Dear Wizard,

I know what I like to read. I enjoy reading and stories in other forms. I can recognize when a story is good. That is a good movie. Or a great video game. An excellent book. I have what I think it great taste in stories.

However, when I still down to write, my writing feels flat. It feels different from what I can recognize as great stories from others. It is missing an ingredient. I don’t know what it is missing though— how do I account for this?
How do I figure out what ingredient is missing from my story? What can I do to fix this issue?

Sincerely,
Cookie (fae/faer)

Dear Cookie,

You may not enjoy my answer to your query. When practicing spell work, we are ever the students of the Universe, and no matter how many grimoires we have read in preparation nothing substitutes practice.

And my recommendation to you: practice.

Keep going. Keep tasting your work. Keeping reading the grimoires of those whose work you admire. You can do it, but you are not there yet.

I do not know the nature of your specific work, and each investigation into the Universe is slightly different, so I suggest that you keep trying. The more that you fall down, the more opportunities you have to pick yourself up and keep going. It will take failed spells. Fizzled spells. Possibly an exploded spell — not that I know from personal experience— for you to figure out exactly what is missing from your work.

Studying is hard work, but the more that you do it, the more that your work will begin to take shape and you will find the flavors of the Universe that you are after. Success is merely the ability to keep going after failure. The only real failure in this work is to stop trying. Pick yourself back up. Take another step. One foot in front of the other.

And before you know it, your will unlock the taste you’ve been looking for all along. And if you’re really quite lucky, you may even invent a flavor that no one else has ever thought of before! Happy tasting my friend. You’re going to be great.

Sincerely,
A Wizard