This is not what I'd planned to be working on right now. I'd planned to work on Project K, to take it from a handful of pages in my idea file and put it into an actual plotting document, so I could work on turning it into a full story. But right now, I can't bring myself to do it.
Because it feels like my plotting documents are where my stories go to die.
I've talked about some of this before. Part of my process is scribbling down things in my idea file, and adding more and more to that as I come up with it. But I can't do all my work in that one file - the thing's up to nearly eighty pages again, I have to take stuff out of it once in a while. Unfortunately, I've noticed a pattern over the past few years.
Every single time I take my notes out of the idea file and give them a plotting file of their own, I'll keep working on that story for a little while, and then it falls apart. I've covered the multitude of reasons why this happens over the past few years, because that's what's happened every single time, and I don't need to go over them yet again. But it keeps happening.
I've talked about this with my therapist, as it's something that's troubled me ever since I realized it. It feels like there's something about giving a story its own file that creates some kind of commitment to it - it stops being just an idea, and becomes something I'm going to dedicate time and energy to making it become an actual book. And that's when the problems start. I lose interest, or I find something wrong with the original concept and try to rework it, or any number of other things that I just said I wasn't going to talk about again. The end result is the same.
This has already happened to Project H, which is the one that brought me out of my long writing funk in the first place. I've completely redone the second act and changed a huge chunk of the story's setting in doing so; the new stuff works better but I haven't felt like touching the story since I did that. And I've already done some major revisions on Project K to begin with - this past weekend, I made some changes to the setting that work really well but mean I have to rethink a lot of things about the story.
So when I sat down to put Project K into its own file, I couldn't make myself do it. Because I really like this story, and I don't want to see it die.
I know it's possible (maybe even likely) that I'm thinking on this too hard, as per usual. The fact that I have an idea file that's more than seventy pages long means that I have a lot of things I've written down and not done any more work on. And my main writing folder is filled with things that didn't work out, that's nothing new. But this consistent pattern of creating story files and then having them crash and burn... it scares the hell out of me.
I'm a plotter. I know this because I've tried writing without a plot and it's never gone well. I need to know where a story's going to (theoretically) write anything worth a damn. So when every single time I try to create the very document I need in order to write a book, it leads to that story going nowhere....
What the hell am I supposed to do?
I think you should explore the ideas, write them all out. Write out the scenes. Don't put them in another file, or, if you do, put it in that project's 'idea folder,' so that way you're not fully committing to its own 'THIS IS MY NEW PROJECT folder' with a promise of being plotted. It'd... just be a place to keep flushed out scenes that you don't want to die. My advice.
ReplyDeleteThat's a lot of what the idea file is. There's story and character details, but for the few scenes I already have set in my head, I write out them too. So... yeah.
DeleteDrawing from your idea file and plugging worthy parts into a plot worksheet or folder doesn't mean you have to delete the rest. Save it if it makes you feel better.
ReplyDeleteI can assure you from post-publish experience that the stuff you cut will eventually be forgotten, and the story will be better for it. So save those bits if it helps you get over the hump of getting the final story written.
Introducing a plotting worksheet earlier in the process might help. It can keep you from wasting your time going down bunny trails and writing unnecessary scenes. Maybe then you'd have enough motivation left to stick with the project.
I suppose it's possible that, deep down, you don't want to really finish a book, but I think that's unlikely. Take a break if you need to, but push yourself to keep going. If you use a good plot worksheet, you'll end up with a story that will meet your readers' expectations. And the sense of accomplishment you'll feel when you finally polish it up and write THE END is worth all the hard work.
Think of all the stories you'll have cued up and waiting to be finished if you can find a way to break through this barricade. You'll have books coming out your ears!
I've written fifteen books. I'm aware of how it could be if I could get through this. And I'm nowhere near the part of the process where I even want to think about readers' expectations. I just want a damned plot to work. -_-
DeleteIn that case, I don't know what to tell you. I struggle a little with that, too, as I'm creating a fleshed-out story with all the appropriate plot points. I have scene ideas and characters that form in my mind, but deciding how to craft a full story from that is tough... parts of it, anyway.
DeleteThe idea for my debut came when I was reading a story to my daughter about the Oregon trail. As we read about all the stuff the settlers dumped by the side of the trail, I thought, Hmm...If a heroine got left behind, she could use that stuff to survive until the hero finds her and rescues her. Great idea! ...Now I just have to plot the rest of the damn story. LOL Even after plugging it into a worksheet, I was 3/4 into writing it before I had the ending completely figured out.
Aw Mason. :( I haven't read your latest post yet because I'm playing catch up from taking a week off, but from the looks of things around here, it's not going well for you.
ReplyDeleteAs a pantser, I don't have much in the way of suggestions, since I'm often winging it when I'm writing. Again, I'm typing this out without reading your latest post, so I don't know if you've tried reducing the details. Going bare bones on the plot, characters, backstory, and world, and not going beyond that before you start writing?
Things have been really bad, yeah. >_< And I've thought about that, but unfortunately going with less doesn't work well for me - I need to really know the story to be able to write it in any way that's worth reading.
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