We’re moving in a few days, and a lot of brain-space has been going to tying up loose ends at work and getting ready to have all our stuff shifted to Oxfordshire. The move is proceeding as planned; we know where we’re going to, and we’re looking forward to it.
In contrast, June has not been the most productive month for writing fiction, although it hasn’t entirely stagnated. Today I finished the first draft of a story that had been going well but then ran out of steam. It’s really the first story I’ve written where I hardly knew where I was going. I started with an idea — a certain character, in a certain place, at a certain time. I found a first sentence, took a deep breath, and dived in.
But after a few thousand words that went just swimmingly, I ran out of water. Oddly, that happened at about the same time that I realised what the story was about. For the first time, I knew where I should be going with the story, and … I couldn’t go there.
It turns out that my many distractions this month have been a blessing in disguise for this particular story. I came back to it this weekend, having forgotten a good portion of what I had been thinking. I jumped back in at the point where I’d stopped, and I finished the story.
This isn’t my usual experience of writing. Previously, I’ve done what I knew needed doing. I’ve made the stops and obeyed the signals, and that’s worked well. But this story was different. Maybe it’s the story that decides how it is written, not the writer?
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29 September 2008 at 3:36 am
Rip Patton
I rarely know where a story is going to end when I begin it. And like you, when I come to that place of knowing the end, the story (or I?) often run out of steam. I think this is partly because I write to tell myself the story, to find out what will happen. Once I arrive there, even if only in my head, that motive is gone.
Then again, I don’t know how many times the end I thought I knew turns into something completely different and that’s when the fun really starts.
I’m glad you finished it. When do I get to see it?
29 September 2008 at 8:29 pm
Benjamin Carnys
Well, I finished it, but now I have to start it… That is, I’ve gone back and I’m happy with almost everything except the first section, which just won’t gel. I’ve been distracting myself with other things, again. I’ll come back to it eventually, and solve the problem or lather-rinse-repeat.
That’s my new strategy: Write story. Lather, rinse, repeat.