Quote Originally Posted by Ghostwriter View Post
I meant that to be directed to anyone who wanted to troll and vaguely answer as such, but you didn't (I hope you weren't xD).

But saying that "when you learnt how to write", it's claiming that your very first word with a pencil on paper was the beginning of a story. (I'm not sure if that's common-practice because that sounds like a writing prodigy to me.) Furthermore fluency and clarity is discrete from penmanship, so just because you're able to write a sentence doesn't mean the sentence is understandable to everyone.

I'm not saying it's not impossible, nor unbelievable. In fact, I can relate to your account since I've been an imaginative child before and daydreaming is in itself a form of story creation (not to mention forcing my plushies to fight evil hiding in my house). I guess when I said "stories", I meant the formal, serious, kind of boring, definition (like throwing in everything English teachers have taught us about introduction, climax, endings, fluency, coherency, and what have you not). So technically, you started at four (or another age, I don't know, only you do :P). It's the same as how people who begin drawing from an early age don't always draw seriously on their first stroke.

It was interesting to read your experiences nonetheless~
Oh, okay. Glad there will be no slapping then. XD

I'm not...really understanding what you're saying here, though. First word as part of a story? Probably not. But a first sentence...is that really weird? I thought of stories constantly, and that was my motivation to learn to write in the first place, so I would go up to my parents and have them help me write sentences for my stories. That was my learning process. I learned how to write through writing simple sentences (first with help, then without) to go with my picture stories, so wouldn't that fall under "when I learnt how to write?" I dunno, I don't understand this 'first word/first sentence' thing because learning to write is a process; you don't go from not being able to suddenly writing sentences. 'When I learnt to write' wouldn't just refer to the very first few minutes of that learning period...so yeah, I'm confused.

Woah, okay, we must be talking about completely different things here. I'm not talking about more "professional" sort of storytelling. I see a story as anything that has a beginning and end (or even just a beginning if it's not finished), has characters, has events, and comes from the imagination. It never would have occurred to me that those wouldn't be included under "stories," just like how it would be weird to me to not consider a child's first crayon scribble of a dog a "drawing." These things are, after all, how many people get started with creative writing and art. They're primitive, and they don't follow 'rules,' but they are stories. Heck, not all stories written by adults follow the rules of introduction, climax, etc. so I find that a weird definition.

My stories even as a little kid were often pretty elaborate (at least for that age, it seems) in my mind, and even included things like intros and climaxes (though I wouldn't know the term for those until much later), but the writing of course was extremely simple and left a lot out. I'm not sure I can answer your real question now, because I don't remember a time when I consciously thought "I'm going to write a serious story with all those things I learned in school." It was and has always been just "I want to write a story." And whatever skills I had at the time would go into it.

So yeah, I wasn't and am not a person who constantly thinks of all the technical aspects and takes it 'seriously' (as in, my main goal is not to be professional or publish-quality (though it'll be a nice bonus if I ever get there)), I pretty much just go wherever my inspiration takes me and do what feels right. My motivation to write stories is because I want to tell them and it's fun, so I guess that might be part of why I see it differently.