Stories Fighting; Readers
I made a decision. I made a plan. I outlined the stories I’m writing in my thirty-sixth year, with a method to my madness, a plan for my career. And this other story is interfering. What am I supposed to do?
I’m so irritated.
To make matters worse, I feel horribly underqualified to write the story that’s bugging me. The story that’s interfering has nothing to do with what I want to write. For goodness sake, it’s commercial, I guess you’d say, almost on the literary side. I am a genre writer.
I suppose it’s okay if I flit back and forth, but what really irritates me, is that the planned story is not writing. I’ve written a buttload of crap and brainstorming and nothing holy is emerging.
When this happens, I always go back to pseudonym. Her stories write so easily, mostly, kind of. Well, easily in comparison. Why do they write so easily?
There’s an element of escapism, I suppose. And when Glenn’s away, particularly, there’s an element of loneliness seeking company with my characters. There’s always a passion… usually to comfort my character, to make her feel less lonely, empower her, give her her dreams.
When things are flowing, there’s always this big element of love. I feel like my heart is wide open. Just… loving.
I need to love my audience, I suppose. Angie laughed that I’d never written a spy thriller, having been “spyscribbler,” LOL. But the number one problem I had and never resolved, is that I didn’t know my audience, and I couldn’t write blind.
So maybe, instead of searching for my story, I need to search for my readers. I need that touchstone. Even if I’m wrong about my readers, I still need to write to them. I need to love them first.
I don’t know.
What do you do when a story isn’t writing? How do you feel when a story is flowing? What triggers that rush of words, when things are going well, when you get that “writer’s high?” Do you try to get an emotional sort of connection to your readers before you start your story?
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Natasha Fondren is a writer traveling the U.S. in a camper with her four cats. She is currently enjoying the lizards and desert heat in Arizona.
My story isn’t writing, but I’m plowing ahead… Usually. This is the hardest story I’ve written, but a writer recently said that a few books are “gifts” and the rest…aren’t. This one isn’t. But I love it anyway, so I’m keeping on.
I don’t think of my readers as I write. I just try to write the best story I can.
I love those “gifts.” I haven’t had one in a long time, although it seems that this one has grabbed me by the throat. The one I’m not supposed to write, I mean. It looks like I’m succumbing. I really hope it’s worth it. I feel like I’m playing the lottery.
Sometimes you just have to keep on. I don’t know if the “gifts” happen that often.
I say write the story that’s bugging you. I had that story that was bugging me last year, and I totally missed the boat. I should have followed my instincts!
Jill, it looks like it’s writing. I decided not to, but it’s totally grabbed me. I can’t stop.
What do I do when a story isn’t working? I come to this blog for advice!
LOL, Rick! I go to the Dragons…
If you have a story eating at you it needs to be written. Sorry to tell you it might not sell. Join the club. I’ve got 5 and counting. But you need to write it just the same.
Write. Do your best. Accept, finally, that your best might not be good enough. Write some more. And more. And more. Accept again. Write more. And if it doesn’t sell, at least you won’t have that story eating you up inside.
LOL… I never accept that, Betsy! Thus I spent six months, last year, on a 4,000 word essay, which is as good as not selling about three or four novellas for thirty or forty times the money.
But yeah, this is a risk, definitely!
What do I do when a story isn’t writing? I enroll in college, lol.
Seriously, I feel like I’m always in the predicament you mentioned. There’s always another story breeding while I’m working on another. I think that’s just part of the writer’s cycle. I used to finish one before starting another. USED TO. I now have three WIP’s waiting on the hard drive. *sigh* Now I need to figure out which one I’ll return to.
ROFL, Kath! This is true!
Funny, as soon as I gave myself permission to work on this story, I’m obsessed. It’s a gift, truly.
I have been flitting. I need to knuckle down and write the one that bugs me most.
I hate the flitting stage. I guess it’s necessary, Bernita!
What triggers that rush of words, when things are going well, when you get that “writer’s high?”
Dude, if I knew, I’d do it all the time. [wry smile]
When a story is flowing, it’s like the characters are alive and I’m just watching them do what they’re doing. If I try to make them do something they wouldn’t, they just won’t, period. When the characters are that strong, it’s like they’re a best friend you’ve known for twenty years; if someone suggested that your best friend might do X or Y, you’d know immediately whether they would or not, just because you know them. Like that.
At the same time, though, the plot has to be sound. If they don’t have a problem to solve, then there’s no plot. If they have a problem but you have no clue how they’d solve it, or if solving it would be way too easy, then the story still won’t work. Both sides — characters and plot — have to be golden for the whole rapturous flowing thing to work.
Sometimes a story just pops into my head and the characters and plot both are just there and it’s just a matter of how fast I can type. Very rarely, but sometimes. Most of the time, though, I have to struggle with one or the other — work out a good problem and a solution that fits but that the characters have to work for, and also figure out who the characters are and get their world view and voice just right.
I suppose that when things aren’t flowing, one of those elements is missing or broken or weak. In that case, some not-actually-writing work, just thinking and dinking around and poking at the pieces of the puzzle can be the most productive thing you could be doing. Sometimes my subconscious will do that work for me, and sometimes I have to sit down and just type a lot of crap into a file, like I’m doing a brain dump or thinking with my keyboard, to work it out. And sometimes it just doesn’t work no matter what I do. Knowing what your problem is, exactly, and which method of solution it requires — or whether it’s solvable at all — is the number one skill for this sort of situation. I’m still working on that.
Angie
Good point, Angie. We must be self-doctors, LOL! I love that feeling when my fingers can barely keep up with the story in my mind. That rocks.
As soon as I wrote this post, I gave myself permission to play with this WIP, and now it’s grabbed me by the throat. It rocks.
Every once in a while when I’m working on a long project, I let myself have a break and have an “affair” if you will with another story that just captures my imagination. helps keep my primary literary relationship fresh.
Charles, I love that analogy! LOL!
This is a passionate affair, so it actually sort of exhausting, LOL!
I always have more than one project going so I can always, in theory, move forward on something.
When a story is flowing, especially in the first draft stage, I get happily lost in the work, in the story, in the world on the screen. I hope I’m struck my a new idea soon because I love that feeling.
Paul, I hate doing that, but I think I work best like that, even though it doesn’t feel like it. That way something gets done every day!
I guess the planned story isn’t writing because you’re not meant to write it at this time. The unplanned story, for better or worse, is. Life is what happens when you’re making plans. Just go with it, dearest. It might be the best story ever.
LOL, Elizabeth. I gave this one an inch, and it’s taken a mile. It has really grabbed me!
If you don’t work on the one that’s bugging you, that story won’t let you rest, lol. Trust your subconscious on this and work with, instead of against, your inspiration.
As far as knowing your readers, I virtually smack you with a wet noodle and say, “Nonsense!” If you read it, you know your readers. You are one of them. Feeling you need to ‘know your readers’ is an excuse and nothing more, IMO.
You are in Arizona right now, aren’t you? Maybe get out and enjoy some of that lovely sunshine (if it isn’t busy raining on you right now.) do something else and see if that helps you move forward.
LOL, Written! Seriously, I have to love my readers. Loving my characters will do, but that connection is where it’s all at, for me. I’m so unmotivated to do anything for myself, LOL.
I’ll go with myy subconscious on this one. It’ll give my other story time to simmer!
When I was twenty five I had an idea for a novel and wrote a few paragraphs. A voice in my head said: “You aren’t old enough to write this, you don’t have the experience.” A few years later I played with a few more paragraphs, took more notes. The voice said: “Not yet.” And so it went until I was in my late forties. Then, one day it hit me…NOW. I wrote the novel. It’s unpublished, but I love it and think it will see publication in the next few years.
Sometimes writing is about timing.
Stewart, so true! I’ve had half of this idea forever… years… and I’ve finally found the other half. This is SO much fun!
I vote give into that story. Whenever I have something like that, something that bugs me and niggles at me, and won’t let go – I give in. Usually it has to do with a cupcake, but stories could do it, too.
LOL, Robin! For me, it’s chocolate. Or gelato, which I try not to give into, but sometimes, even though I know it’s going to cost an asthma attack, I just can’t resist. I mean… gelato is just the yummiest.
I had an editor once tell me that I was writing in the wrong genre. She said, “You’re not a romance writer. You’re really a literary fiction writer, or a mainstream fiction writer. You’re just putting yourself into the category of romance because that’s where you “want” to be or where you “think” you want to be.”
She was convinced that once I tried my hand in one of those other two genre’s I would fly.
Maybe the tug of war between genres is your psyche trying to tell you something. Listen and see where it leads you. You can always say no, but don’t tune it out. Stay open to possibility.
Really, Joan? I’ve always worried about that sort of thing. I mean, I’ve seen so many people who would just ROCK at one genre, and they avoid it at all costs. I don’t want to be that person, LOL!
I wish the universe would just say, “Write this story in this genre.”
It’s make things easier.