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Does anyone here feel overwhelmed with their idea's for stories/novels..sometimes it feels like that I have so many threads to knit into story..that it becomes overwhelming. Do any of guys/gals write out everyone?
Posts: 287 | Registered: Jul 2006
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I'm a little overwhelmed by solving them...that is, bringing them to some sort of satisfactory resolution. At one point in my latest-stab-at-a-novel, I have a supporting character express anti-Semitic feelings. The main character deals with it, posponing any reckoning until later...but how do I actually bring it to a resolution? Or should I just take it out? (I'm not that satisfied with my handling of it, and, at the moment, it doesn't seem all that relative.) I've got a couple of other threads in my novel just like it.
Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005
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When a thread or storyline or even a detail doesn't fit the rest of the novel, I cut it out and save it to a file with a very descriptive title, as I did this morning: "Scene cut from chapter 23 where Ethan explains how he finds Jake". Including that scene caused complications in another chapter, so I deleted it. I did the same thing with a different scene yesterday, but then worked out how to make everything fit and re-inserted the scene.
I've combined or deleted characters before when they won't behave. If they don't contribute to the storyline or subplot or to the development of my main characters, they just don't belong there. So I'll cut them out and save them to a file for possible future use if they're interesting enough - who knows, they may need their own stories in the future!
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I agree with Briggs: I wish my problem were that I had too many ideas. I end up laboriously going through a billion things, all of which sound stupid. For the few stories that I've completed, I've written a few dozen lousy plot summaries before finding plots I like. It's tough to do during my usual morning writing time, and it's part of the process I can't force (unlike basic writing or editing), so it's the thing that happens when I have nothing better to do -- which might explain why it happens so rarely.
[This message has been edited by oliverhouse (edited October 23, 2006).]
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Yeah, must be nice, TMan. In my novel in progress, there are two separate storylines that will meet up about halfway through the book. In one storyline, I'm chugging along nicely, but in the other one, I've run into a wall. I know what needs to happen further down the road when the storylines meet up, and I know what happens right now with the one storyline, but I don't know what to do for the other one in the mean time. I have a big gaping whole between where I left off with that storyline at the end of the last chapter I wrote, and what I know will happen three or four chapters down the road. TOO MANY ideas would be very nice in this case.
Of course, there are also a dozen or so ideas I've written and chopped out of this one, so maybe the problem isn't have too few ideas, it's not having the one right idea.
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Willy, perhaps your faltering storyline just needs to back up a few steps. Go to a turning point and turn a different direction, one that will end up where you want it to, but via a different path. Maybe that will work. I've had to do that before, and it worked out better than my original plan would have. Good luck with it!
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Thanks, Lynda. I'll roll it around in my head and see what I come up with.
I can't complain too much, though. At least not yet. I've only been stumped since this morning. I'm somewhere around 180 pages into the novel, though, and this is the first time it has stumped me. We'll see what happens.
[This message has been edited by wetwilly (edited October 23, 2006).]
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This is where I (personally) find that planning things out before hand can be really useful. Just when I feel overwhelmed I can find a way through without getting bogged down in the specifics. And it's quicker and easier to go back and make changes to the plot.
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