Has this ever happened to you?

[StillStunned]

I had an idea for my Pandemonium story: Thews the Mighty, an archetypical fantasy warrior, finds a sword with a demon bound up inside it. He's big and dumb. It lusts for power and sex. Together they kill monsters and shag everything in sight.

I started writing, seeing the world unfold before me. Characters took shape. A city grew out of nothing.

And after 3.5k words, I realised it wasn't the story I'd set out to write. It had turned into grimdark sword & sorcery, instead of a lighthearted fantasy romp.

But then I realised I could repurpose most of what I'd written as a kind of prequel to my series The Rivals, and start over with the story I wanted to write. Two for the price of one.

This time, the story is told from the demon's point of view, for a sarcastic perspective on big dumb adventurers.

 

[TheLobster]

No, I can't say it ever happened to me to find a sword with demon bound in it.

 

[StillStunned]

No, I can't say it ever happened to me to find a sword with demon bound in it.

You need to get out more.

 

[TheLobster]

You need to get out more.

I can't! The stories won't write themselves, you know?

 

[StillStunned]

I can't! The stories won't write themselves, you know?

But they will once you find a pen with a demon bound to it!

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Actually, on a good day, I find the story definitely taking the reins.

 

[Rob_Royale]

I have had stories morph on me. I just go with it and save the original idea for another day.

 

[WhiteTailDarkTip]

Absolutely. I've also had stories start promisingly and then just run into the sand. The characters stare at me imploringly and all I can do is shrug and leave them mid-scene until the muse strikes. I've got stories that are 90% of the way there and I can't work out how to give them a satisfying end. I guess I'm lucky to have put up anything at all, seeing as how my story folder is littered with these nearly-rans

 

[SimonDoom]

Introduce Thews' hot mom early in the story, and your lighthearted fantasy romp will come together effortlessly.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Introduce Thews' hot mom early in the story, and your lighthearted fantasy romp will come together effortlessly.

And make sure that she has a full natural bush.

 

[yowser]

A finished story in the hand is worth two in the bush.

 

[MrPixel]

Sigh. All the gallimaufry.

Serious response to @StillStunned 's thought... similar here. I had a chapter going great guns, and it went off the rails into a story about the two main couples visiting an adult theater to play. The theater story more or less grew legs, so I pulled the whole scene and its development into a spinoff. I think it was the right thing to do since it tended to break the continuity and mood of the core tale.

 

[SimonDoom]

And make sure that she has a full natural bush.

Opinions differ sharply on this subject, but I have been chided more than once with a remark to the effect, "Moms should have untrimmed bushes!"

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Opinions differ sharply on this subject, but I have been chided more than once with a remark to the effect, "Moms should have untrimmed bushes!"

See? Told ya.

 

[Bamagan]

Being trapped in a grimoire, I rarely get much attention from the big dumb ones. But that's fine, I much prefer possessing and corrupting the shy bookish types.

 

[StillStunned]

Opinions differ sharply on this subject, but I have been chided more than once with a remark to the effect, "Moms should have untrimmed bushes!"

I wonder whether it's a generational thing. Assuming that a significant portion of people on Lit grew up with porn from the 70s and early 80s, they'd associate older women with a full bush. Maybe people growing up with modern porn assume that everyone is smooth, up to and including mothers.

 

[SimonDoom]

I wonder whether it's a generational thing. Assuming that a significant portion of people on Lit grew up with porn from the 70s and early 80s, they'd associate older women with a full bush. Maybe people growing up with modern porn assume that everyone is smooth, up to and including mothers.

I'm old enough to remember the transition, and I can remember seeing smooth for the first time in porn in the early 90s and thinking it looked strange, but I've adapted over the decades and I confess I enjoy the scenery so much I enjoy seeing it uncovered. But not everybody's the same.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Putting this back on topic (hey, I'm guilty as anyone for steering it off), stories do morph and change as you write them, especially the bigger or longer (shut up) the idea, but I've never had one go off the rails. Perhaps that's because I plot almost everything and brainstorm every scene before I actual sit to write.

 

[StillStunned]

To be clear, it wasn't so much the story that went off the rails as the tone.

 

[Djmac1031]

Oh, absolutely.

I started a story once about an inexperienced college freshman meeting her lesbian roommate for the first time and slowly realizing she had a girl crush.

The story petered out and I never finished it.

Then i started writing a totally different story set in my Angels And Demons universe, and realized the old unfinished story would fit in perfectly with just a few name changes.

 

[Djmac1031]

To be clear, it wasn't so much the story that went off the rails as the tone.

I've had that happen too. A Karen Gets Her Comeuppance was SUPPOSED to be funny.

But by the time it was finished I realized it was so dark I needed to add on to the ending to at least alleviate that darkness.

Same thing happened with a Jenna chapter I wrote; it wound up becoming much darker than intended. That I didn't change because it worked for the story. Although it did throw off a few readers. But most understood.

 

[Otto26]

Dialog. I've had dialog drag me off track so many times. When I pull my head out of my writing and say "How did I end up here?" I go back and read the dialog and say "Yeah, that's what they would have said. How do I fix this?"

 

[WhiteTailDarkTip]

Dialog. I've had dialog drag me off track so many times. When I pull my head out of my writing and say "How did I end up here?" I go back and read the dialog and say "Yeah, that's what they would have said. How do I fix this?"

Yes. This is how I know my characters have inner lives. Early on in my writing career, I remember being quite stunned when I wrote down what one of my characters said and I thought ‘that’s not what I would have said’.
However, I must disagree with you about being ‘dragged off track’. To me this is the essence of creative writing. You throw the cards in the air and see how they fall. Then you follow them wherever they might lead.

 

[Lifestyle66]

My Amorous Goods story two years ago worked for that author challenge, with the enchanted anklet. Then I wrote a sequel and posted it after the October end date, and that story took me into a "War of the Worlds" scifi adventure. My MCs went back to the store to find out what was going on with his new abilities, and it led them to realizing they were fighting Martians remotely.

So, last year I wrote a third installation of the war-of-the-worlds with an Amorous Goods magic lamp (I was inspired by posts here in the AH ref tentacle monsters), but I left the outcome of the war at the end of that story hanging. Now, I need to write the final battle but try to still tie it to the Amorous Goods shop theme.

I have two and a half months to get my head straight and get into writing it. I have the idea for how it will end. But it's those damned details getting there which slow me down.

 

[Devinter]

No, I can't say it ever happened to me to find a sword with demon bound in it.

You can borrow one of mine. I've got a few!

As for @StillStunned 's question - absolutely. Several times. That's part of what feels so freeing about writing to me; even if I do have some sort of plan in motion, I follow the story and where it wishes to take me, rather than trying to wrangle it to fit into my original idea. Sometimes that does mean that I end up writing something different than I had first intended, but that's rarely a problem - just means I have another good story idea saved for later, at least after a tweak or two.

Sometimes I also just go back and change the opening a bit, if the tone of a story changes dramatically as I'm writing the complete story. So that it all fits together. Though, sad as it may sound, I have noticed that if you begin on a rather depressing note, then it can only go up from there - and a happy ending seems to be greatly appreciated around these parts!