/r/writing: "Do I need friends to be a good writer?"

Hey, so due to different circumstances I've found myself with no friends for some time now. I still adore writing. But I'm concerned my dialogue and friendships might come across as forced or artificial. Also, I'm including a relationship and it's been a long time since I've been in one myself. On the other hand, a lot of writers who lacked friends were very much capable of writing lively dialogue and friendship/ relationship into their books.

I come to /r/writing to laugh at them, not to feel bad.

As usual, /r/writing responds at an extreme surface level. Yes, OP can write during a period of social isolation, and they might even create something good. But lack of social experience is certainly an artistic handicap, and the last thing they need is to be told "not everyone has friends, just read books and you'll be okay."

But of course, that's exactly what their fellow !writecel s tell them.

I've literally never had consensual s*x and my A03 account is teeming with it. We live in a time when you can watch pretty much any kind of interaction on youtube or, yknow other websites, and get a feel for what seems natural and what doesn't.

Redditor confesses to r*pe

?!

To be a good writer you need to write. You need to write a lot. If you want examples of human interactions you should read books.

You don't need friends, plants, or even a dog to be a good writer.

Though plants and dogs are certainly beneficial.

Just a sheer inversion of reality. Yes, having friends (or any other real life experience) will help you with writing. OP is suffering and this responds with feigned incredulity that they might think their suffering is hurting them!

This is either advanced toxic positivity...

Or else another friendless shut-in coping

I think it's not so much about having friends as being perceptive and observant about what friendships (and other relationships) are and how they function.

if you're good at paying attention and connecting that to a theory of mind about how and why people go about their business of peopling then you can spoof just about anything you witness in the world.

Neurodivergents on safari lol

(wait that's us too)

Writing is a solitary endeavor. You don't need anything but your own wits and skills to write. I've had no friends pretty much my entire life, and that has never stopped me, but then I have always spent a lot of time in my own imagination creating stories to fill in those times when I was alone and had no friends. Writing relationships or friendship and dialogue in a story is no different than a man writing a female character or writing about any subject you don't know about. If you don't know how to write it, research it.

This is who's giving you writing advice online.

You don't need personal experience to write. You need to read books to see how relationships are written and how dialogue is written. Reading books gives you examples on how writing and scenes work, how to word things to get your point across.

Writing from actual experience and feeling, instead of just a hodgepodge of everything you've ever read, is what makes a writer unique and human (at least until they put the chatbots in actual robot bodies ).

I mean it might not affect your writing but having friends will help a lot in life so I'd highly recommend having some, even if it's only a few!

It helps to write from experience. It sounds like you're not so much worried about how this will affect your writing as how it's affecting you on a human level. Take yourself on artist dates. Go out to places and events you want to see, join some meetup groups in your interests (I guarantee you've got a writing group or two, at least a book club, near you). Above all, know that solitude is a good thing and important to your understanding of yourself, but building a social life--while energy intensive--is just as important.

Go make some friends.

Fortunately someone provided actual advice. "Just make friends" may not be easy, but it's easier than a life of being an /r/writing user (and it's likelier than getting traditionally published ).