My stories run wild... How to tame your imagination and put blinkers on your muse?

[DevlinSkye]

Howdy, you beautiful, beautiful people? I am back with another stupid question I can't seem to solve on my own.

So I have been writing a lot—original plots, sparkling ideas, awesome characters... it's all there, but they keep running beyond what I intend to. Let me try and explain my conundrum... So i thought of a short smut story and wrote a scene where a woman gets horny in the car and gives in to urges to masturbate in busy traffic... this could go as a story on its own, but I wanted more... now the possibilities are wild from here... any workman on the road... lover in the office... stranger in the mall... a family member at home...

The problem is I ended up cramming it all... it's not only about characters... ideas from stories I have read... some stupid meme popping on screen... sex scenes from porn... I get this urge to put it in the current story... then I end up adjusting everything I have written... by the time I complete this... there are ten more new ideas swarming in my head...

Call me stupid if you want... but I have 31 partially written pieces... 400K+ carefully written words... yet nothing that can go for publishing...

My blockers... I can't write something just for sex... two people meet and fuck... boring... I will watch porn instead... They need to have personality... some context... a bit of realism... and then oh-so-satisfying sex....

my problem is not building blocks... it's putting them together...

Let me try the other way; my expected story length is 16k+, but by the time I manage 8k, my writing is shooting for an epic novel scope... too wide to be comfortably restrained in any single Lit submission category...

Now that I have confused you a bit, back to the title of this post, How to put a bloody leash on my muse and make it run in a closed circuit...

and Finally, I am too stupid for general guidance and self help available on internet. What I would love to know is your personal experience.

 

[NotWise]

It sounds like you need to plan your story and stick to the plan.

You might also want to start small to get your feet under you: a man, a woman, a story, a sex scene, the end.

 

[THBGato]

There are some writers here who have had success with stories that straddle categories. They often do it with having chapters, so the lesbian encounter is in a different chapter to the mfm threesome. No me though (well, kinda).

My advice is: know how the story ends before you start. Aim for that. New ideas that come as you write can be saved for the next story.

Good luck!

 

[iwatchus]

My first story (7 months ago now) was a short simple exhibitionist story (she lost a bet). But I liked the characters and wondered about what else was happening around them.

I managed to control myself to keep it sequential. And soon I had a 21 story series averaging 15K per. Kind of all over the place. If you count what I have written since that exists in the same universe, with some overlap in characters, it's over a half million words now.

My advice is pick a favorite scene and build a little story around that. Try to stay focused on that for the time it takes to get one story out. Then see what you want to do.

You might need to plan, but you might just need a little discipline to set the other shiny things away for a moment.

 

[EmilyMiller]

My ‘method’ is:

1. Have some sort of idea: an outcome, a character, a scene, a general vibe - kinda whatever
2. Start to write and see if the idea has legs
3. After 1 - 2,000 words stop and assess
4. What sort of length story is this going to be to do the idea justice (I guess experience cuts in here as I can normally discriminate between short story, novelette, novella, and novel)
5. If it’s a short story, I keep writing
6. If it’s anything else, I’ll either write a short treatment, or outline, or sometimes write a first draft of the ending so I know my target

This seems to act as guardrails for me. Then YMMV.

 

[crookedletter]

I would suggest it isn't an issue with the writing, it's an issue with revision. Let yourself write what wants written. It's then a matter of going back and enforcing some order on the chaos. Write wild; edit sane.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Howdy, you beautiful, beautiful people? I am back with another stupid question I can't seem to solve on my own.

So I have been writing a lot—original plots, sparkling ideas, awesome characters... it's all there, but they keep running beyond what I intend to. Let me try and explain my conundrum... So i thought of a short smut story and wrote a scene where a woman gets horny in the car and gives in to urges to masturbate in busy traffic... this could go as a story on its own, but I wanted more... now the possibilities are wild from here... any workman on the road... lover in the office... stranger in the mall... a family member at home...

The problem is I ended up cramming it all... it's not only about characters... ideas from stories I have read... some stupid meme popping on screen... sex scenes from porn... I get this urge to put it in the current story... then I end up adjusting everything I have written... by the time I complete this... there are ten more new ideas swarming in my head...

Call me stupid if you want... but I have 31 partially written pieces... 400K+ carefully written words... yet nothing that can go for publishing...

My blockers... I can't write something just for sex... two people meet and fuck... boring... I will watch porn instead... They need to have personality... some context... a bit of realism... and then oh-so-satisfying sex....

my problem is not building blocks... it's putting them together...

Let me try the other way; my expected story length is 16k+, but by the time I manage 8k, my writing is shooting for an epic novel scope... too wide to be comfortably restrained in any single Lit submission category...

Now that I have confused you a bit, back to the title of this post, How to put a bloody leash on my muse and make it run in a closed circuit...

and Finally, I am too stupid for general guidance and self help available on internet. What I would love to know is your personal experience.

I get your 'problem'... My WIP folder is a rogues gallery of ideas that need attention, probably five or six dozen and counting. I bounce around to whichever one grabs the attention of my muse and it seems to work as I've published almost 90 stories.

As for story creep, I'm a devoted pantser, or gardener as GRRM calls it. I love it when stories tell me where they want to go. Take Savage Daughter for instance. It started as an idea for a short story about a young trans woman finding herself with the help of her fathers old partner, or 'uncle'. They click on an unexpected level and happily ever after, right? Except, they go to this bar that sort of becomes a character in the story, and she meets some other cops. The captain has a trans daughter. Then she finds a boyfriend and they hear this band that sings this song. The boyfriend wants things she cant' give, and there's this therapist who does guided mediation, and the the song takes over the story, and it turns into a 41K short novel. Yeah, this is pretty much how I write. I don't see a problem. Let you imagination run wild and trim and fix in the edits. So what if it's a novel. Good characters and good stories sell very well.

 

[TheLobster]

My ‘method’ is:

1. Have some sort of idea: an outcome, a character, a scene, a general vibe - kinda whatever
2. Start to write and see if the idea has legs
3. After 1 - 2,000 words stop and assess
4. What sort of length story is this going to be to do the idea justice (I guess experience cuts in here as I can normally discriminate between short story, novelette, novella, and novel)
5. If it’s a short story, I keep writing
6. If it’s anything else, I’ll either write a short treatment, or outline, or sometimes write a first draft of the ending so I know my target

This seems to act as guardrails for me. Then YMMV.

This is pretty similar to my process. I usually just write until the outline of the remainder becomes obvious, which may happen after 1k, 5k, or even 10k words.

 

[SamanthaBehgs]

Hearing what you describe, I wonder if you could treat this the way someone with Generalized Anxiety might treat worries that come up during the day.

You said you started with the idea of a single scene, right?

So i thought of a short smut story and wrote a scene where a woman gets horny in the car and gives in to urges to masturbate in busy traffic... this could go as a story on its own, but I wanted more

Stop here. Write the story *as if* it's a story of its own.

now the possibilities are wild from here... any workman on the road... lover in the office... stranger in the mall... a family member at home...

The problem is I ended up cramming it all... it's not only about characters... ideas from stories I have read... some stupid meme popping on screen... sex scenes from porn... I get this urge to put it in the current story... then I end up adjusting everything I have written... by the time I complete this... there are ten more new ideas swarming in my head...

Any time another idea comes up, write it down somewhere else. With anxiety, it would be called making a worry list. It's acknowledging that those ideas are important, but that they aren't what you are focusing on in the moment. These additional ideas, the possibilities, they remind me a LOT of the random worries that someone with generalized anxiety would be paralyzed by all day every day during a flare up. Suddenly nothing gets done, anxiety keeps building, and the worry is no longer functional problem solving but just a logjam.

my problem is not building blocks... it's putting them together...

Is it really putting them together, or is it that urge to use every block every time because they are all REALLY important blocks? That's where the next step comes in. For anxiety, you'd schedule "worry time." Here, you schedule "story time."

So during your story time, don't touch the original idea. It's not that story's turn. Instead, consider the ideas on your list. They are clearly important to you and now it's their time to shine.

There are important things about story time itself. First - it's scheduled. You set it aside and you make sure you stick to that schedule. How often? That depends on how your schedule works and how much real life time you actually have for writing. It's flexible so long as you're consistent. Another important detail: It has a set start and, very importantly, it has a set finish. Don't let yourself go beyond that time limit (60 minutes MAX). Setting an alarm is a good way to stop yourself. Any ideas that come up outside of story time? They go on that list, so that the only writing you're doing outside of "story time" is on the original idea - the one you actually want to hit publish on. Promise yourself that you'll flesh it out during story time and then keep that promise to yourself by keeping your story time appointment.

Once you've hit pubish on the current WIP, you now have a whole set of potential new stories you can work on. Pick one. It's the only one allowed outside of story time now. But remember, story time is important. Keep it scheduled and never skip it. Those ideas are important to you, and so they deserve your attention just like your current focus does (the one you're going to hit submit on next). So what is the "next" story allowed outside of story time?

Using the original story as an example: maybe you kept the original brief, this woman's first time ever giving in to the temptation to masturbate during traffic. And she LOVES it. So, she starts doing it regularly and...well...you seem to have a bunch of ideas of what might happen if she does.

any workman on the road... lover in the office... stranger in the mall... a family member at home...

The first story doesn't have to be a wanker, you can flesh out, for example, *why* she's so horny and why this is the only time she has in the day for herself. Add in what you need so that it goes beyond the feeling of "yea, I'll just watch porn for that." Just don't kitchen sink it.


Or, maybe during the writing, you came up with another story that you'd rather be writing and THAT is the one that comes out of story time instead. The point really is that you make sure that you keep those blocks organized and only use the ones you need when you need them instead of feeling like every good block needs to be in every story all the time. Even writing that sounds really overwhelming, but maybe that's because I'm an anxious person who sometimes has to use the worry time trick on herself.

This is personal experience with how to take thoughts that are getting in the way of a goal I've set for myself and not invalidate my own sense that they are important while still allowing myself to focus on one thing at a time (warped a bit to be relevant to the writing process instead of literally all the everythings all the time). Maybe there's something in there that's useful to you as well, I hope.

 

[DevlinSkye]

Hearing what you describe, I wonder if you could treat this the way someone with Generalized Anxiety might treat worries that come up during the day.

You said you started with the idea of a single scene, right?


Stop here. Write the story *as if* it's a story of its own.



Any time another idea comes up, write it down somewhere else. With anxiety, it would be called making a worry list. It's acknowledging that those ideas are important, but that they aren't what you are focusing on in the moment. These additional ideas, the possibilities, they remind me a LOT of the random worries that someone with generalized anxiety would be paralyzed by all day every day during a flare up. Suddenly nothing gets done, anxiety keeps building, and the worry is no longer functional problem solving but just a logjam.



Is it really putting them together, or is it that urge to use every block every time because they are all REALLY important blocks? That's where the next step comes in. For anxiety, you'd schedule "worry time." Here, you schedule "story time."

So during your story time, don't touch the original idea. It's not that story's turn. Instead, consider the ideas on your list. They are clearly important to you and now it's their time to shine.

There are important things about story time itself. First - it's scheduled. You set it aside and you make sure you stick to that schedule. How often? That depends on how your schedule works and how much real life time you actually have for writing. It's flexible so long as you're consistent. Another important detail: It has a set start and, very importantly, it has a set finish. Don't let yourself go beyond that time limit (60 minutes MAX). Setting an alarm is a good way to stop yourself. Any ideas that come up outside of story time? They go on that list, so that the only writing you're doing outside of "story time" is on the original idea - the one you actually want to hit publish on. Promise yourself that you'll flesh it out during story time and then keep that promise to yourself by keeping your story time appointment.

Once you've hit pubish on the current WIP, you now have a whole set of potential new stories you can work on. Pick one. It's the only one allowed outside of story time now. But remember, story time is important. Keep it scheduled and never skip it. Those ideas are important to you, and so they deserve your attention just like your current focus does (the one you're going to hit submit on next). So what is the "next" story allowed outside of story time?

Using the original story as an example: maybe you kept the original brief, this woman's first time ever giving in to the temptation to masturbate during traffic. And she LOVES it. So, she starts doing it regularly and...well...you seem to have a bunch of ideas of what might happen if she does.



The first story doesn't have to be a wanker, you can flesh out, for example, *why* she's so horny and why this is the only time she has in the day for herself. Add in what you need so that it goes beyond the feeling of "yea, I'll just watch porn for that." Just don't kitchen sink it.


Or, maybe during the writing, you came up with another story that you'd rather be writing and THAT is the one that comes out of story time instead. The point really is that you make sure that you keep those blocks organized and only use the ones you need when you need them instead of feeling like every good block needs to be in every story all the time. Even writing that sounds really overwhelming, but maybe that's because I'm an anxious person who sometimes has to use the worry time trick on herself.

This is personal experience with how to take thoughts that are getting in the way of a goal I've set for myself and not invalidate my own sense that they are important while still allowing myself to focus on one thing at a time (warped a bit to be relevant to the writing process instead of literally all the everythings all the time). Maybe there's something in there that's useful to you as well, I hope.

Damn... I can't even explain how close this cuts my current problems... and I am not even talking about writing...

This was the last place I expected such a deep visdom and practical approach..... @SamanthaBehgs THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!

 

[SamanthaBehgs]

Damn... I can't even explain how close this cuts my current problems... and I am not even talking about writing...

This was the last place I expected such a deep visdom and practical approach..... @SamanthaBehgs THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!

I'm glad to help in any way - I try to be open and honest about such things because, well, you never know when it might help others to know you aren't alone.

 

[dirk2024]

There are some writers here who have had success with stories that straddle categories. They often do it with having chapters, so the lesbian encounter is in a different chapter to the mfm threesome. No me though (well, kinda).

My advice is: know how the story ends before you start. Aim for that. New ideas that come as you write can be saved for the next story.

Good luck!

This helps me when I write. I start off with the idea and write 750-1000 words of premise, including how I want/think the story should end. The premise is the whole story, I just work to flesh out the fun/interesting stuff until its cohesive (to me at least)

I do keep in mind that other pieces of the story could be added on. I have a couple of WIP's that have "birthed" other WIP's using the same characters and concept, just different situations. Of course, I have yet to publish any of those yet. When I do, I suppose that I will publish them as a grouped series, even though they aren't necessarily tightly connected, chronologically, like I see in other series (especially like what I have been reading in SciFi lately).

 

[DeMont]

@DevlinSkye,
Good evening my dear colleague and welcome to the AH, lovely to greet you here.

I've been writing for decades, in all sorts of genres from industrial and commercial operations, to anthologies, for publication and in competitions and now I'm going to fly in the face of pretty much everything you may have heard, seen or read about story construction. DON'T restrain your Muse. Your Muse feeds your mind, heart and soul, if you mute your Muse then you may well be missing something that will/could be vital to your writing.

You will see that around here people who write have folders packed with unfinished stories, I am no less guilty than any other of this but that means, in my opinion, that the particular story that slides in there is not meant to be written yet, for whatever reason. We are all bursting with ideas, keep those ideas as snippets on a reference document and try to focus on completion of, say, two at a time otherwise you may never get anything finished to your satisfaction. I am very fond of using the line, "A story will write itself, as it will, when it will and how it will." We, the writers, are the "tools" of our Muse, we give life to the concepts and ideas but it is our Muse that is, ultimately, in charge of when/how we do that.

The key, to my mind, is focus. Multitask if you will, have two (okay maybe three) on the go at the same time so you can switch from one to the other as the Muse takes you, or if the dreaded 'writer's block' springs up on one you have an 'escape room' which may well serve to beat down the writer's block on the other.

I do hope some of this makes at least a little sense. I can't, and won't, hold myself up as some paragon of writing virtue but all I'm saying is that I was once where you are and I discovered a solution to the chaos.
Deepest respects, always,
D.

 

[StillStunned]

What I would love to know is your personal experience.

A WIP folder that's so big that it doesn't fit in a single screenshot anymore. A whole series of Writing Exercises threads to burn off some of the immediate creativity. And mental exhaustion.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

Self control.

 

[MetaBob]

Limit the number of named characters in your story. Each one will develop its own voice, its own story, its own desires, and demand to have its story told.

It just occurred to me that named characters are like possessions in your home. Eventually there's no room for more and you have to start getting rid of old things in order to acquire new ones.

That's how it works for me, anyway.

 

[JGittes]

Self control.

Ahh, but I can resist anything except temptation.

 

[jsmiam]

In between no planning and extreme planning is being an outliner. Your overabundance of new ideas doesn’t have to be paragraphs and pages, they can be one liners or just a enough to remember it later. Then knowing it’s written down and won’t be forgotten, you can expand on it. Or if the ideas are coming fast you jot down the next one and the next.

Then knowing a great idea is written down for posterity, you can rest assured you’ll get to it sooner, later, or someday (maybe), so it doesn’t necessarily have to be in the story you’re working on right now. Outlining and/or just documenting all your ideas briefly makes it easier to take a step back and say “ok, construction worker this time, lumberjack who accidentally felled the sequoia on my car next time.” or whatever ideas you come up with.