Story Creation...

[Lyxdeslic]

...Where does it come from?

I'm not attempting to be deep. I'm not attempting to be mystical. Hell, I have no idea what I'm attempting to do...which is kinda my point, in sorts.

There are writers who start a story purely to fit into some systematic mold, market writers, if you will. They study what is popular, then they scribe a story from a purely business-minded stand point. There's nothing wrong with that; hell, I think it's probably the smart way to go.

Then, there are those of us who are -- for lack of a better word -- called to write about this idea that popped into our head, nagged at our subconscious, and demanded we sit down and type/write.

My question is mostly for the writers who fall into the latter category. When you get your idea, does it demand things of you?

For instance, my current WIP is unlike anything I've ever attempted to write before. Normally, my strongest writing is in close 1st person present pov, yet this story is demanding I write it in close 3rd past with dips into omni (not looking to hear how that's a bad idea :) ) . With anything else I've ever scribed, I've never had a prologue, but this time I do.

Thus, I'm beginning to come to terms with the fact that a story can call for you to write it the way it wants you to.

Is this possible...or simply a cop-out, an excuse of a stubborn writer resistant to listen to reason?

Lyx

[seun]

Thus, I'm beginning to come to terms with the fact that a story can call for you to write it the way it wants you to.
Lyx

I've always thought that this is true. For me, the story is in charge. That doesn't mean I can't make suggestions as I go and it doesn't mean the story won't listen to me. Overall, though, the story is the boss. If I listen to it and don't get in the way, it almost always ends up right.

Now if you'll excuse me, I must stroke my beard and feel slightly pretentious.

[Lyxdeslic]

Now if you'll excuse me, I must stroke my beard and feel slightly pretentious.Ah, yes. Don't forget to put on your tweed sports jacket, load your pipe with some exsquisite imported tobacco, and tune in to the next showing of Masterpiece Theater. :) (Is that even on the air anymore.)

Lyx

[seun]

Ah, yes. Don't forget to put on your tweed sports jacket, load your pipe with some exsquisite imported tobacco, and tune in to the next showing of Masterpiece Theater. :) (Is that even on the air anymore.)

Lyx

I'll be flogging the servants next.

[Lyxdeslic]

I'll be flogging the servants next.Alas, I have fallen on hard times and have had to reduce my house staff down to a live in maid. I'm green with envy; I do so miss the empowerment of delivering a good flogging, you see.

I'd flog the maid, but she most fantastically performs nightly felat....

Lyx

[Lyxdeslic]

Sorry, I got carried away. Back to the topic at hand. :)

Lyx

[Devil Ledbetter]

...Where does it come from?I think there is A Truth, or perhaps several Truths, that live deep within us (this is entirely different from The Truth, whatever that is). Our characters have a story that reveals these Truths, and our job is to write their story.

My question is mostly for the writers who fall into the latter category. When you get your idea, does it demand things of you? Usually it's my characters who do the demanding.

For instance, my current WIP is unlike anything I've ever attempted to write before. Normally, my strongest writing is in close 1st person present pov, yet this story is demanding I write it in close 3rd past with dips into omni (not looking to hear how that's a bad idea :) ) . My entire first draft was written in first person. I found it easier to write that way, but ultimately it did not serve the story as well as third person. I found I could get more authentically close to my characters in third, because it let me reveal things that they were too prideful, too vain or too humble to put in their own first-person narratives.

My characters would have been happy to keep the story in first-person. That's how they normally talk about themselves, after all. So I let them do that in character interviews, then I scribe the story in third, and include some of the personal stuff they wouldn't want told of themselves. That's what serves my story best ... so in a sense, the story did indeed demand it.

With anything else I've ever scribed, I've never had a prologue, but this time I do.Don't let people bully you about that prologue of yours. It's solid. And blessedly short. But most importantly, it makes sense.

I wrote a fantastic prologue. You would love it. It would make you cry and fall instantly in love with Clive and forgive every rotten thing he does before he even does them. But ultimately I decided to smash that prologue to bits and sprinkle the jagged shards throughout my story -- not even chronologically. You could say I chose intrigue over sympathy for my character.

It may seem like that was my choice, rather than the story's, but it was actually Clive's choice. He cannot stand to have people feeling sorry for him.

Thus, I'm beginning to come to terms with the fact that a story can call for you to write it the way it wants you to.

Is this possible...or simply a cop-out, an excuse of a stubborn writer resistant to listen to reason?Deep down, I think you know when you're serving your story and when you're only being stubborn. If something's not working, it becomes difficult to read, or follow. Confusion abounds and interest in the character's plight wanes.

If you don't trust yourself to know what's best, simply rewrite a crucial section of the story in some other way and see if it works better.

This is how I ended up with a third person narrative and two protagonists switching viewpoints at chapter breaks. I tried it, and compared to what I had, it read better and revealed a richer, more balanced story. In that sense, the story did tell me how to write itself.

[NeuroFizz]

Three NeuroFizz-isms that may apply to the main question in this thread:

The data of writing is life. Collect all you can.

Writing is just remembering one’s dreams. And nightmares.

Writing and sex both serve dual roles—procreation and recreation.


The first one addresses the question best, in my mind. Life, and life experiences, present a wonderful and rich source of ideas/triggers.

[allenparker]

There is a choice in life everyone must make.

One is "God is God," the other is "Man is God."

For me, God is God, but I get to play God every time I write. It's the God role playing game!

I get to decide who lives or dies. I have the ability to make someone suffer for her infidelity, or allow her to swim in a sea of sexual bliss. I can make the guys toil in the soil, building muscles and six pack abs to please the queen, or allow them to sit on a throne and become fat and ugly and dally with the queen at his leisure.

I can make them tell their stories themselves in first person, or I can tell it from my omniscient point of view.

All this on my salary! Just imagine what I could do if I had Bill Gate's money.

[sunna]

it [/I]wants you to.

Is this possible...or simply a cop-out, an excuse of a stubborn writer resistant to listen to reason?Lyx

I don't think it's a cop out. I had a teacher tell me once that artists of any kind are just people closer to their subconscious than most. (My version would be people at the whim of their subconscious, but whatever. :) )

I am perpetually astonished at the weird crap - or I hope it's not all crap, anyway - that I come up with. My stories wake me up at 7 am when I could be sleeping late; or at 3 am when I could be sleeping, period. They blow hell out of my outlines just when I think I've got the plot nailed down; my characters decide to do or feel something completely unplanned-for and leave me scrambling to adjust..... And somehow endings gather all these wonderful little subplots I wasn't even paying attention to and little elements I completely forgot about, and make something new and surprisingly put-together.
And I wander around for a few days trying to figure out how the hell that happened.

My mother says painting works more or less the same way for her. (Minus, I assume, characters on strike and a proliferation of adverbs.)

[maestrowork]

Someone said something like: stories are about life, but they are also fairy tales. About life.

[Summonere]

Where do I get my ideas? I'll give you the Kurt Vonnegut answer: I dunno.

Now I'll modify that: Everything gives me ideas. See? Not much help, that, but I'll go a little further to say that reading, especially reading good stories, is what inspires me the most, makes me think, Man, that's cool, I'd sure like to do something cool like that -- but, hey, I can! I can do something like that!

And so I've tried writing stories solely with the intention of selling them because they were like what others were doing, and sold them.

And I've written stories solely with the intention of writing good ones, even if unlike anything else I'd seen, maybe even a little artsty-fartsy in their own way, and have sold some of those, too.

And I've also tried writing stories the way I thought they should be written as opposed to the way it felt they should be written, and guess what? Those have all been terrible failures. Unsold ones. It seems to me that once I start correctly and pursue the strongest sense of purpose in any given story, it almost always works out, all of its fingers and toes in order.

If there's any demand at all, it's that the story be followed, listened to, paid attention to, as if it knows more what it's doing than I do. When that happens, I'm just a stenographer.

So, no, I don't think it's a cop-out at all to recognize what a story is and to then write it that way. In fact, I expect that's the best way of all to write a story.

In fact (again) Dan Simmons and Harlan Ellison have both mentioned that stories are knitted together in the subconscious from all the things we experience(1) until, one day, they come crawling out of that subconscious swamp and demand to be heard.

Kind of sounds like what you're talking about. Now all you've got to do is listen, and write it down.

-------------------------------------------
Note: see NeuroFizzism 1, rsp. 8
See also: rsps. 2, 7, 10, 11
(Velvet smoking jackets are dispensed in the hall. For tweed, see the hat-check girl. Pipes will be found in the clubhouse.)

[OddButInteresting]

Well I'm an Obsessive Compulsive. Not to the extreme, but it's still a prominent facet of my personality. Structure is paramount.

How I develop my story is by coming up with a very simple idea: the nucleus of my story. Around that nucleus I develop a cellular structure (the mythology, the characters, etc). No holes, no loose ends.

To be satisfied, my story needs to fit within a solid whole. After all, what is a skeleton without the muscles needed to animate it, and the brain needed to control those muscles?

[JoNightshade]

My stories come from my characters. I always start with one or two characters, and my novels are always about (obviously) something that happens in their lives. I can't really explain how that happens; I just KNOW their biographies. My job as the writer is to put the story on paper, and to make it more interesting by introducing some little twists here and there.

I think when we consciously try to force a story in one direction because it seems like a "good idea" is when we get off track. It's like what you know, factually, about a person, and what you feel about them. I may know my neighbor is a doctor, but I may feel that he's a creep and untrustworthy. I think it's the same with writing. We think we can choose the things we KNOW about the character-- "Okay, he has blue eyes and a degree in sociology." But what we feel is the deeper level. Oftentimes I will be writing what I KNOW should happen when I realize something just feels wrong. I can't quite identify what it is, but I'm writing my story according to some sort of practical knowledge that is not confirmed by what I know intuitively about the characters.

Okay that makes no sense. Whatever.

[Sofie]

My stories always start with the idea "Wouldn't it be cool if.." and then I just go from there. It's no deeper than that for me, and though I'm sure each of my stories do have some deeper meaning or truth to them, it is not something I think of when I write them.