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When I was young (and by that I mean in middle school) and this whole notion and practice of writing novel-length original stories was still brand new to me, I found myself utterly fascinated with the entire process. I found it startling that I could begin a page having no idea what would follow, and yet after a few sentences were jotted down based on my vague idea of what should happen next, the story poured out with very little effort on my part. That didn’t mean it was always entirely relevent to the progression of plot (I didn’t know about that yet), but it was something, a lot of something, and it was soooo easy. I found it creepy and amazing that as I wrote, characters would do things and say things that I had not planned for them to do or say, that I had never even thought they would do or say until the words literally appeared on the page. It was as if the story already existed somewhere out of sight, on another plane, and I was pulling it into this physical world with my paper and pen. I was helping it cross over, but it had always been there, somewhere else, waiting for me to put it down into actual, real words. It led me to write a small observation in the front flap of one of the notebooks that housed my second novel-length story at the time. I wrote, “The story already exists, the author is just there to tell it.” It is an idea that I still think true. I can’t tell you how thrilled I was to learn that many authors I admired then (and now) had the same experience with their own tales that I had loved so much.
This is when I began teaching myself about the craft of writing and storytelling. I drank it all up, read and read, printed an entire binder of writing advice from career authors and industry professionals. Snatched up craft magazines whenever I could. Too bad no one ever told me about Writer’s Digest at the time! But still, I managed, and the more I learned, the more I heard from other real, established authors, the more I realized that my feelings and experiences during writing were the same as theirs.
And that only increased my fascination with the whole process. It only made me want to write more. And to a certain extent, it also gave me a confidence boost. If I was feeling the same things they were, and the same sort of things were happening to me as I wrote, that must a good sign, right? Lol. Well, so I thought, and I’ll still go ahead and cling to that idea, thank you very much!
Shortly after my own observation on the matter, I came across the following quote, which I thought fit the situation quite nicely, even if Mr. Thoreau didn’t really mean for it to apply to writing:
“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” — Henry David Thoreau
I see each story I want to write as a castle in the air, and my job is put the foundations under them: to build something solid between the world of fiction and the world of reality. To make those castles accessible to everyone else, so they know they are there, and that they exist.
To this end, I have also found over the years between middle school and near-middle age that since these stories already exist, they also have minds of their own. They are living entities. When I didn’t know about proper plotting and character development and just ran with the flow, this did not matter so much. But now, they don’t always want to follow the “rules”. They don’t always want to go where I want them go, say what I want them to say, happen in the order I so carefully planned out, or be told from the point of view I want them to be told from. I always fight them, at first. I always try to fit them into MY box. I am the author after all. I KNOW. I KNOW how it should go.
Except that I don’t.
Finally, finally, after all these years, I am beginning to really understand this.
I can’t tell you how many times I have struggled for hours, days and weeks with a certain project and it just won’t work. It just doesn’t feel right. It feels OFF. It’s not good. I read it and scowl, chew off all my nails, can’t figure out what in the hell is wrong with it, but it’s just not right.
Every single time, I have to experiment to find what the STORY wants me to do. Once I figure that out (and it usually something completely different from what I had originally planned or wanted), things begin to flow again. Things happen again. I can read it and smile, and it feels right. I am usually pretty good now about just letting the story go where it wants. I can always clean it up and trim it down in revisions, after all.
I did, however, fail at this most recently with Act 2 of “Cheetah on the Roof” (see the Projects tab). I tried once again to fit into my neatly planned box, and it didn’t work at all. I believe the real problem lies in Act 1, however, so I am going back to rework those “off” scenes first, and then will re-address Act 2. Hopefully this will fix the refusal of Act 2 to cooperate. I will keep you posted.
So, if you find yourself maddeningly stuck… think outside the box. Let your story do the talking. Make your brain be quiet and just go with the flow. Bring that story out of its invisible plane, but do it on its terms, not yours. See the castle first, then build your foundations. Things just might be easier if you do!
Fellow writers, feel free to share your stories on this subject in the comments! I would love to hear your experiences!
(PS: I added a poem today finally, uncoincidentally writing-related. Check it out and let me know what you think!)
Happy writing everyone!
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