It's time once again for another blog entry that I didn't know I was going to write until I sat down to write it. Brought to you by the letters W, T, and F, and the punctuation mark ?.
So, I have this story idea I'm trying to work on. This is nothing new; anyone who's read more than a few entries here knows I spend way too much time going on about one plot or another. But with most of the things I write about, I have a character or two to work with, some solid ideas about the plot, and a few definite locations.
This idea? I have none of those.
What I have is a whole cluster of vague ideas and concepts, things I think should happen in a story where I don't know what the actual story is yet. I have mental pictures of settings, locations that might or might not be part of the story, since I don't know how the main setting should be shaped but I know it's going to change, maybe a lot, over the course of the story. I have vague hints of main characters and minor characters, without names or faces or personalities, just the knowledge that there needs to be People Doing Stuff, and that Stuff has to happen for the story to happen.
If this sounds difficult to understand, it's because I know that the story itself is supposed to be surreal and dreamlike and should be more than a little scary if you look deeper. It's inspired by some fictions that have come to mean a lot to me, and might even be seen as a tribute as I try to put them all into one place and see if they'll blend.
It's the sort of thing I'd question my ability to write if I had any idea how it was supposed to go.
I know this is nothing new for we writers. I'm not the first one to feel this way about a would-be story and I damn sure won't be the last. It's just that plotting has been going really well for me recently; I have one plot ready for writing and another nearly so, with a third that's still in progress but going well. So it's frustrating to me to have something I really want to write that's taunting me with vague glimpses and strange visuals, like the moon quite literally turning into a rose, when I can't figure out for the life of me what the story really is.
While I usually take a shot before plotting or writing, I don't believe in writing drunk, else I'd be trying that for this story.
Anyway. I feel better after getting that off my chest. Here's hoping I figure this out sometime soon. A single named character would be nice, or an idea of the story's actual structure. But I'm about to head off to DragonCon for the long weekend, so I'll try to spend five days not thinking about this. Who knows? Maybe I'll get inspired....
Put a bunch of vague ideas and images together and you'll have a David Lynch film...
ReplyDeleteCool you're going to DragonCon. I bet you see a lot there that inspires you. Enjoy!
Maybe so, but I would like this to make some kind of sense, even if it's only after a second reading. Or a third. Or a fourth...
DeleteYou know what? This happens to me sometimes. I'll get a visual of some character I've never seen before, and then I'm like, "Who are you???" I think the story may still be at the simmer stage. Once it's ready to boil over, trust me: you'll know! Have fun this weekend! :)
ReplyDeleteIt's possible; this just isn't the usual way I get my stories. They usually start with a character and a setting, not just random ideas with no way how they'll connect in the end. But yeah, I'll try not to worry about it, and hopefully I'll just suddenly realize what it all means. ^_^
DeleteThat sounds like me a lot of the time! And no matter how hard I try, plotting things out ahead of time has never worked out for me. If anything, it will kill the story. I think this sounds very exciting and I wish you the best of luck with it! Even if you just write random scenes or paragraphs or sentences, I'll bet you'll find the story if you just led those images lead you in the right direction.
ReplyDeleteAh... The thing is, I'm a plotter, I have to know what's going on throughout the whole story if I want it to work. Trying to do otherwise ends badly. >_< But a lot of my notes on this are just random bits and pieces, so I'll keep writing those down and see where they lead.
DeleteOhhh yeh. Wouldn't it be great to be able to clone yourself but put in a few key differences so they can provide a kind of forum to bounce ideas off? I have soooo many plots/ideas that I really really really want to in depth discuss with people but honestly likely that they are only really interesting to me and to be honest sometimes other people have very set ideas of their own about how "it" should be and steer you toward those instead of working out how yours will work. Authors do love to talk about their own stuff - of course - so conversations with them more often that not are two people going on about their stories without much thought of the other persons. Pointless asking my brother because he either shrugs and says "dunno" or asks horrible questions like "well where do you want X to be at the end?" I don't know!! I don't even know if there's an end yet! I want another ME to talk to. I want like a million of ME to also buy the book, since at least I'll be able to entertain myself haha.
ReplyDeleteSometimes it helps to talk to people though, they can provide thoughts that go way outside what you would have thought of. Some of them make me go "oh yeh, i hadn't thought of that before!" Or they might break you out of a path you'd been forcing your story down by going "nope that wouldn't happen," which can make you go "oh yeh, shit" and whatnot.
Sometimes it's awful, particularly if you're taking a new stance on an already existing thing. Say magic for example - if the person you're talking to is totally adamant that it works like "this" and your story has it working like "that" it can be really hard to get any feedback because they're always trying to steer you toward how they think it "should be". Or worse, you take on an existing mythology and get the diehards going "NUUU THATS NOT WHUT THEY LIKE URS SUX". That can be pretty disheartening.
So what do you do? I don't know. Someone told me to go research all the history of X theme but all I could think was "fuck no, i dont want to taint this idea with everyone else's done before bullshit" but then ... authors do a LOT of research so what am I missing?
I once re-read some crazy stuff I'd written years and years ago, that I wrote only for myself and not for anyone else to read and it was heaps better than the crud I was attempting to write for people on fictionpress etc. Maybe the key is to just write to please those clones of yourself and hope there are like minded people out there?
I do think that writing just what you want, just what you want to read and not trying to do it for anyone else, can produce good stuff. But I know that no matter how good you think it is, you need someone else to look at it. It's way too easy to get blinded by your own supposed awesomeness and not see the gaping flaws in what you've done. Yes, this is the voice of experience speaking. >_<
DeleteAlso have fun at DragonCon! I'll have to get to one of those one day. Oh time and money, where did you go? I used to have so much of both of you!
ReplyDeleteps keep writing those crazy ideas down, it sucks to have a half remembered idea that you didn't write down and now really really NEED.
DragonCon was ridiculously fun, yes. ^_^ And I still write everything down.
DeleteWriting drunk? That would be something, huh? LOL
ReplyDeleteHave fun at DragonCon. :)
It would be something, but I just got this keyboard a few months ago and I don't want to vomit on it. ^_^
DeleteI have a hunch DragonCon will be inspiring. And you can always free-write to see where the story goes -- stream o' conscious style, yo.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if I'd say it was inspiring, but taking time away from a bothersome issue does always help.
Delete"Brought to you by the letters W, T, and F, and the punctuation mark ?."
ReplyDeleteLOL Best line ever.
Thank you. ^_^ Sometimes my best jokes are spontaneous and sarcastic.
DeleteAwesome! When that happens to me, I jot down the scenes, save them in a document and abandon them until I have time. It's the only way to stay sane. ;)
ReplyDeleteI hope you have a blast at DragonCon!
Yeah, that's pretty much what I do too. My file for ideas like that is close to fifty pages long, and dates back to 2003. O_o
Delete" just the knowledge that there needs to be People Doing Stuff, and that Stuff has to happen for the story to happen." - That doesn't sound difficult to understand; it sounds exactly like me trying to come up with a plot! LOL. I wish I could say it gets easier from there, but... ;)
ReplyDeleteHope DragonCon was great!
I wish I could say it gets easier too, but I think we both know it doesn't. Eh heh heh. O_o But I'm getting closer! Slowly.
Delete