posted
I have heard it a million times. When you're blocked about a story set it aside for a while. Maybe a week, maybe a month, maybe even a year. But set it aside and pick it up later with a fresh mind. Despite hearing this a million times, I never really did it until just recently. I set aside my murder mystery novel for two months while I prepared for an executed NaNoWriMo. (BTW, I only got to 40k words but I'm feeling ok about it, especially with only having 3 weeks to do it instead of a month and especially because my primary goal of distracting myself for a few weeks came to pass.) So I came back to it today, December 1, for the first time in almost two months.
And now I'm reading it. I'm not editing it or changing it. I'm just reading it and making notes. It's a different story than I remember writing. I'm finding my main character isn't behaving like I would have expected her to, like the character in my conception would have behaved. I'm finding awkward phrases that didn't seem awkward at the time. I'm finding forced dialogue that didn't seem that way at the time. And mainly, I'm feeling quite a surge of hope that this novel can, in fact, come to a successful close and even be publication worthy eventually.
posted
Everytime I re-visit my novel-in-progress, I'm surprised with what I discover about my characters.
A while ago I discovered that two of my characters are cousins, one character is related to a space explorer, and two characters probably don't even exist (or at least don't need to exist). I also discovered (through a short story set in the same universe) that they use space folding to travel across large distances in space.
It is always interesting what time will tell you about your story that you never knew.
posted
I'm learning the same thing with my writing. I have to write something and then put it away for a couple of months before I can look at it with fresh eyes. A couple of weeks is good for a decent rewrite, but not for really polishing something up.
Posts: 836 | Registered: Jul 2004
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Actually, when I read somewhere about having to churn on ideas for years sometimes before they get anywhere, I thought that was crazy.
I'm the impulsive type which has led to a whole harddrive full of wonderful, glittering false-starts. One story I made it quite a way through but stalled out near the end.
When I discovered it a year later, read through it, the ending felt obvious to me. I finished that, what I had assumed to be lost forever, story that afternooon.
And it is nearly impossible for me to do anything but line edits in a story that is fresh in my mind. A truly useful revision comes after months of seperation.
posted
I think I'm an awfully bad writer then...When I take my stories after a couple of months, I lose my critical mind (I know, it's abnormal). I approach them as I would read, and since under normal circumstances it's hard to pry me from a book, even a badly written one, with a crowbar, I get caught in my own stories once again (whereas they're full of things that are wrong, I'd think). I never did get the lesson <chuckle>
Posts: 1075 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:When I take my stories after a couple of months, I lose my critical mind (I know, it's abnormal). I approach them as I would read.
I think that's the point of stepping away from a story for awhile. That's the exact reason why it's useful. It lets you see the story as a reader instead of as the writer, so you can see what you've really got there.
posted
exactly. Plus, it's kind of fun to actually get a chance to enjoy a story that you wrote. I like it at least.
Until this thread I had forgotten that my first marginally successful attempt at writing a novel (ended up only at 25k) stalled around Febuary (several years ago). I picked it up again in August and finished it in two days, seeing the obvious ending right away. Funny how things like that happen.
Well I'm off to read my first actual novel (which I finished last April).
posted
Just this past Sunday I did the same thing. I had been trying and trying to get chapter 3 in my WIP going, and for a few weeks, I was getting nowhere; everything felt forced. I had a strange urge to go back to another work I had set aside many months ago, only about a page into into a story, one that had no plot and no direction, only a character that I loved and her cat. Suddenly, after two weeks of little-to-no productivity, I poured out 2500 words in a matter of a few hours, and a slew of ideas guiding my plot. And it felt great! Sometimes I think a piece may just need some room to breathe. (and I used to feel guilty for having 4 or 5 WIPs)
Posts: 292 | Registered: Feb 2004
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