I wonder whether other SASSIES suffer from the same problem I'm regularly confronted with?
I have an idea for a story. I start to write and the ideas flow. I'm enjoying myself. But when I reach - roughly - the halfway point, the ideas that got me going just... dry up. I sit there, trying to think of ways to proceed and everything I come up with feels wrong. I might even write it. But it keeps feeling wrong.
What started out as fun becomes anything but.
I haven't found a solution yet.
After years of false starts, I plot before writing anything. If it doesn't work as a synopsis, I don't bother. If you're half way through and want to continue, James Scott Bell's Writing Your Novel From the Middle might oil some.e creative wheels. I like it a lot.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Rowena. Sounds promising.
ReplyDeleteThat book sounds interesting, Rowena, and JSB's books can be very helpful. Sitting with your stalled story idea (and how it is so far) and asking questions of the story/characters can push your thoughts further on. (eg What do you want? need? . . okay, and then what? . . and then . . .? etc )
ReplyDeleteNick -- every single time. I expect it. I usually start with a clear idea of characters, scenes, events until about the mid-point of the book. As I get nearer to that point, a hazy idea of how I want it to end starts to form. Then it all goes blank. With respect to those who do plot, I've never found that plotting the whole thing works for me because it ends up pinning me to some uninspired, stilted framework. This obviously isn't true for everyone, but it is for me. So, what to do when it all goes blank? -- Well, as Penny says, you just have to sit with it. You are waiting for Hermes to bring the ideas/inspiration through from the Land of Dreams and He's a put-on, busy god. I deliberately forget about the idea, go for walks, go to the cinema, go on outings-- anything that will help me to completely forget about the whole thing. And then, one day or night, out of the blue, the end of the story arrives. And it's better than anything I could have invented any other way.
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