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Old 02-20-2017, 08:20 PM   #16
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gmw, I'm impressed with your quiet and helpful responses. Have a little karma.
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Old 02-22-2017, 02:32 AM   #17
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Oh my gosh. Thanks.

I am not sure about cause and effect, but it seems common for writers to be quite introspective. Mostly I've just been sharing thoughts that result from far more introspection than is probably good for a person.
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Old 03-02-2017, 01:46 AM   #18
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gmw, do you do the whole 'inciting incident' thing of making the conflict of the story start fairly close to the beginning. Maybe you could use your backstory later in the novel, perhaps as something someone tells another character. (A little like we learn quite late in Great Expectations about Miss Havisham being betrayed by her intended on her wedding day.)
Thanks for all the great advice.
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Old 03-02-2017, 03:28 AM   #19
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BookCat, actually, the "whole 'inciting incident' thing" is partly where my current problems started. Well, that and trying to cheat it a bit (as many authors do) by starting the book with the main intrigue and then stepping back to where it started.

The initial/inspiring scene that I am trying to write a story around has a mysterious character and a companion in a peculiar situation. I soon saw why my mystery character was behaving in such a strange manner in this scene, but realised that I needed to bring some threads together to make it all work as an inciting incident. So I reached back what I thought was about two years and wrote about how my mystery character and the companion first met, and started to introduce the other characters that would play a part.

An additional complication was that I had, at the start, wanted to tell the story like a sort of fairy tale. It was this thought that was really where the initial scene came from. I'd not long re-read Neil Gaiman's "StarDust" and I love the way that reads; I was searching for my own fairy tale to tell.

At this point it all seemed like a great idea. I had the layout of the book planned out (unusual for me so early), although the actual plot was still very sketchy (pretty usual for me). Then, about 15-20 thousand words or so into it, reality began to bite.

I am not Neil Gaiman. I found I could not stay in the voice required to keep the fairy tale feel to the story. I'd like to blame the more contemporary setting of my story (mobile phones and cars aren't easy to fit into a fairy tale feel), but suspect it is probably just a lack of skill on my part. So that was the first part to get tossed out the window. No more fairy tale voice.

What was more pleasantly surprising was that I liked the meeting I had arranged for my main two characters and, even better, it moved along at a good pace. This was stuff I enjoyed and so hope a reader would too. The problem was (is) that it was (is) taking up more space than originally intended. It was supposed to be something brief, but my characters started enjoying themselves and insisting that this was the story.

So the layout that I thought I had early on seems to have disappeared. The story I am telling now is quite different to what it was when I started. It is all very disconcerting. As strange as it might sound, it would be easier if I didn't think what I had written so far was working so well. In that case I would just throw it all out and start again. But since it is working, I think I will keep following it, see where it leads, and then worry about the overall structure when it's finally done.

All I need is time.

As for my previous advice: I'm always happy to pretend to be wise . Take what you find useful, discard the rest.
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Old 03-03-2017, 02:32 AM   #20
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Your book sounds fascinating, as for losing the fairytale voice maybe you could suss that in the rewrite, although mobile phones etc do get in the way a bit. You seem to have a very fertile but maybe slightly disorganised mind; perhaps just a little outlining would help to give your creativity direction, though I suspect it's the way you follow your story, rather than making it follow a plan, which weaves the magic.

I hope you finish the book soon, sounds like a unique story.
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Old 04-25-2017, 06:29 PM   #21
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I think you have to practice the ancient martial art of BIC-FOK (butt in chair-fingers on keyboard).

As best as I can remember it took me ten or fifteen years to write the first draft of my first novel. I can't remember when in my twenties that I started, but I finished it about a week before my fortieth birthday.

What finally did it for me was not talent, not inspiration, but pure dogged perspiration. On my 39th birthday I decided that I was going to finish a novel before I was forty; I also decided that I was going to write every day. I didn't give myself any other strictures than that. No minimum, no maximum. There were days I wrote only one word; there were other days I wrote three thousand.

It all boils down to one thing: a writer writes.

If you can put your butt in the chair and get something, anything, knocked out you can see where you went right and where you went wrong. Then use that knowledge to inform your future decisions.

Some have to outline, others can't. But every writer writes.
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Old 04-26-2017, 03:20 PM   #22
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I have no problems writing beginnings and middles, it's just the finish which gives me difficulties. A despair sets in about two-thirds to three-quarters of the way through the first draft, when I begin doubting everything; thinking the whole idea is stupid, or the writing is boring, or the plot is unrealistic, whatever, and I lose the heart to finish.
I've read (in a facebook Writer's group) that everyone goes through this phase. I've been feeling it with the current book I'm writing, but I'm continuing to write despite the thought that it's rubbish. But this thought does make it harder to begin each day. I've developed a ritual where I write some flash fiction in Write or Die to begin the day's writing.
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Old 04-26-2017, 03:44 PM   #23
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I have no problems writing beginnings and middles, it's just the finish which gives me difficulties. A despair sets in about two-thirds to three-quarters of the way through the first draft, when I begin doubting everything; thinking the whole idea is stupid, or the writing is boring, or the plot is unrealistic, whatever, and I lose the heart to finish.
I've read (in a facebook Writer's group) that everyone goes through this phase. I've been feeling it with the current book I'm writing, but I'm continuing to write despite the thought that it's rubbish. But this thought does make it harder to begin each day. I've developed a ritual where I write some flash fiction in Write or Die to begin the day's writing.
Yes, it's the hard part. It's also where sheer dogged persistence comes in. If you have to tell yourself that you'll fix it on the rewrite, that's what you do.

Just keep plugging.
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Old 04-26-2017, 07:46 PM   #24
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I have no problems writing beginnings and middles, it's just the finish which gives me difficulties. A despair sets in about two-thirds to three-quarters of the way through the first draft, when I begin doubting everything; thinking the whole idea is stupid, or the writing is boring, or the plot is unrealistic, whatever, and I lose the heart to finish.
I've read (in a facebook Writer's group) that everyone goes through this phase. I've been feeling it with the current book I'm writing, but I'm continuing to write despite the thought that it's rubbish. But this thought does make it harder to begin each day. I've developed a ritual where I write some flash fiction in Write or Die to begin the day's writing.
Sorry to jump in. Have you considered writing the ending first? One of the bits of "advice" that stuck with me is that you should know how it ends before you start.
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Old 05-06-2017, 11:48 AM   #25
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With this particular WIP, I know more-or-less how it ends and more-or-less how to get there. I'm having problems convincing myself that it's worth doing. But I know that I need to finish it for my own piece of mind.
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Old 05-06-2017, 07:41 PM   #26
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With this particular WIP, I know more-or-less how it ends and more-or-less how to get there. I'm having problems convincing myself that it's worth doing. But I know that I need to finish it for my own piece of mind.
It is worth doing.
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Old 05-07-2017, 02:33 AM   #27
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With this particular WIP, I know more-or-less how it ends and more-or-less how to get there. I'm having problems convincing myself that it's worth doing. But I know that I need to finish it for my own piece of mind.
I am very familiar with the "is it worth it?" question. I'm also familiar with a "I think this sucks" response to my own writing. Sometimes it does . But often it's just that I've lost my way, lost my idea of what the story was. What I find for myself is: while I am actively writing I generally like my writing, but when I spend too long analysing any incomplete work I get hypercritical and dissatisfied with it all.

I think of this a bit like over-thinking any work of fiction. Once you start get too enthusiastic about pulling apart a story, any story not just your own, you can easily conclude that writing fiction is a pointless waste of time. But go read a good book and suddenly there's nothing better (other than writing one ).


What I find interesting is that both your outlining approach to writing, and my suck-it-and-see approach, have left us with the same question: will it be worth it?

My writing has been unproductive for months. Part of it has been my work, but the other part was looking at what I had and wondering how I was going to get away with telling a fantasy story with barely any visible fantasy. So I've kept pulling around the edges, looking for some way to make it a bit more ... traditional/typical/acceptable as a fantasy story.

Well two nights ago I finally managed to push aside my concerns and get back into writing. What a buzz! My characters were talking to me again and the story started working for me again. I still have absolutely no idea whether the result will be worth it (in terms of being publishable*), but while the writing is happening I just don't care. I never expect that everything I write will be publishable, I just expect to have fun doing it.

* For me, "publishable" is partly about whether I think the story is likely to be enjoyable to others, but it's also about whether it is rich enough to be worth all the pain and hard work required to make it ready for publishing. Writing is fun (or I think so), but editing etc. is a PITA, so the story has to be worth all that pain.
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Old 05-07-2017, 07:00 AM   #28
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Sorry to jump in. Have you considered writing the ending first? One of the bits of "advice" that stuck with me is that you should know how it ends before you start.
John Irving ("The World According To Garp" and others) actually does this - writes the endings first.
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Old 05-07-2017, 07:14 AM   #29
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John Irving ("The World According To Garp" and others) actually does this - writes the endings first.
Well, technically (according to the author's note in the back of "Last Night in Twisted River") he writes the last sentence - which to my mind is not quite the same thing as writing the ending (but the note does make, or at least suggest, this equivalence). He talks about writing to a sound, a feeling, that we wants to achieve, and I can relate to that, though different people look for it in different places.
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Old 05-07-2017, 10:42 AM   #30
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Well, technically (according to the author's note in the back of "Last Night in Twisted River") he writes the last sentence - which to my mind is not quite the same thing as writing the ending (but the note does make, or at least suggest, this equivalence). He talks about writing to a sound, a feeling, that we wants to achieve, and I can relate to that, though different people look for it in different places.

You're right. I misinterpreted what he was saying.

--- Thanks.
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