.---because if they turned out to be real, she could tell them, "I was a believer! Eat/attack them!" I loved her).

Definitely talk to the teachers you feel you can trust. If they are worth their salt, they will help you.

Beautiful women tend to go both ways, but I agree. I hate it even more when the evil woman is the vamp, generally because you know that bad stereotypes are likely to happen (unless it was established before that the vamp in and of itself is part of her gimmick, and the character is aware of those stereotypes. Then it becomes a fun read because the character is savvy about it).

Nightmare, I've definitely been inspired by my teachers.
I actually had an english teacher who told me her story and asked for my opinion. Although in that instance, it was a plotline rather than writing, I was part of a small circle she read some written work to and it was quite professional. Thinking about it, I'm actually suprised I've never asked her to read my work. Now I want to get back to school and have a little chat with her (gosh dang this weekend).

General, I hate it when insanity is a motive. I think it shows a lack of creativity, and development of the villan.
Still, your example with the ugly woman still isn't something that would satisfy me- its kind of a petty and very self absorbed reason to be so... evil.
I more into differing political standpoints. Through out the world's entire history, countries have been at war for one reason or another, but neither country has ever just taken an 'evil' disposition.
If you were to hear both sides of the story, you could probably find yourself siding with both. Yet the opinions are so different they find themelves going into war because of them.