I am an amateur writer. And I have issues with many things, mainly:
Prose efficiency, I tend to either overexplain or underexplain, I either show too much or tell too much, I don't know when the image I constructed is enough, so I add narration on top, which is very dense. I lack variety in my sentence patterns. This, over time, makes my writing very monotone and almost boring. So I need to learn how to vary length and structure.
I also have a pacing problem where I either drag on things for too long or brush over certain things. I use a lot of violence in my stories, because I like to translate internal struggle with actual physical marks and signs; it can be as mild as it can be gory at times. I lack the vocabulary to really give life to the images I have in my head; the same applies to describing environments and setting the atmosphere.
When it comes to the style I like and want to use, I want to be able to make my writing lyrical, and I want more than anything to be able to make the reader feel what I am trying to convey. I want to be able to write rich and powerful prose with good imagery, and I know that I cannot do that without reading more and finding authors and stories that match the type of tales I want to tell. I will not be able to improve.
Based on the things I write, so far, I have Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer, No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai, and Paradise Lost by Milton. I wanted to read Blood Meridian because it has nearly all the components I want, but the style and the vocabulary used are just something too hard for me to understand, at least for now, and even after only a few pages, my head started aching. I need recommendations to read throughout the year.
by Only_MTaha