Ever had a story...

[pixiesjuice]

I'm at the end of my rope this morning I've been trying for a while to finish a story, I know what I want to write, it's all worked out in my head... only trouble is, every time I go back to work on it, the words won't transfer from my head to the keyboard and I end up writing something new and completely different. So far I've completed three stories while I've been trying to finish the one I really want to do.

Any helpful suggestions would be much appreciated.

 

[MaxSebastian]

It's a difficult one. Bottom line is, you have to force yourself some way. If it's something you really want to write right now, that is. Otherwise put it in a drawer and come back to it later.

You have to analyse the reasons why you'd rather write other stories than that one, I think. The answer might be there. Then you might be able to adjust whatever it is that is holding you back.

When you sit down to write it, and something else comes along that you are suddenly more interested in writing, can you use that idea to kick-start you on the story you are intending? Is there any way you can blend the idea you're more interested in exploring right now into the story you want to write, so that you gain some motivation?

Good luck!

Max

 

[jfinn]

So far I've completed three stories while I've been trying to finish the one I really want to do.

Hmmm, the unfinished story as a muse... I'll have to remember to try that.

Sorry, but no easy answers from me either. If I did I wouldn't have an inbox full of emails asking where the hell is the last chapter of Amy's Smile.

There are some tricks you can try that have worked for me in the past. Pick your favorite scene and write it first. Sometimes this will motivate you to build around it. Change the POV. If it's in first person, write it in third etc. You could even keep a 1st person POV, but change the character who's talking. Basically try anything that makes you come at the story from a fresh angle.

I have to agree with Max though. If you're having this much trouble perhaps you subconcious is trying to tell something. Try breaking the story down into outline form and see if there's a spot that leaps up at you as the reason you're stalling. If all else fails, put it aside and give yourself a date, say three weeks from today, that is the absolute minimum time you'll go without thinking about it. And then stick to that. A fresh outlook may give you a solution.

Whatever you do, don't get too discouraged, you're in good company with this problem. I saw an interview with M. Night Shamalan where he said he wrote ten drafts of The Sixth Sense before he even realized that Bruce Willis' character was dead! Think how different that movie would have been if he'd decided nine tries were enough.

Good luck.
Jayne

 

[pixiesjuice]

Thanks, what you've both said makes a lot of sense. I think there are two reasons why I might be stalling on it...

1. I've gotten so used to writing stories that won't offend anyone for their content.. aside from my grammar and punctuation errors so I'm hesitating a bit over a non consent scene I want to write into it and 2. Remember the town in the movie 'footloose'? Well i grew up somewhere like that, where the people were suspicious, pessimistic, supersticious, and the town was run from the church pulpit... this is where i've set the story and i think maybe if i write in how it really was, i'm going to scare myself and noone reading the story is going to believe that a place like that really exists.

I'll wait until i'm on my own with no distractions and write the non consent part seperately, it might help, if it doesn't i'll take your advice jfinn and put it out of my mind for a while.

thanks again

 

[MaxSebastian]

Re: Re: Ever had a story...

Whatever you do, don't get too discouraged, you're in good company with this problem. I saw an interview with M. Night Shamalan where he said he wrote ten drafts of The Sixth Sense before he even realized that Bruce Willis' character was dead! Think how different that movie would have been if he'd decided nine tries were enough.

Good luck.
Jayne

Bruce Willis was dead?

 

[Wildcard Ky]

I wait for it to come to me. I have a story with a middle and end, but no beginning. I've been struggling with the beginning for awhile. I think it's a very good story so I'm not going to settle for less than my best out of impatience to get it done.

 

[lucky-E-leven]

I've had a story that did that and it frustrated me so much that I had to save it and stash it. After I'd written some other things, I realized that as much as my mind wanted the stashed story to go in one direction...the rest of me did not. And when I went back to it and read through it I decided to give myself a little more freedom with the ending I thought I wanted and the ending that truly worked. In the end, it wasn't all that different, but I had to open the door to some deviations and then it flew nicely into wraps.

~lucky

 

[Boxlicker101]

I'm at the end of my rope this morning I've been trying for a while to finish a story, I know what I want to write, it's all worked out in my head... only trouble is, every time I go back to work on it, the words won't transfer from my head to the keyboard and I end up writing something new and completely different. So far I've completed three stories while I've been trying to finish the one I really want to do.

Any helpful suggestions would be much appreciated.

I have found that it sometimes helps to write the end and then work toward that. You will need to do some editing but you do that anyhow.