When I began writing...

[Penpilot]

CM, yep, completely agree. Your experiences run pretty parallel to mine.

I can trace things to a couple of A-HA moments. One had to do with the Nobel Prize winning book Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee, and the other was the movie No Country For Old Men.

While I was driving one day, long after I'd read Disgrace, the meaning of the ending hit me like a bolt from the blue. The same thing happened with No Country For Old Men. These two occasions made me realise how Show Don't Tell really works.

My initial understanding was rudimentary, sentence level stuff. Understanding the endings to those two stories made look at things from different levels, sentence level, scene level, and story level. In each of those I finally understood that for the most part you're trying to show something.

This changed how I approached scenes, and story as a whole. When I write a scene now, I always ask myself "What things am I trying to show here?" and it totally helps drive the scene and helps me focus on finding cool things to support what I'm trying to show.

The same with the story as a whole. Before I start writing a story, I try to understand what I'm trying to show as whole with the story. When that's not possible, I look for it as I write, because it's there. Every story has a point, a subtle message. Sometimes there's more than one point. But any way, for me, I try to understand what that point is, and it helps drive the whole story. Things become so much clearer.

For example. The novel I'm editing right now, in some ways it's a standard story about the rebel leader vs the oppressive overlord. As I was developing the story, I realised what it was about, what fathers sacrifice in order to pursue their careers. It just so happens one father was a rebel leader and the other was the oppressive overlord.

Knowing that gave me so many interesting directions to go in.

 

[Caged Maiden]

Ah Heliotrope, this is a good one!

When I began writing...I used to make characters "unique" by explaining their beautiful clothing, or their shimmering hair, or their gorgeous face. It was really shallow. Also...everyone was good at everything...because that's what makes readers excited about viewing a fictional person's life, right? If they're perfection on a stick?

Wow. Yep. I really did that. The majority of my stories focused on people and their strengths, and the amazing things they could accomplish. Their negatives were things like their parents were dead, or their wife cheated on them and they were divorced. Basically, everyone was a victim of some unfortunate circumstance and they overcame that single setback and continued on in awesomeness. Okay, I'm probably over-egging that pudding, but not much. I did have challenges my characters faced, but as one critique partner pointed out a long time ago..."I was really interested when the characters met with the monster...but then it ended rather easily and didn't present an actual challenge."

Yes...I see that NOW. But at the time, I thought a party of mismatched priests and psychics facing down a shambling horde of undead monsters was scary and tense enough to make it an interesting scene. Oh man, it's painful even remembering how terribly it was executed.

As I wrote more books, I experimented with flaws and imperfections, but it wasn't until recently that I really discovered how to set up multi-dimensional internal and external conflicts. And learned how to pace those things just a bit (because it's still not my strength, if I'm being honest). How some flaws are so much a part of a character's history and present that they cannot see a future without their emotional baggage following them around.

Now, when I conceptualize characters, I look for small unique things. The details we know as the "limp and the eyepatch" can help to define main characters and secondary, or even tertiary characters, which is great, but there is more to the can of worms. I've done a lot of digging to get to the bottommost worms, I guess. The really mushy ones that sort of gross you out. I look for things that sort of make me uncomfortable about the character. Like what Heliotrope described above. The sort of things that make you wonder if you're somewhat nuts to even consider putting them into a story.

It goes back to what Donald Maass said about writing honestly. I found that the more I put my actual thoughts into my characters' heads, or translated my personal experiences and feelings...the better people liked the scenes. I wrote a novel a few years ago, for nano, and it was an overcomplicated mess. I worked really hard on everything about my characters, giving them interesting personalities and internal conflicts. And while most of the execution was really terrible, despite my efforts, I seemed to have real success with two scenes. And what made those two scenes different to all the rest, were that I broke some rules in the first one, a fight scene where a swordsman has a reflective moment while he's facing down a group of opponents, and in the second one, a death of a dear friend, I downplayed emotion and focused instead on a choice (to attempt to keep the mortally wounded person alive for a short time longer, or let him pass). The thing was, most of the novel was totally concocted and I wasn't being honest, but rather inventing how I thought people would act and talk. But in these two scenes, I drew directly from personal experiences. I know just enough about sword-fighting to give it an authentic feel, but rather than relying on choreography and trying to wow with my actual sword training, I let his internal conflict explode and drive him through the fight. And in the death scene, I directly replaced my experience of having my dog die in my arms, with the friend dying in the story. Everything I observed and felt as my best friend passed peacefully on the floor of a vet's office, with me holding him and reassuring him things were okay, I put into that scene. And I'm convinced that the reason that scene was so successful is because the details were pretty unusual and unexpected.

Rather than a gasping, high-energy moment where tears flowed and promises were made, I focused instead on the girl who had to eventually make a choice between her own selfish desire to keep her friend around a short time longer, and mercy.

Recently, my critique partner opened my eyes to a concept I just didn't understand many years ago. She told me that readers want to see a character make choices that are hard, and to get an emotional impact from their life, we have to understand their internal conflicts deeper than the surface sort of conflicts I tended to write. Like, if there's only one logical conclusion, it's easy for the character to pick the "right" direction. But if a choice must be made with two unfavorable conclusions, or if a character goes against the nature that you've built up for several chapters, we get to see a complexity that goes beyond telling the reader that he's a certain kind of person who believes a certain thing, and will always remain consistent. As soon as I really grasped that concept of how important choices and internal conflicts are, it made things so much easier.

Donald Maass, in "Writing the Breakout Novel" tells us to assign a goal to the MC. Then, he tells us to write what the opposite of the main goal is, and to make that a main goal, too.

In my rewrite, I have a character who wants to leave her current situation. She's unhappy, hates her job, and lives with people she doesn't trust. Sounds easy to leave, right? But she worked hard to get to where she is. She had to do despicable things to reach the position of power she currently enjoys when the book opens. She equally wants to stay AND go. And just by introducing that internal conflict, she's now much more interesting than in the first draft when she was just a beautiful woman who was great at everything and eventually became a victim of circumstances that forced her to leave.

I wrote a lot of stories with characters that I thought were exceptionally deep and interesting, but the execution was rough and ineffective, and the stories suffered because I thought I was so damn clever I could make people fall in love with completely unrealistic characters who just sort of made logical choices all the time and came away from every challenge without a scrape (figuratively, because in the writing, I was actually pretty heartless with them).

If you haven't read "Writing the Breakout Novel" I highly recommend it. The workbook is inexpensive and it does a great job of helping you plot deeper elements for your characters, that can help to make them feel really individual and believable.

Yeah...all that time I thought I was being clever, and I was really just cutting characters out of cardboard and expecting them to stand up and look like real people.

 

[Caged Maiden]

Ah, yes, I've observed the same thing about "show/tell"

One of my favorite examples is from my fourth novel, where I needed a young soldier to learn that undead monsters were spotted in a nearby village. The rough draft solution was that the young man went into a pub to get a meal, and he overheard some folks at a nearby table talking about their reason for leaving their town.

Pretty lame.

I decided the scene needed a little more...something. I considered how it would be better if the travelers entered the pub and they didn't have enough money to feed them all, so the parents made sure the kids ate well. I had my soldier pay for the group to eat, at which time they thanked him for his kindness and explained how ling they'd been traveling, with nothing but the clothes on their backs, because they fled after an undead attack.

Sort of D&D, isn't it? Ah, I'm a noble paladin, I'll buy these poor people a meal and hear a rumor for my trouble...

So I considered what was most believable.

In the current draft, he didn't go to a pub. Instead, he begged for hospitality in a temple, where he could get a free meal and a bed for the night (showing more about the character than in the previous ideas), and then before the meal was served, as the soldier and priests were at the table, and his stomach was growling, a commotion in the temples main room drew everyone's attention. A group of travelers came in, carrying a woman who was showing signs of necrosis. When the priests asked what happened, they said she was attacked by undead things near their home, and they journeyed to the nearest town with a temple, so she could be healed.

The whole GOAL of this scene was simply to have him find out that undead existed. But in the last version, I was showing more about the world, the character, and making the whole situation a lot more interesting. The stakes were higher as soon as the character (and reader) could SEE the effects of the attack, the main character was more involved in the situation after he'd helped heal the woman (yeah, he's a cleric's son, anyways...), and it became a much more pertinent scene for his moral choice of whether to return home after two years away in school, or whether he ought to go confirm that something evil was spotted in the village, because he had the power to return home to his priestess mother and get aid for this village.

This is my favorite example of where I learned how to SHOW, rather than TELL. Sure, on the sentence level, it's important, too, but what I didn't realize in the first draft, was that the whole scene was a tell. BY switching the scene to a show...it upped the ante, put the character squarely in the middle of something, and ultimately gave him a better reason to get involved in the first place. All I had initially was some people "telling" him that there was a problem. In the third version, I definitely "showed" him what the problem was, and the reader, too, in a way that made the choice to help out more believable.

But as a newer writer, I totally didn't understand how a scene could be a "tell" and that's why I guess so many of them turned out that way.

 

[Svrtnsse]

When I began writing. The most important thing to me was that my prose was easily readable. I figured that as long as the words flowed easily off the page in a pleasant manner people would keep reading. I also figured that since I'm not a native English speaker this was something I'd have to pay extra attention to in order to get it right.

I do believe that paying attention to this has paid off, but I also think that at the start I let it overshadow a lot of other things that are important to writing. Everything else got shoved to the side - things like tension and pacing, or you know, little silly details like having a plot and interesting characters.

 

[Gribba]

Thanks for this tread... Love it...
Thanks for sharing these things, it is fantastic and I feel I can take some of it with me to my current projects, made me look at some of the things I had already written in a new way.

What I tend to do is write the history of the world and the rules of the magic (elements) in that particular world.
The characters: name, age so on and so forth... small description of where this character is starting from and where the character is heading.
When I do this, I ask questions every time I make a decision, why would the MC go there? What is the point of...? and so on... until I am satisfied I have my answers and they feel right, not just correct but feel right, to me and the story I want to tell.

Then I do a chapter summary in no particular order at first, just what pops into my head when considering the characters and the story they are going through.
Then I try to put the chapters into a rough draft, order and then I write.
First draft, plain skeleton and then rewrite and some more rewrite and edit and so on.

I do throw myself into unprepared writing as well, I have an idea, a point I want to go to, or a theme or just a style of writing and just write and write and then see what happens. Of course that requires massive rewrite but I find it fun and refreshing to write freestyle, as well, just to break up the planned writing.
I found, that I do that, to allow myself to just write and let the creative flow take over. Often I end up just picking some parts that stand out or I find fitting and use it for another story I am writing, adding something I did not think of while writing within the structure I have already set up.

But I learned all this during the last two years by taking courses/going to lectures, listening to authors that have published telling what they do and showing how they did that and answering questions.

 

[Caged Maiden]

Okay, so far in this thread, I've covered:

Scene-writing goals

Outlines

Writing with honesty

Story structure

Realistic characters


Good stuff. All hard ones I have made progress on. I'm just jotting down some notes, here, because I want to cover some more things because they're really important to me (and thanks for the people who are listening to me muse). I do appreciate your participation, and if my posts are too long to read or are too dry to sit through, no hard feelings. I'm sort of ding this for myself, really. But rather than write it all in a notebook that I'd probably forget about, I'm writing it here and hopefully my personal struggles might help someone else get a little perspective on something they're struggling with, too.

OMG, you guys, I'm so excited anyone at all cares to read any of this. I'll try to

 

[Caged Maiden]

Devouring Wolf, thank you for chiming in here. I'm glad you joined the conversation and shared your experience. I don't want to ignore the first thoughtful post, but for now, I wanted to respond to the second, as this subject is very personal to me, too.

I'm 36 and have been bipolar for 21 years. I've been unmedicated and have had to learn a lot of coping mechanisms so that I don't end up divorced or worse. I know I'm hard to live with. I can be really needy, and all that neediness is focused on my very supportive husband. I want desperately to be the kind of mom I think I ought to be but always seem to fall short.

Basically, my bipolar doesn't disturb me, but I see how my moods and energy level affect my family, and of course I want them to have the best of everything in the world...and I can't help feeling sometimes like they'd be better off without me. Which is sort of making me tear up, just to say.

Anyways, I would describe myself as a flighty, creative person. I'm inconsistent, impulsive, dreamy, I'm basically a child but with many years of wisdom and experiences. Of course, the wisdom comes from having to be contemplative a high percentage of the time, in order to analyze my own behavior to ensure I'm not being inappropriate or obnoxious. And the experiences I've accumulated mostly because I'm an impulsive person and therefore, just about anything sounds like a good idea.

So, I wouldn't describe my "lows" as "depression" because I don't think it's what people think of when we say "depression". While many bipolar persons have drastic mood swings that can result in periods of hopelessness and despair, I rarely have those kinds of moments. My low periods tend to last for a couple days. Low energy, no appetite, clumsiness, mental sluggishness, and I've been known to say, "Leave me alone!" when people keep bothering me for stuff. I have four young kids, by the way, so no peace when I need to rest, sometimes.

Anyways, just recently, I went through a really traumatic experience. I mentioned it on the Flying High Flash Challenge thread, but I didn't broadcast it publicly here, because I didn't feel it was pertinent or really anyone's business. But I might as well say it here, on this thread, because I began this whole thing to be honest. Mostly, with myself.

About three months ago, I began taking medication for my bipolar. I'd taken this medication five years ago, for about three days. I took 125mg back then, and I turned into a narcoleptic zombie and my husband was concerned for me because I'd pass out places and didn't know what was going on most of the time. So...that didn't last long, I quit the meds and left the doctor.

Three months ago, my new provider began me on 25mg, saying I probably wouldn't feel a difference at all. But I did! On that really low dose, I felt amazing. A miracle! Things that bothered me, like messy rooms and dishes left around the house, didn't bother me and make me moody anymore. My patience increased, as did my general feeling of wellness and calm. I felt amazing. That's all I can say. But I'd committed to increasing the dose every two weeks, so that's what I did, as promised. Two weeks at 25mg, two weeks at 50mg, two weeks at 75mg, and all the while, I was growing increasingly LESS okay. It was no longer amazing, but horrible. Terrible. One of the worst things I've ever felt in my life.

For the last fifteen years, I've been a writer. I wrote a dozen novels and a hundred short stories. I've participated in challenges and written hundreds of posts here that I hope are thoughtfully written. I've done a dozen or so articles, and I've of course done hundreds of critiques. I'm a writer, even if it's just to send silly emails to my friends, just to check in with them and ask how they're doing. But all that stopped. It came to a grinding halt.

I took my 100mg dose one day, and a few hours after, I was shouting obscenities at my husband for no reason at all other than he was leaving for two weeks the following day, and I was so out of sorts, I completely flipped my wig and was so afraid. You see, for months, I'd been mentally doing downhill, since beginning the treatment. I was confused a lot of the time. My emotions went from impulsive, before treatment, to deadened, after. I couldn't feel anything. I couldn't connect to the feeling side of myself. And as a person who's used to having strong feelings, it was more than just odd, it was as foreign a thing as I could imagine. I was devastated.

I not only lost my ability to feel, even at the most basic level, I also lost my ability to reason and comprehend. My husband would ask me a question, and my answer was always, "I don't care." He sometimes looked at me in disbelief, like I was kicking up an attitude, and I shrugged and said, "No, I honestly don't care. I have no feelings on this matter. Whatever you prefer, choose that one." Which was probably pretty unnerving to him because I'm something of an opinionated person, usually. HA!

Anyways, I couldn't feel anything when I watched movies, in fact, I stopped watching tv because I just didn't follow things or find anything enjoyable or entertaining. I basically spent a month playing Pet Rescue on Facebook. I liked the pets and zapping colored blocks, I suppose. I couldn't read books for pleasure because I couldn't really comprehend words anymore. I certainly couldn't critique for my friends, and had to send out apologies because I left the people I care about hanging. I didn't write. I had to turn in an article for the home page, and it took me twice as long to write as usual, and at the end, I sent it to Black Dragon with an apology, saying that I couldn't determine whether it was even coherent, so if it was garbage, to throw it out, but I'd done my best under the circumstances (he published it anyways).

I felt like not only a feelingless, meaningless shell, but I felt like I was letting everyone down. Everyone who supported me and cared about me, and who I care about very much. And I tried not to feel sorry for myself but it was scary. I had a friend who went through an almost identical situation only weeks before I did, and I think our long talks helped me stay calm and be stronger than I really am, because even though I felt terribly alone, I knew I wasn't.

Anyways, since that day when I went mad, I cut my meds back down to 25mg for several weeks, and since, I've been taking 25mg twice a day, rather than the 50mg all together, and I seem to be back to normal. I feel good again, my mind is clear, and I've been able to recapture my relationship with words.

You aren't alone, and whatever the state of our soul, whether we're troubled and upset about it, or troubled and reveling in it, there are times we all need help. A friend to talk to, a fellow writer to share with, or a sister to fool around with. I think that people who have rawer emotions, whose feelings are nearer the surface, are often drawn to the arts. Perhaps because those things that stir our spirits often mean more to us than for others who are less inclined to view the movement of spirit a pleasant experience in the first place. Not to say that artists are more emotional as a rule, or that those in control of their emotions can't create or fully appreciate art...just that it's been my experience that I seem to think faster, deeper, and have more complex contemplations (which aid in writing) than some of the more stable and rational people around me (like my husband). But of course, without him, I'd be lost in a sea of things that sometimes don't make sense to me at all. I often have to do A Beautiful Mind moment, where I ask him, "Is this thing real, or is it just in my head? Am I feeling something that actually means something, or is it just that I'm being sensitive right now?" And he sets me straight when I can't tell.

Anyways, writing is an emotional experience. It can be very frustrating if you work and work and put yourself through hell trying to get something done, and then the feedback all sucks and you feel like you could die of embarrassment because no one liked your story. Been there. Or you have a deadline and you can't think of any ideas and you walk in the park and stay up late for three nights, and you can't seem to find an ounce of inspiration no matter where you look or what you try.

I just took three months off of writing, and honestly, I've only gotten the courage back up to begin writing forum posts. So...just know that there is always another opportunity to write something new, something that will excite you in a new way, something that will challenge you, etc..

 

[Caged Maiden]

Rather than do nano these past few days, I went to a waterpark with my family, have played an inordinate amount of games on Facebook, and I decided to organize my files on my computer...because that's all kinds of more important than my nano project, right?

Anyway, I got to clearing things out, and I started to think about my nano word count. I'm about 66k words into my rewrite, but only about 20k of it is counting for nano right now. So...what is my actual overall word count of the files currently on my computer?

I've never used Excel before, but i figured out how to do sums pretty quickly, so I tallied my totals.

Articles (15, written for the home page): 27,802

Short Stories (about 50 that I tallied): 144,695

Novels (14, most finished, but not edited, and I gave myself credit for one rewrite because it was a complete redo):1,060,008


I don't really have a point in posting my stats, because they're neither good progress nor shabby progress, but as I was doing this spreadsheet, I wondered at the actual number. You know, the edits. All I have are versions, but I can't really compare them and count words. Well...not easily enough for me to care to try. So...how many words have I actually written?

When I began writing, I thought I was an excellent story-teller because my characters were so awesome, and tortured. My world was so magical and I spent huge paragraphs describing the beautiful trees and the awesome towns.
Loads and loads of words...and none of them counted for anything. Except experience, I guess.

In fact, none of it is high quality. I know that now, but it took a ton of learning the hard way before I began to understand where my errors were. I guess that's at the heart of this whole thread, so no reason to rehash it. But what if I'd rewritten that first novel for ten years, instead of writing ten books? Would it have helped me progress faster as a writer, or do you just have to do the writing, no matter how many stories you write...they'll all be pretty weak until you gain the experience, and working on a single work doesn't expedite the process?

Rewriting sucks. First, it doesn't feel like you're really doing all that much. And it's slow going because you aren't just letting any words in the door...they gotta be dressed right, sound right, and...know the right people. If they don't do those things, we throw them right out and start looking around for better ones. The kind of words that keep a party lively. The ones that bring the cops to your door at 1am because the music's too loud. And when those cops peer in to make sure everything's on the up-and-up...there are those words, topless and drunk, inviting the cops in for a quick drink and a dance. THOSE kinds of words.

As I tackle this rewrite, I have Donald Maass in my head, constantly telling me to be brave. Write with honesty. Make it matter more. Make it bigger. Make the character's voice stand out more. Make it subtler. Barely noticeable. Make it worse.

I'm so inspired by those words, I'm issuing a challenge. With a prize. Check it out in the challenge section, because this is good stuff, people. I have a ton of shitty words under my belt, but I wish I'd had Donald Maass coaching me from the beginning, because I may have been able to turn those words into something that mattered. Alas, better late than never, right?

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

Rather than do nano these past few days, I went to a waterpark with my family, have played an inordinate amount of games on Facebook, and I decided to organize my files on my computer...because that's all kinds of more important than my nano project, right?

Anyway, I got to clearing things out, and I started to think about my nano word count. I'm about 66k words into my rewrite, but only about 20k of it is counting for nano right now. So...what is my actual overall word count of the files currently on my computer?

I've never used Excel before, but i figured out how to do sums pretty quickly, so I tallied my totals.

Articles (15, written for the home page): 27,802

Short Stories (about 50 that I tallied): 144,695

Novels (14, most finished, but not edited, and I gave myself credit for one rewrite because it was a complete redo):1,060,008


I don't really have a point in posting my stats, because they're neither good progress nor shabby progress, but as I was doing this spreadsheet, I wondered at the actual number. You know, the edits. All I have are versions, but I can't really compare them and count words. Well...not easily enough for me to care to try. So...how many words have I actually written?

When I began writing, I thought I was an excellent story-teller because my characters were so awesome, and tortured. My world was so magical and I spent huge paragraphs describing the beautiful trees and the awesome towns.
Loads and loads of words...and none of them counted for anything. Except experience, I guess.

In fact, none of it is high quality. I know that now, but it took a ton of learning the hard way before I began to understand where my errors were. I guess that's at the heart of this whole thread, so no reason to rehash it. But what if I'd rewritten that first novel for ten years, instead of writing ten books? Would it have helped me progress faster as a writer, or do you just have to do the writing, no matter how many stories you write...they'll all be pretty weak until you gain the experience, and working on a single work doesn't expedite the process?

Rewriting sucks. First, it doesn't feel like you're really doing all that much. And it's slow going because you aren't just letting any words in the door...they gotta be dressed right, sound right, and...know the right people. If they don't do those things, we throw them right out and start looking around for better ones. The kind of words that keep a party lively. The ones that bring the cops to your door at 1am because the music's too loud. And when those cops peer in to make sure everything's on the up-and-up...there are those words, topless and drunk, inviting the cops in for a quick drink and a dance. THOSE kinds of words.

As I tackle this rewrite, I have Donald Maass in my head, constantly telling me to be brave. Write with honesty. Make it matter more. Make it bigger. Make the character's voice stand out more. Make it subtler. Barely noticeable. Make it worse.

I'm so inspired by those words, I'm issuing a challenge. With a prize. Check it out in the challenge section, because this is good stuff, people. I have a ton of shitty words under my belt, but I wish I'd had Donald Maass coaching me from the beginning, because I may have been able to turn those words into something that mattered. Alas, better late than never, right?

Wowww! That's a lot of words!

I tried to estimate my total word count (lifetime, stories) and came to a number of around 600,000. There is really no way to know the true amount since many of my stories no longer exist in computer file form or in any form at all. When I was 12 I got like 3 half novels and countless other things vaporized when my laptop crashed. So at best it's a good guess.

I'm at around 110,000 for this year. Not too shabby.

 

[Heliotrope]

Where? What is the challenge? I'm so intrigued....

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

Wowww! That's a lot of words!

I tried to estimate my total word count (lifetime, stories) and came to a number of around 600,000. There is really no way to know the true amount since many of my stories no longer exist in computer file form or in any form at all. When I was 12 I got like 3 half novels and countless other things vaporized when my laptop crashed. So at best it's a good guess.

I'm at around 110,000 for this year. Not too shabby.

*actually 120,000 probably, factoring in all the stuff I've handwritten

 

[Caged Maiden]

When I began writing...(okay, it persisted for many years, until just a couple years ago, but I'm including it anyways)...I wanted to make everyone happy.

I wanted tho show them something beautiful and entertaining, but I was worried to offend. Between the years of 2001-2010, I wrote ten novels set in a standard fantasy world (Read: boring and plain and very typical) But one of those novels I felt was a turning point. I felt I finally had memorable characters who had an interesting story. I felt it was better than the others. In 2011, when i joined this forum, I thought I'd like to submit my story for publication. I felt it was that good. Surely other people wanted to know what happened to my cool characters, right?

Well, I began reading about agents. I found one I loved. His blog was so insightful, his wit so sharp. I just KNEW he and I would make a great team. I read his article on how to write a query letter: How to Write a Query Letter | Nathan Bransford, Author (and if you've never checked out his site, click the link and navigate around, because it's chock full of great information.

Yes, I decided, Nathan Bransford was my guy. Other than the fact that I don't like basketball (because the shoes are squeaky on the television and I hate that, so I make my husband watch it with the sound way down), and I don't give a rat's behind about corgis, it seemed our passions were aligned. Everything he said, I believed wholly.

So I began typing my query letter. And I started editing. Editing....yeah...

By editing, I mean that the first thing I did was cut out every bit of sex and violence...because that might offend some people, right? And then I embellished every description to the max...of course, so that I'd move people with my beautiful descriptions and show how observant my characters were, you know, to increase reader immersion.

What I'd call erroneous material now, went up, up, up. And action went down, down, down. I just KNEW I'd taken out anything that might cause any controversy...so EVERYONE would love it and I wouldn't offend anyone! I was so proud.

Well, I got ready and sent him my query. And a mere 3-4 days later, I got my first response!

It went something like this:

Hi, thank you so much for sending your query letter to me, but I am no longer an agent representing authors. I have become an author myself. Best wishes as you continue to find representation for your book.

Well shit.

I stored my query letter and went back to writing another book. About a year later, I tried querying again for the same novel. I sent a query to The Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency, Literary Agent and - Nelson Literary Agency

One rejection and a partial request! I was excited. But I realized I hadn't done as good a job in my editing as I might have liked, so I prepared for the partial by doing another quick round of editing. Frantically, a friend and I hammered out pages, cutting my 17-page prologue into a first chapter and again, increasing the descriptives and cutting the potentially damaging action bits out.

I sent the query and got a rejection back a couple weeks later.

Well, you can't win them all, I guess. I wasn't heartbroken. I just figured it was par for the course. J.K. Rowling was rejected 27 times, people said. Keep at it, they told me, encouraging me to try again.

Well, over the past five years, I've sent a dozen query letters. All for the same two novels. All rejections, and only two partial requests in that whole time, both from Nelson Literary Agency, which led me to believe they just ask for a partial with everyone. (I've never confirmed this, but it's what I thought, anyway)

However, something happened during all this time. I learned a couple things about writing...mostly through trial and error. Or, as I like to call it, caring and not caring. I wrote about 50 short stories for various challenges and competitions on this forum and another, and I realized some sort of anomaly was taking place. While I was getting feedback privately on novels (and all of them met with lukewarm responses), some of my short stories were getting high praise. So where did the difference come from?

How can someone like a short story I spent 12 hours writing so much more than a novel I'd lovingly crafted for a year? Why was something written off four weird and unrelated prompts more compelling than a tale I specially organized to be connected and deep?

Something was amiss.

What I realized (very slowly) was that when I didn't care, when my feelings weren't involved and I was just "getting the work done" people responded better. They felt more engaged. They actually ENJOYED my short stories. But not my novels.

I began to think there might be something wrong with my editing process.

Many hard lessons and reality checks later, I finally realized that the more I tamper with a story to make it "palatable for everyone" the worse it got in the "enjoyment" department.

This last year, I've undertaken a HUGE task. I have to undo the conditioning I underwent during all those quasi-edits. I had to entrain myself from the "serious writer voice" and begin using my own voice...the one I used in all those quick little short stories I only had a week to write and which I usually didn't begin until the day before they were due (yes, even the ones where we had a month to write). I had to revert to the real me, rather than pretend to be the person I thought I should be.

It's been a rough road. almost every day I feel ashamed of who I am when I talk on paper. My characters are no longer those perfect beings who are good at everything (like we all want to be, I thought), but they look like me, worry like me, and unfortunately, ACT like me. They say things they don't mean. They get hurt feelings and overreact. They make mistakes, are selfish, and take some indulgences that make them less awesome people (but probably much more interesting characters).

It wasn't even about the characters themselves, but in how I wrote them. How their internal exposition flowed, what things they said, the words, even, sometimes. My characters now say things I'd never utter in real life. They do things that would make any person feel ashamed to admit doing. And another thing...I gave them some of my crazy.

I'm bipolar and I've mentioned it here before. It's been a major struggle in my life. I think the way my brain works would shock (and in some cases, horrify) "normal" people. I look for patterns in things around me. I connect things that are completely unrelated, using my vast life experiences to learn and justify new things, so that they are comfortable and familiar. In short, I started to "write what I know". Just like I'd been doing in short stories when I didn't give a damn whether anyone liked them or not.


Now, I don't think I'm a great writer. In fact, far from it. I think I'm just scratching the surface of my real ability. I have no idea what my potential is, nor how to find out, but I know that for the first time in fifteen years, I'm being ME in my novels, and also for the first time...people are super positive about reading my work. I'm still getting feedback about what could be stronger or what is erroneous, but along with the nitpicks, I'm hearing how much folks are enjoying the read and liking the characters, flowed as they are, and crazy as their lives and choices are.


Be yourself, friends. Be brave and harness your crazy. Don't be afraid of your flaws and your weirdnesses. Show them. Wear them proudly. I'm learning that everyone's a little mad, and when I think back to the books I loved reading the most, I am now seeing that one of the reasons I felt so connected to them, was because the people were like me. They told me it was okay to think, act, and feel different than "normal" people. And that "normal people" thing is just what all our friends and family members and coworkers show on the outside. Underneath those intrepid exteriors, those calm, rational, respectable facades, everyone's a little crazy, and readers take comfort in knowing that characters share their innermost fears, their anxieties, their disgusting thoughts, and their deep longings. Those things they wouldn't ever voice to their boss, but live with like baggage nonetheless.

BE YOU!

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

When I began writing...(okay, it persisted for many years, until just a couple years ago, but I'm including it anyways)...I wanted to make everyone happy.

(Cut for space)

Be yourself, friends. Be brave and harness your crazy. Don't be afraid of your flaws and your weirdnesses. Show them. Wear them proudly. I'm learning that everyone's a little mad, and when I think back to the books I loved reading the most, I am now seeing that one of the reasons I felt so connected to them, was because the people were like me. They told me it was okay to think, act, and feel different than "normal" people. And that "normal people" thing is just what all our friends and family members and coworkers show on the outside. Underneath those intrepid exteriors, those calm, rational, respectable facades, everyone's a little crazy, and readers take comfort in knowing that characters share their innermost fears, their anxieties, their disgusting thoughts, and their deep longings. Those things they wouldn't ever voice to their boss, but live with like baggage nonetheless.

BE YOU!

Ok, when I first read this I had sooooooo many thoughts about it and I thought "I'm on mobile now and I'll post everything later when I can get to my computer" but I forgot...and here I am...posting on mobile. It's very inconvenient :/

Are we supposed to post our own things or are you using this thread for your own observations and stuff? Anyway...I really understand all of this (if I understand it correctly) and have lots of things of my own to add.

Trying to please others can be both one of the most fulfilling and one of the most damaging parts of writing. Fulfilling because youre making someone else happy and sharing a piece of yourself with them (sometimes on a very intimate level). When I read a great book im like...I WANT TO DO THIS FOR SOMEONE. It's basically what I live for.

Damaging because, as I said before, writing can be very intimate. The truer to yourself you are being in your writing, the harder it is. It feels like they're judging, and not just judging your writing, judging you. It feels like standing naked before an audience and having them critique all your physical imperfections and quirks of your body about which you are most insecure. As someone who gets deeply emotionally involved in her stories, it's agony. Just imagining people reading them. This is coming from someone who easily sinks into spirals of self-hatred over her work, and is constantly fighting the voices that say 'everything I do is garbage.'

And...yeah. Making your writing more normal, more impersonal, less "you..." It makes it hurt less. You can carefully smooth over all the bumps in a manuscript. In a challenge, you have no time to second-guess yourself. You put stuff out there. And it's not really for an audience, it's not for the people you imagine yourself pleasing. It's just for the fun of it, mostly. You don't have the time or the drive to make everything normal and acceptable. And you're not emotionally invested. A lot of times, oddly, the emotional investment makes it harder to be true in your writing. You're worried about screwing it up, so you suppress all the odd and unnacceptable things.

I suffer from the "desire to be normal" sometimes too. Not so much anymore, I like my weird too much. But when I write something strange or edgy or a little eyebrow-raising I panic sometimes, thinking, "WHAT WILL EVERYONE THINK?" My MC stabs a guy to death in the first chapter. What will my mom think? Nothing good. There's swearing. What will my uptight conservative Christian friends think? What about that steamy make out session? Am I even going to show anyone that? What will they think? What will they think? It's difficult on this level because in the view of some, it's a reflection on your character that you write these things. It's actually harder to give your friends your writing than random strangers.

But...leaving things out due to what people think has never really been an option for me, and I think perhaps we differ in our level of tendency toward that. As I said, I like my weird too much.

Speaking of odd and unacceptable things...

As someone who doesn't fall within the very narrow definition of a "neurotypical" brain, I think a lot about how narrow what's considered "normal" really is. It's so narrow I don't think anyone really falls inside it completely. So there are all kinds of ideas we feel like we can't express because they are too odd, too dumb, too atypical...I could go on. There's a very narrow gauntlet out ideas must pass through to be considered Not Stupid. And it's damaging, really, because our ideas and our writing are an outpouring of the atypicality of US, (and we all have it) and maybe that's why it's so hard to put writing that truly does reflect yourself out there. There's a status quo that doesn't exist. We are all trying to be more "normal" than ANYONE actually is.

I think writing truly requires an examination and acceptance of ones soul and inner self. Writing changes you, ok? You can't come out of being a writer unscathed. You will have to explore yourself, expunge your inner darkness, face your fears. You will have to develop a depth of empathy you didn't know before. To unleash your full potential as a writer you have to embrace who you are at your deepest and darkest and say, "this is me, and THAT'S OK." If you're not able to do that within yourself, I don't think you'll find your fullest potential as a writer.

I took comfort when I was younger (and still do) in the things writers write that everyone else is afraid to say. Because it's like..."you too? You mean...I'm not alone?"

I feel like we try to make our character better and more virtuous and more normal than we are because we look at the face the outside world presents and we think, "I'm a lot weirder than this. I have to conform, placate, submit." But what we don't get is...everyone is weirder than this. (Weirder than this. I HAVE A TITLE FOR MY COMIC NOW...)

Look...what, 1/5, I think, of the population suffers from anxiety or depression. And as of now I can't think of ONE main character in a book who does. ...This is a problem isn't it? Seriously. SERIOUSLY. We all need to be told, "It's ok. You're not alone. Me too." This is a tangent but I'm going off in it. I'm feeling strongly about this subject right now because one of my friends' friends died by suicide recently and we got into a conversation about how silent all the books are about depression. Suicide is a very common book topic because it's flashy and dramatic and easily sensationalized and made into a faux-edgy sob story, but depression is all but absent. Why? Why is there no one telling people, "It's ok. You're not alone. Me too." It's starting to bother me more and more. I suffer from anxiety (I am a lot better than I used to be, but I won't ever be "cured") and I kinda wish there was a book with a brave, quirky, charismatic heroine with anxiety who does more than "overcome" her mental illness and has defining traits apart from it. Like, what about...kicking ass? In spite of having anxiety? But I don't even know if there is one about a heroine "overcoming her anxiety." A book with a character with anxiety that's not about anxiety. That's what I want.

They say write the book you want to read...I have a mission, looks like.

I can't think of a book in which a character's mental illness/disability/difference is just a character trait, not drawn attention to and not defining the character or her story, just a character trait. Like having big feet or blue eyes or a speech mannerism. We think we're so great here in 2016, writing "diverse" protagonists. Asian MC's, lesbian MC's, yay! But these character STILL seem all cut from the same cookie cutter mold to me. Why is normal a thing and why do writers write normal characters ad nauseum?

(news flash: In my day to day life I am not the Person With Anxiety. I am a person with a life that is often sucky and boring but is often awesome and fun too and I have hobbies and friends and family and all the things that people have. So it really bugs me when people use their character's "atypical" trait as a selling point for the entire book, like that is the whole point of the character.)

Yeah, that was a tangent, but it does reflect some of my ideas about this subject. Why are we so afraid to step outside the imaginary status quo? Why can't we just accept that the weirdness and diversity of people is them being people, not them being weird? Either you make everyone "normal" or you put them up on a pedestal and shout, "LOOK AT THEIR NOT-NORMALNESS!" We all want to be understood, but what if they don't understand? What if they judge me? What if...?

Not only that, why are we afraid to step outside the status quo ourselves? It is my belief that writing and personal identity are very closely entwined.

Sorry if this was totally off topic but it's what it made me think of.

(And I don't want to sound as if I'm wielding the anxiety thing for attention, becuse I'm not, or at least I'm not trying to. It's just that...here's the thing, I like to talk about it and relate with people over it because it's an experience I have and I don't want to be alone in my thoughts and feelings about it. And I know there's a big deal about people-first language but it is a part of me. There is also the weird fact that in this aspect of me...I feel totally unrepresented in fiction. I kinda wish there were characters with my feelings and experiences (or that I could find them) because we all want to relate with characters in that way. Its fun to see through new eyes and have new experiences through characters, but also I want to read about a character and think, "I have felt this too. I understand this. You understand me.")


So. If that makes any sense...

 

[Caged Maiden]

Thanks, Dragon for taking the time to post all that on a phone. OMG, you're nuts! (for typing on a phone, that is )

Yes to all of this.

I recently had a bit of a thing. I told you guys about it on the nano thread. I tried to jump ship. I pulled the plug on my novel because it got weird and I just KNEW I'd offend people. Worse, I was afraid of offending my crit group. Or more likely, making them uncomfortable and then they wouldn't like me because there would always be this weird scene where my character goes bonkers, just hanging between us in the group and I'd know it WAS BECAUSE OF ME that people stopped talking or something.

Yeah, I know anxiety. SO well. I'm always afraid. I worry that people won't like me. Or that I'll say something wrong and make people feel bad. The reason I have anxiety and am super self-conscious is because I'm bipolar and honestly, at times, my behavior is outrageous.

SO...when I have my character (who resembles me a lot and I haven't said specifically that she's bipolar, but one might assume it as a possibility), go crazy and scream at someone, then get high with him, then have a brief but awkward sexual encounter, then they get higher, vent their inner frustrations about how their lives aren't turning out right, and then they go destroy art until they feel better...where at the end of their frenzy, she kisses him and says, "I'm leaving you."....OMG, honestly, that could happen in my life. Especially in the life I lived 15 years ago. It's pretty much as authentic as I can get, because my emotions flare up and burn hot and then fizzle out and then I'm sedated and rational and calm again for a period...until next time.

When you said this:

The truer to yourself you are being in your writing, the harder it is. It feels like they're judging, and not just judging your writing, judging you. It feels like standing naked before an audience and having them critique all your physical imperfections and quirks of your body about which you are most insecure. As someone who gets deeply emotionally involved in her stories, it's agony. Just imagining people reading them. This is coming from someone who easily sinks into spirals of self-hatred over her work, and is constantly fighting the voices that say 'everything I do is garbage.'

It feels so familiar.

As much as I want to be honest but I'm just too fragile. When I write short stories that I don't care about, and I turn up the crazy volume, my feelings aren't on the line. I don't care who likes or hates them. But novels are special. They take so much time and care to craft and weave. And at this point in my life, I have to make a decision. I'm either going to go for the knockout, or I'm going to hang up my gloves.

I'm not hanging up my gloves...I tried to do that, and one of the members of my writing group gave me a swift kick in the ass and said we were going to talk about my book until I figured out why I was stalling out on it. I tried to jump ship, and she yanked me back on board. So now I feel very loved, but still scared as hell to show the weird scene. In fact, I just got off the phone with another member of the group, who said pretty much what everyone else is saying, "I bet this'll be an awesome scene because it's surprising, intense, and over the top!"

And for days, I've been feeling that those words were negatives.

Huh.

I really hope you find some support along this journey, because having no self-esteem and being plagued with self-hatred is a rough lot. I've never been able to escape mine, but I'm literally surrounded now by people who won't let me keep being a quitter. I'm so weak sometimes, but I have strong people who hold me up when I need it. OMG, I feel so loved, seriously. They have confidence in me that I may never have, no matter how successful I may become. In fact, the more attention I get for doing something right...the worse I feel. Like then the pressure just turns up and I feel this gravity weighing on my mind and chest.

That happened when I rewrote the first two chapters of my novel. I sent the chapters to the group, and everyone had really positive things to say...and so did four beta readers. Not one complaint. Oh wait, yes, one complaint. But that complaint was that the whole thing sucked. So I ignored it because that didn't seem valid to me. I mean...the WHOLE thing is problematic? Every concept and paragraph? Well, it happens that stuff fails to connect, so I can't change that, but... I'm not changing anything based on that. Anyways, so overwhelming positive responses...and then I had my first freakout because I KNEW i wouldn't be able to do it a third time. With each chapter that I got praised for, I felt like when the work finally failed to connect, the plummet was going to leave a gaping crater in my motivation and spirit. I just felt all this pressure to continue repeating the results, but I felt like the higher the expectation, the more I'd let folks down and they'd be disappointed in me (like being a kid all over again, where I felt like I sucked, and I disappointed everybody...repeatedly).

Anyways, I appreciate your words and I feel so very similar to you in so many ways. So, if it helps, you aren't alone, either. I'm not going to be able to get over my need to feel normal, but hopefully with the help of the folks who care about me, I'll be able to keep that at bay while I write with honesty. It's so hard to be real, and I've spent a lot of time lying about who I was as a writer. I strove to make everyone happy because that's the way I am. I always try to make people around me feel good, and that's why it's so traumatic when i learn people don't like me, or when I realize i've offended someone. Anxiety. So much. And it's hard to separate that real life feeling from writing. Because I'm going to offend. I'm sure I already have in this rewrite. But I guess folks who are offended by the way I have my character think and talk and live...well, they're probably not going to like her story much.

Why is there no one telling people, "It's ok. You're not alone. Me too." It's starting to bother me more and more. I suffer from anxiety (I am a lot better than I used to be, but I won't ever be "cured") and I kinda wish there was a book with a brave, quirky, charismatic heroine with anxiety who does more than "overcome" her mental illness and has defining traits apart from it. Like, what about...kicking ass? In spite of having anxiety? But I don't even know if there is one about a heroine "overcoming her anxiety." A book with a character with anxiety that's not about anxiety. That's what I want.

There is. Mine. My character is unstable and I don't write it as a flaw (though it does get her into trouble, as I sometimes get into trouble when I say the wrong thing at an emotional time or whatever). The thing she's overcoming is the lying she does to appear something other than what she is. She suffers from anxiety and yet puts on a brick facade. Eventually, she falls for a man and they shed the lies together, and she is honest about her fears and why she has them. He encourages her to be herself so she doesn't have to lie anymore, and he says he likes her how she is. So...while I don't define anything as a mental illness, she acts like a bipolar person in a few scenes, and then confesses her anxiety and crazy thoughts, and no one makes fun of her, they just tell her to be what she is. Not sure whether that's what you were talking about as far as characters go or not, but if it is, at least there's one out there...maybe because I don't know how to write a "normal" character anyways. Meh.

Hey, we're talking as friends. I don't want anyone's pity. I never thought for a second that you did, either. I appreciate your openness. And if anyone ever says this thread is about attention and pity or whatever, I'll dole out a stern talking-to. This is my place, and I'm not forcing anyone to read it, right? And yes, you're always welcome to talk on my personal musings. I'm glad people care enough about my thoughts to read them, honestly. I try to just share my experiences, rather than telling folks what to do. I figure they can make up their own minds on whether I know anything or not, and if they like my work or my advice, wonderful. And if not...well then not, I guess.

Best wishes, friends!

 

[Heliotrope]

ok, this one is shameful...

When I first started writing I didn't take criticism well. Like, at all. My only crit partners were my sister and my mom and I would have them read my stuff and if they had a criticism I told myself it was because (cringe) "They were too dumb to get the story."

Bam!

Oh, that is so awful to say out loud. Of course, I had to get over that pretty quickly lol. So, new writers, if someone is offering criticism, please take it!!! Neil Gaiman says "If someone says something is wrong, they are usually right. If they try to tell you how to fix it they are usually wrong."

In the past ten years, I have found that to be the case. You are too close to your project. You know every nook and cranny. If a crit partner tells you something is off, please listen.

Another one was I thought that if I ever shared my idea it would be stolen. I believed the word would spread about my amazing idea because I was so creative and obviously talented, and the next thing I would know some other author would be published with my wonderful idea.

Oh man.

No.

It won't happen, and in fact, I would say please do the opposite. Share your idea! Pitch your story to whoever will listen! When you do that you see when their eyes light up, and when they start to fade away. Play with your idea until it becomes something people actually want to listen to. Then you know you have something good. Keeping it bottled up under lock and key will do more damage than good. Talk about it. Be open about it. Expect criticism.

 

[Peat]

Good thread.

I think the big "Oops" that sticks out to me is I thought I could learn it all myself. I wasn't quite stupid enough to think I knew it all, but I was sure with trial and error that it would come to me. I suppose I may technically have been right and that one day I would have figured it out myself, but I sure hadn't when I started to talk to other people. And the progress I've made since then has been huge.

I'd received a lot of good advice. I've also received a fair bit of bad advice. And I've also received a fair amount of advice from people who simply see the world in a very different light to me. Sometimes its difficult to tell them apart but there's something to be learned from all of it.

And the people who make it in this game are the ones that keep learning.

 

[SergeiMeranov]

For me it's a continual and ongoing problem to even sit down and write. I think most people that enjoy writing stories enjoyed thinking up stories first. It's like a constant stream of daydreaming new worlds, adventures, characters, etc. I've always enjoyed that part, but the biggest hurdle for me has been to take those ideas and actually try to flesh them out into a coherent story of any kind.

There's this ever present fear that once you write it down it becomes real and can be criticized and it may be stupid or boring or nonsensical, so you don't want to write it down. I think adding to that is a need to try and make it perfect on the first go around. It seems really strange to me as I was the sort of student that would write a paper the night before, not think about it once, and turn it in for a grade but when it's an activity of my choosing that isn't for a grade, work project, or anything that it becomes so difficult.

I've wrestled with this problem for the past couple years as I've slowly started to come out of my writing shell. It's become more helpful to talk to other people that enjoy it and share stories or ideas and just talk about the craft to become more comfortable. I think at its essence it's just always a scary thing to bare your creative side to potentially hostile outsiders and have them judge its worth by what you've created. So, here's to everyone overcoming their own roadblocks!

 

[SaltyDog]

I'm kinda in the same boat as SergeiMeranov. I just need to force my self to sit down, and actually move the blasted pencil into some scratch marks that somewhat resemble a type of gibberish. Hey it's all good though. When I do sit down, I'm never at a loss of what to write, I have an entire plot line mapped out in my head, so I don't struggle with that goal stuff. Now I may add a few twists and turns to my plot, as I see few fit. Stuff that's cool, adds flavor, or greatly helps the plot in moving towards the grand finale.

Now onto the boring scenes. I honestly haven't had much of those....so far. I try not to have them. As A reader who dislikes them, I try to incorporate my dislike into the story. Sometimes I do have to have them, but I strive in making them short as possible or interesting as possible.

Anyway my two cents. Haven't been on in a while so I thought I do some writing question stuff lol.

 

[Caged Maiden]

Man, oh man. I tell ya. This stuff is hard, isn't it?

When I began writing (and up until last week), I thought things were getting better.

Unfortunately, I now know I have no idea how to tell a story.

I can write scenes, really gripping ones. I can make deep and interesting characters, with clear perspectives and loud voices. I can show details in meaningful ways, and get to pertinent things without feeling the need to show everything in the room or on a person. I have some great concepts. But I can't make decisions, and I lack followthrough.

My journey has changed. I'm no longer trying to jump from one interesting scene to another, developing secrets and waiting to spring surprises. Nope. Instead, I'm reading all I can about developing a plot and story structure, and watching dozens of movies to identify which characteristics of story-telling fit into which kind of story.

This is a mess, people. I'm completely lost. I'm drowning in a murky swamp.

I mean, I KNEW what I was supposed to do. At least in theory. But now I understand that a story isn't a string of interesting scenes with a great character. And that truth is really hard to swallow, honestly. I mean, I had a beginning, middle, and end. I had a purpose for the character and a love story, and an antagonist. But I didn't have a real plot, a reason why things progress in a certain way. I was sort of dragging my character around through a scenario, rather than letting her choose a path and make her own life happen. I didn't have foresight, I guess is what i'm trying to say. So, when a scene popped up that was really good...it didn't necessarily fit in with anything around it. I had a lot of isolated scenes that were written well enough, but they didn't form a story. And until a few days ago...I didn't really understand that.

So, now begins another journey. time to learn some stuff that I wasn't ready to grasp before. AAK! I just want to be at the finish line already! Writing is the hardest thing I've ever done!

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Now that is a fascinating revelation. It's always disturbing what flaws may be sitting beneath our noses without our recognizing them. It would be interesting to see a breakdown of how you achieved completed works with a disconnected plot structure?

EDIT: I think most times, this sort of issue would crop up in the muck of the middle and end in an incomplete ms. Although I think I have seen movies and maybe even a sotyr here or there that seemed to be stretching hard to create cool scenes without a real basis.

Man, oh man. I tell ya. This stuff is hard, isn't it?

When I began writing (and up until last week), I thought things were getting better.

Unfortunately, I now know I have no idea how to tell a story.

I can write scenes, really gripping ones. I can make deep and interesting characters, with clear perspectives and loud voices. I can show details in meaningful ways, and get to pertinent things without feeling the need to show everything in the room or on a person. I have some great concepts. But I can't make decisions, and I lack followthrough.

My journey has changed. I'm no longer trying to jump from one interesting scene to another, developing secrets and waiting to spring surprises. Nope. Instead, I'm reading all I can about developing a plot and story structure, and watching dozens of movies to identify which characteristics of story-telling fit into which kind of story.

This is a mess, people. I'm completely lost. I'm drowning in a murky swamp.

I mean, I KNEW what I was supposed to do. At least in theory. But now I understand that a story isn't a string of interesting scenes with a great character. And that truth is really hard to swallow, honestly. I mean, I had a beginning, middle, and end. I had a purpose for the character and a love story, and an antagonist. But I didn't have a real plot, a reason why things progress in a certain way. I was sort of dragging my character around through a scenario, rather than letting her choose a path and make her own life happen. I didn't have foresight, I guess is what i'm trying to say. So, when a scene popped up that was really good...it didn't necessarily fit in with anything around it. I had a lot of isolated scenes that were written well enough, but they didn't form a story. And until a few days ago...I didn't really understand that.

So, now begins another journey. time to learn some stuff that I wasn't ready to grasp before. AAK! I just want to be at the finish line already! Writing is the hardest thing I've ever done!