Coffee Talks

With Nick Uskoski

Hi Nick, thank you for taking the time to get involved with Coffee Community. It's great to hear from authors like yourself and get to know a little bit about what motivates you to write longer works of fiction.

Thank you for reaching out.

So, to begin, tell us a little bit about yourself as an author on Wattpad. For anyone who hasn't met you before, how would you describe your fiction?

My fiction comes and goes as I do. There's a lot of old stuff on there that I consider pretty awful, but usually, I write what I think would be interesting to me. I also often would try to put intentional experimental caps on my stories to restrict myself or try something new. So there's some things in there that are regular, mainstream stories, there's some that break away more and are mostly just for me, and there's some stuff in between.

Writing for sustained periods is a hurdle that every writer, beginner or experienced, faces from time to time. What powers you through those longer bursts of creativity and keeps you focused?

My style of writing has it so that I write when I have time and feel a desire, but I never try and force or constrain myself because I find it sucks the fun out of it, and the fun is what motivated me from the start, so if I lose it, I lose motivation. It's why I don't take part in NaNo, because it feels like I'm forcing myself instead of just writing because I want to.
And if I lose that motivation to write, that often means I fell out of love with the story and should scrap it and probably merge it somewhere else, or I re-read the story up to where I am to help me get back into it. I'll also go back and find whatever initially triggered the idea to write and re-experience it to see what happens and if that keeps me going.

Keeping oneself motivated seems to be the key, and so does having fun!What other top tips would you advise for getting a novella or a longer piece of fiction off the starting line? What kind of story developments motivate you to see it through to the end?

So first and more than anything, ideas failing or hitting a wall is totally fine. If you try to start writing an idea and it doesn't work, it may not be the idea to write about. Rather than looking for a way to force it, it's often better to take a look and re-evaluate whether an idea works or not if it's failing. If it's failing, you can simply take the idea and possibly merge it with another or roll it around or just bank it for another day. A bunch of dead ideas together can be one great idea.

Otherwise, a better understanding of the world you're about to write about, be it a contemporary high school, galactic war theatre, or fantasy dimension will always help. I find most of the times when writers come by me with any sort of block or lack of ability to start, they don't know the answers to basic why questions, or they don't understand their world or characters well enough to understand what they're going to go next or what they might feel is going on.

Before you go forward, you should go backward and know what's happened and who is involved. Most of this information will never make it into your story, and rightfully shouldn't. It sucks to do extra research homework on your own project you're inventing, but it's the cost of better developing a world. Knowing your setting and characters will always help you move forward when you're stuck because you should always be able to just ask yourself what would your character do, given everything that just happened to them and what you know about them.

Re-read, re-think, re-write and repeat... that seems like a good mantra, but how much do you edit on the fly? Or do you prefer to edit after you've finished the initial draft?

You're lucky if I edit ever. Typically I reread my content a lot to continuously be familiar with it and for motivation and because I'm writing it to read eventually anyways. So every read-through I catch something, but I effectively never set out to intentionally edit.

Personally, what kind of novella -- be it any style, theme, or genre -- would you like to see emerge from the Open Novella Contest?

Just something different and interesting that can execute on its premise.

Lastly, because we're always curious... What was your ever first experience with the power of the written language?

When I started being able to read it.

It's been great hearing from you Nick, and thank you for sharing your valuable knowledge in storytelling.

Not a problem, glad to help.

Nick is a Content Manager at Wattpad HQ and has some great insights into writing and succeeding on Wattpad you can find those insights here-
Behind Wattpad: Insights on Writing from Working at Wattpad

Our goal is to bring you many more exclusive interviews with people who aren't just Wattpad Stars or Staff, but also some pretty awesome authors.
In that quest next week we will be talking to Ruechari, so stick around for more fun!