I'm steadily being driven insane by an onslaught of ideas. They seem to come at me like a steady stream of deadly arrows from the slimy orcs below. Now I face a serious problem: which ideas should I use in my stories??!!
I almost feel like writing "Dear Abby" to you guys about my problems...almost. I hope you guys'll bear with me as I allow my heart to sing its sorrowful song on the stark white screen before me. It all began with me starting to write depressing stuff (don't ask!). Eventually, I decided that I hated writing stuff that gave me headaches and was mostly just tedious to write, so I decided on humor writing--the exact opposite of what I was writing before. Under the strain, my mind collapsed to a puddle of goo in my head.
Now I have a gazillion story ideas, each of them shattered bits of plot and character and I don't know what to do!
So, Dear Abby, Mr. Stressed would like to know what YOU think I should do!
Confusedly,
-the confused and perplexed, Mr. Stressed.
Mr. Stressed
ReplyDeleteAbbey is not in, Flabby shall be taking her place.
you are facing a common dilemma that all writers go through. Which characters? Which story to focus on? Happy? sad? Intense? Where should I take my plot?
Some advice I got from my favorite author in one of her interviews: She, herself, just takes in mind what she wants to say with this story. What's the moral? the theme? What are you trying to convey to your readers? Then she just wraps her story around that. Or you could think of your main character? Why is he the way he is (or she)? how do you want her (or him) to develop? What do you want them to learn from their adventure?
Personally, that's why I stick to short stories. Sometimes the stories themselves never have a plot or any purpose. Just me hanging out with my characters. But I get to know them, and then decide from there what I want to do to them. That's Flabby's advice, anyway. Maybe you shoudl wait for the real Abbey to get back
No, Flabby, that was great. Thanks...I think I've decided what I want to write now!
ReplyDeleteI work on a totally different method of choosing story lines and characters. It's great. I call the "whim".
ReplyDelete