THANKS for taking the time to offer some help! You must have been reading some of my comments, which are as long as stories but without images. I take great pains to create original artwork for every story. I've only used unsplash a few times, in the beginning. Subtitles, yes, I have trouble with those because I don't like how they look next to those images I worked hard to create.
On the structure part. You're as right as right can be. It's been a life-long problem. I can't consider one idea without another tangential idea following two seconds after. The problem I face, which idea to choose? They are all related equally to me. They are NOT all related to the reader. I face the problem Tarkovsky spoke about in "Sculpting in Time". How do you communicate something important to you that may be may not have the same affect on the reader? How can you know? I can't. Most artists just go with tropes that work. In film, they'll show the "hero" at breakfast with his family, helping his kid with homework. What if that isn't the experience that made your Dad a hero? Maybe it was his cleaning the pool naked with the neighbors complaining. In writing, of course, as you point out, there are structures proven to work. However, my focus is on the ideas and they don't come with an instruction manual on how to put them together haha.
I'm also bedeviled by an interest in science and technology, especially photo and film. These stories have very small audiences. 20% read rate is probably good. Do I continue to write those? They probably turn off my other readers.
In the end, I ask myself if my story has covered ideas that haven't been covered. Has it made connections others haven't made? I wish I could write well. One of my English professors in college literally threw one of my essays back at me (it fell on ground and slid away), so disgusted was he.
There was an NBA basketball player a while back who had Tourette syndrome. Asked how he made it to the NBA, he said he spent more effort tying his shoe laces than most spent in a whole day's practice. I can relate. At least with the effort it takes me to construct a simple sentence part!
I would quit if there wasn't imperfect art that made my life better. Generally, I can barely watch a Tarkovsky film. But I can't think of my life without them, if that makes any sense. Or Tessawhathenamea. There's something beyond the content of her writing that makes my life fuller.
