As a writer: My biggest problem is that I’m a pantser who wants to be a planner. So I waste my time writing an “outline”. The use of quotes was intentional, because, for me, an outline ends up being pieces of scenes crammed into an outline format because I’m incapable of just freaking describing what will happen. As soon as I start describing the scene, the characters take over and I write part of it (or all of it), and alternate between writing the scene and describing it so there’s this mishmash of insanity. It would probably give most of you migraines to try to read my outlines.
The last “outline” I wrote for a fanfic (and this was recently) was 45k words for 25ish chapters. And you know what happened? When I started writing it and using what I had in the outline, I got to chapter 6 and my characters were like, “Yeah, this isn’t what happened…” Which brings me to my next problem as a writer…
My characters have so much control that even trying to make outlines is a waste of time. So, after the above 45k word outline, I ended up ditching about half of it (while my characters laughed at me for not knowing them well enough to realize what I wrote was utter garbage) and have started winging it from that point.
This happens to me repeatedly. I have hundreds of thousands of words worth of scenes written that are just… there. And will likely never be used. Maybe one day I’ll learn, and just go with pantsing it like I did in college and grad school, where I wrote my paper first, then wrote the outline of it afterward. Backwards? Yep, but it’s the only way I could do it.
As a reader/player, my worst habit is that I tend to criticize the works I love most. Part of it is because I get so invested in the world and story that I start analyzing it all, so if things don’t make sense or there are perceived flaws in the storytelling or characterization, I will find them and point them out. And I only do this with stuff I get invested in. If I don’t like something, I have nothing to say about it, because I really couldn’t give less of a damn.
Tied to the above, I also tend not to let things go if there is conflicting information in or about the story, because I’m a stubborn pain in the ass. If you tell me the car in your book is blue, then later say it’s red, I’m going to point it out. If you acknowledge it and say you changed your mind, fine. If you claim you never said it, I will dig up every place you said the opposite and show it to you (without malice of forethought, it’s just an ingrained response for me). The more you deny it, the more I will push, when all that really has to happen is for you to say you decided to change it (or I freaking let it go like a normal human being, but I never realize I’m doing it until after the fact, when I’ve already pissed someone off).
Other bad habit as a reader/player of these games is that I buy games on impulse and either never play them, or I start them, get bored, and never touch them again. I’ve vowed to stop that–and, at least, play the demo before throwing money at a game. Too many times, I just don’t like what I see. Like a romance with no romance, a “character-driven” story that makes me have to code dive to make sure my MC doesn’t die because I missed a skill bump two chapters back because my MC would rather hang out with their team, etc. I’m very character-oriented. That’s what drives me in writing, and what gets me invested when I read/play, so if the game is lacking relatable and decent character interactions, I’m out. It’s probably not fair, but I have never liked plot-driven things with bad characterization, which is the typical combo I see. Not saying writers can’t have good characters if they’re more focused on plot, but it’s rare (from what I’ve seen).
Think those are the worst of my habits for both, not that I don’t have other bad habits!