In september of 2018, I began to write a story. I was only 14. Armed with nothing but mediocre creativity and a deep desire to make something special with Offtopic, I wrote Blood and Water. A 40 part mystery story filled with the (relatively) old names of Offtopic. For the sake of cringe and nostalgia, I recently took a long look at the immortalized mess that was my passion. I read through it, in its entirety. It’s a pretty goofy story, riddled with angst and teenage naivety. Poor craftsmanship and barely acceptable storytelling. Younger me would be thrilled to know all this time later, I am here writing a scathing review of my past self. Obviously, spoilers ahead. Let’s deep dive. [b]The Characters[/b] Like all stories on Offtopic at the time, I cast users as my characters. Did they get to design their characters? Nope. Did they have some say over the direction of the plot? None whatsoever. Were their personalities based on their users? Lol what personalities. I did it because it was simply the norm at the time. Let your prewritten character share a similar name with an active user, and you’re guaranteed returning readers. Everybody did it. I had users pick a variation of their name to be slapped on the most boring, one-dimensional character I could write, and my story stayed relevant for over 9 months (for those of you that weren’t born yet, that’s a long time to rule trending on Offtopic.) Sure, attention post-to-post would sometimes dwindle, but giving Offtopic personal investment in my amateur story kept me with steady viewership enough to post as inconsistently as I pleased and feel no hurt for it. With reliable popularity I faced more problems than just my lack of character writing ability. Everyone wanted a piece of the action. I couldn’t post signups fast enough before my DMs were flooded with pleas of inclusion. At the end, I had 20 characters, most of which were barely fleshed out beyond a name and occupation. Only 6 of which I ever really regarded as important, the rest were fan-service. [b]The Plot[/b] Oh boy. The plot. I had no plot. I am not kidding when I say I just started writing. I had a loose idea following a maniacal killer onboard a cruise, and I ran with it full speed. It wasn’t just dumb, it was stupid. I knew the mystery of the killings had to build somewhat beyond insanity, and money was a boring motivator, but the plot line I eventually sprung for was completely far-fetched and almost laughable. Our killer had become infatuated with the Greeks interpretation of death, so much so that he thought an act such as gassing a cruise ship would gain enough public attention to convert others to his beliefs. Again, this plot did not exist when I started writing. Even halfway through the 40 part story, I hadn’t given a single thought to the killers motives. Early on I laid out some minor plot devices like the newspaper and a mysterious white gas canister, to be used when I finally got around to writing my own damn story. Thanks to my lack of planning or really even critical thought, this story reads like a 10 year old determined to give her fairy tale a happy ending, no matter the corner she’s written herself into. Plot is carried by luck and convenient coincidences. There was no “it all ties together in the climax” moment. More like a million “where did this come from” moments as the yarn frayed into a disconnected jumble of predictability. But did I care at the time? Did any of us care? Hell no. We were babies. I wrote my silly little stories and you ate them up. [b]The Writing[/b] I am not a good writer. I am a creative person, and since blood and water I’ve thankfully learned how to build a real plot. When it’s just me without an audience, I can write about anything. Plot has become my strength in writing, and thankfully so, because I am a terrible writer. And as you can assume, I was even worse at 14. I do not like to proofread. In fact, I don’t proofread, and never have. Every new B&W installment was riddled with grammar mistakes, autocorrect fumbles, and read about as smoothly as a squared-wheeled bike. I spent no energy on descriptive words, and simply threw the bare minimum at every page, hoping it carried my nonsense plot far enough to set up the next chapter. I speedran every plot point, eager to flourish the dramatic ending that I hadn’t even made up yet. [b]The Good[/b] I can’t help but feel a little love for this story. Maybe if the initial idea had occurred to me a few years later, I could’ve done something really special. It had promise in the premise, which I squished by being an overconfident amateur. My only qualifications to write such a story were that I wanted to. I was constantly inspired by my favorite authors to build a grand adventure of peril and mystery, but beyond that, I gave no thought to my technique, and passed my lack of poeticism off as my “style.” My excuse? I was 14. I was just having fun, and a lot of my fellow children enjoyed my stories. Nobody on Offtopic was a particularly talented writer, because nobody really cared. [b]The Bad[/b] Pretty much all of it. [b]The Ugly[/b] I will never live this down. That’s all. I’ll go ahead and use the B&W tag, just in case anybody wanted to re-experience the cringe. The nostalgia in there is like a throat punch. Kids, don’t do what I did. You could never be me.