Trouble putting ideas on paper

[Reshbod]

I've noticed when I am thinking of a story whether driving, laying in bed, jogging or whatever, it sounds much better than what I actually am able to get onto paper. I' not sure what the difference is but for some reason while I am thinking about it, it flows well, seems more melodic and coherent. Then when I sit at the compter and begin typing it comes out very pedestrian and basic.

Just curious if others have this problem? And if you do can you do anything about it?

Thanks

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Often a story works much better in your head. Unless you are actually imagining the words you are going to use you are generally "watching" the story, like you would a movie or a memory. Carrying that vizualized story to paper you are often confronted with images in your head that are very vivid, but translate to paper badly or not at all.

My only advice is to write the story quickly, toucing on the high points before your vizualized story fades, then go back and fill in the most powerful scenes you imagined. Try to get them as close to dead on as you can. Much of what's left afterwards is filler, back story and seguays and you can play with thos ewithout such a sharp imaige in your head.

-Colly

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I’ve given this a lot of thought, and I think a lot of other writers have too. I’ll be out walking the dog or riding on the El and I’ll start to write something in my head, maybe just a description of what I’m seeing, maybe a story. It’s great: the rhythm and feel of the language, the imagery, vocabulary, everything. And then when I sit down to write it it’s gone. If it’s a story, I’ll still have the plot in my mind and the emotional feel, and maybe I’ll salvage a phrase or an image or two, but the specific language is gone.

Thinking prose is not the same as writing it. We assume that writing, speaking, and linear thinking are all pretty much the same, probably because all three involve language. They're not. That brilliant prose I 'wrote' in my head is actually snatches of words and phrases, bits of images and pictures, ideas and feelings. I start sentences in my head and change them by the time I reach the end. A lot of them are half formed. Entire paragraphs are dismissed with a rough outline-type thought ("Okay, this is where he kisses her. Write some kissing stuff here..."). I think it's extremely rare if not impossible to actually write an entire story in your head. It may feel like that's what you're doing, but you're not.

Here's an experiment you can do. The 'distance' between thinking and speaking is probably shorter than the distance between thinking and writing, right? So it should be easier to just speak the story in your head than it would be to take the time and trouble to sit down and write it. So get a voice recorder and sit down with it and try to tell it that great story you have in your head and see what happens.

It can be done, and there are some writers who work this way from what I hear. But I think you'll find that it's just about as much work to write that way as it is to sit at a keyboard and type it out. Neither thinking nor speaking use the same 'muscles' as writing.

---dr.M.

 

[flawed_ethics]

I've found that in such situations, the thoughts can be salvaged if a dialouge exists. It is more difficult to describe the setting as imagined than it is to write the conversations characters had in your scene. If you write the dialouge, you keep that aspect intact. It also allows you to leave flags for certian background events that occur (setting, actions, etc.) without sidetracking yourself and losing the flow.

Of course, this only applies if there is sufficient dialouge in a given scene. Still, better than having a well imagined piece go to waste.

 

[gauchecritic]

Think of the definite article "the".

Is it a word? Or is it a picture of a word?

When imagining, or fantasizing we 'see' what is happening, thinking of words to describe it is the slowest way of doing this, else why is 'a picture worth a thousand words'?

Any words we use in imaginings are most often dialogue.

The skill of writing is the transformation of that picture into those thousand words.

I once spent a journey listening to a movement from a symphony in my head, I was making it up as I went along. I could hear every single instrument in the orchestra and would 'tune in' to particular sections at different times, whilst still maintaining the rest of the orchestral sound. I can neither read nor write dots on staves and was very dissappointed that I couldn't even recall the major theme or any melody shortly after it ended.

Gauche