What are your scenes that took on a life of their own?

[CaryJanJunior]

As a very improvisational, write what comes to mind with vague outlines and plans kind of writer, I often find scenes twisting the plot around them.

This is the first time, however, that a scene I wrote reached out of its story to grip my mind so much I created a setting and a list of board game rules meant for emulating that scene.

In light of that, I figured I would see what are your most egregious moments of a scene having far too much influence on the story/other stories/your personal life/etc.

 

[StillStunned]

Most of my stories start with a single image of a scene, and I write the story around or towards that scene. The one that's got most out of hand involved an adventurer pushing her rival into a pit with a demon. That led to "The Rivals", a series of eight completed stories so far, with a total of 73k words, and another 13k-word spinoff.

 

[ElectricBlue]

In light of that, I figured I would see what are your most egregious moments of a scene having far too much influence on the story/other stories/your personal life/etc.

I've had characters arrive in the space of a paragraph who became a key person in several stories. They thrust themselves up from my sub-conscious and took over the story. Several then went on and got stories of their own.

In terms of my own life, it's when I dream of them that I know they've put their hooks in and are here to stay.

 

[AchtungNight]

The first erotic scene I dreamt that went viral in my mind was a nude blonde standing before a mirror quoting Taxi Driver. Rendezvous was the result, chapter 4 has the scene in question. The Passion series featured the same character, so it came from that scene also.

 

[larrkap]

The long grey tshirt she was wearing rose up and I got to see the full extent of her well defined legs and the bottom third of her incredible ass cheeks.

This was just a line where one of my protagonists deals with a minor character. It's become a recurring image both in the story and my own mind and has taken my story line off on a very different tangent.

 

[crookedletter]

I write in the same improvisational way you describe: I often have a direction I'm trying to nudge my stories toward, but often no clear path how to get there, so sometimes scenes or characters come along and knock things far off track.

I mentioned one in a recent thread: what was meant to be a quick detour to deliver some characterization turned into a 3500+ word chapter, one that I enjoyed writing and think has something going for it but perhaps doesn't fit in the story I initially intended it for.

Honestly that's one of my favorite parts about the writing process. I think so-called "plotters" probably have an easier time getting a cohesive first draft together, less work needed on their second/third passes to make things fit, but I love it when I make something good that I never set out to make. And then the logic puzzle begins: what the hell is this and what do I do with it? Sometimes the answer affects the scene in question; sometimes it changes the whole story around it.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I wrote a simple conversation of about 100 words to see if I could portray different characters just by their dialects, nicking the voices off the guy with the sexiest voice I've ever known, and a completely different voice from an ex-housemate from Birmingham.

Didn't even mean to get them together. But with guy 1 being from Northern Ireland, and guy 2 getting thrown out of an Irish pub once for wearing a British Army jacket, that became something for them to talk about.

When my Covid and lots of drugs wore off 9 months later, I published the 110,000 word series of Smoking Hot, where the guys get together, and since then there's been at least another half a dozen stories where Adrian and Dan star or feature, plus getting mentioned in stories about their friends.

 

[VallesMarineris]

a scene I wrote reached out of its story to grip my mind so much I created a setting and a list of board game rules meant for emulating that scene.

This is one of the joys of writing. I'm finishing the last chapter of a novel-length story (>110K words) and suddenly a few days ago a scene for a spin-off took over my brain and I had to start working on it. After several thousand words on that, I think I've got enough sense of where it's going that I can (and need to) put hooks in that final chapter so the stories make sense together.

Have fun!

 

[NaughteeDragon]

My most recent story started out as a synopsis of a story that a character was masturbating to. It ended up being 6k words. Next year it will get a sequel for the 2026 Halloween Contest.

 

[Eisenloewe]

My Dark Fairy Tales story was based on "The Elves and the Shoemaker," which in the original Grimm compendium is under 1,000 words. I had a scene in my mind and figured I'd write it up as a side project as I worked on my Crime & Punishment story.

Somehow that turned into a 28k-word tale with an ensemble cast of rowdy and raunchy medieval townsfolk with an ensemble cast of fetishes and curses, and my highest-rated story on the site. Meanwhile, my 30k-word Crime & Punishment story died in Pending limbo. C'est la Vie.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Writing Savage Daughter, I had a scene in a bar where I wanted a band to play a song that spoke the the MC and her strained relationship with her step mother. It was tough to find just the right song, but when I did; "Mother's Savage Daughter," it took over the entire story, changing it from a quick short story to a 41K short novel.

 

[Cly_Anders]

As a very improvisational, write what comes to mind with vague outlines and plans kind of writer, I often find scenes twisting the plot around them.

This is the first time, however, that a scene I wrote reached out of its story to grip my mind so much I created a setting and a list of board game rules meant for emulating that scene.

In light of that, I figured I would see what are your most egregious moments of a scene having far too much influence on the story/other stories/your personal life/etc.

Happens to me all the time. I just wrote a scene, I had no intention of creating this character or how he fit into the plot. He appeared entirely on his own and made his reason for being there entirely pivotal. I can't remove him, now. Damn you, Alanis! 10,000 years does not give you the right to take over my story! Well, since you're here, you can help move the plot along....

 

[cw5523729]

Almost everything I write takes a mind of its own. I never really know how any of the shit I write ends up on the page. Well, screen.

 

[Rob_Royale]

In my current WIP, Come West, Young Man, I've a scene where a married woman who has never really known passion, sleeps with a young man, my MMC. What was intended to be a one-and-done, just a brief hookup scene in the middle of the story, with no connection to the central plot, turned out to be a weekend of sex and discovery, the blooming of her entire sexual being. It changed the whole plot, making her the young man's focus and regret throughout the rest of the story.

It's not the first time this sort of thing has happened to me, but it's rare enough because I'm a plotter, but it is thrilling when it happens.

 

[redgarters]

I started writing my first lesbian slow burn with just a sentence and no clear idea of what the story was, what it was about, who the characters were or even where exactly it took place. All I had in mind was a distinct Arctic atmosphere of darkness, snow, sapphic love and a huge cat.

It evolved as I just kept adding sentences, but very soon an image appeared in my mind of a woman in a red coat standing in the snow at the front door of a little house, illuminated in the dark by a single porch light, forhead and knuckles resting on the door in silent surrender and desperation. From that point on, every sentence I wrote was pulling me towards that scene.

That image still lives in my head as a feeling, and the bit between the disastrous first kiss that prompts the terrible desperation and the second, redeeming kiss that ends the agony is one of my best bits of writing, I think.

That scene is still so vivid and visceral in my mind, I wish I could have a painting of it on my wall.