@OurJud - it was for @BayView really, really, part of my fan post series. If I recall you wrote that sci-fi - guys in a car? That was good writing, get back on it. It is as simple as 'very difficult,' or a 'put up or shut up,' I am afraid... Write a 1000 words to amuse yourself, I do that every day I can, it makes me feel better, in the game, all the best OJ. ...and if you are stuck, use my template, subvert it, write terrible jokes...and edit...
You know, what the hell? Why don't I just pick that one up? That's 20,000 + words out of the way already. Thanks, Mat. Thanks to everyone for their posts.
Sounds like giving yourself a reason to enjoy outlining first would work better than trying to jump into enjoying writing. My best tip: Don't start by outlining an entire story. Start by just jotting down the ideas you have for what could be put into a story at some future point, commit them to memory, and save them for later. If you find that you can't save your ideas for later because you love them so much right now that you have to use them right this second, then you know that it's a good idea that you should use. If you are able to stop yourself from using an idea, then it's probably not a good enough idea yet, and you should probably wait until it turns into a better idea. Spoiler: Do you see the Doctor Who fanfic in my signature? That started out as me getting addicted to the series (as proper fanfiction should ), not being able to stop myself from coming up with other things that could've happened in the same fictional universe that I knew and loved so well (still on track), but at first I didn't came up with any stories around the scenes, characters, and lines of dialogue that I'd come up with, it was all just daydreaming about one disjointed thing after another. Then I started thinking about how my two Time Lord characters (brother and sister) met the rest of my cast (I didn't actually have any details about the human characters, just the sentient ship that they lived in/with), even though the show had made it clear that The Doctor was the only Time Lord left in the universe. I came up with the idea that the brother and sister were created in a mad science laboratory, broke out, and my others characters ran into them and decided to bring them along, but I didn't exactly like this - how exactly did two schmucks break out of advanced military security, why would they tell this to the first people they happened to run into instead of trying to keep their identity secret - yet I didn't have any other reason why two Time Lords would be part of my daydreams when the series was clear The Doctor was the only one left. Until I realized "maybe the rest of my cast find the facility first and they break the Time Lords out of captivity." This one random thought changed my entire daydream into an actual story, and just seeing that there would be a beginning (the humans and the ship discover the facility), a middle (they find out about the Time Lords), and an end (they escape) was enough to make me want to fill in the rest. When you do have a story that you love as much as I love this one, then you will want to outline more details than just the most basic beginning-middle-end because you will want to know what happens "next" as much as a reader will. Albeit from a different chronology: Readers who know what happened in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd parts on the narrative will want to know what will happen in the 4th part A writer who knows what happened in the 1st, 2nd, and 4th parts of the narrative will want to know what will happen in the 3rd part
I've more than once argued that writing fiction is fundamentally different from writing non-fiction. It's not like, oh, playing the piano versus playing the organ. It's more like playing the violin versus singing. We all speak in nonfiction, and have all of our lives. We put words together into phrases and sentences that express ideas. We quite often also think that way. Writing nonfiction is a process of translation, putting those words and phrases into letters on a page or screen, and making them more formal and structured. We naturally create the raw material, and the activity of writing just polishes it up. Similar to the way that singing takes the raw material of speech and polishes it up. (Edited to add: The above should not be taken as saying that writing nonfiction is EASY. In many many ways it's much harder. I'm just saying that dragging the immediate thoughts of the moment from brain to page may be easier.) We rarely speak in fiction. Oh, we'll tell our friends what somebody said at work, or summarize the plot of a movie, but our society no longer has much of an oral storyteller tradition. And while we do think in fiction, those thoughts are usually in the form of images and movement and sounds, not in words, except maybe for the words of dialogue. So when you start writing fiction, it's rather like picking up the violin and the bow and having not the faintest clue how to make those tools reflect the music that's in your head. You have to LEARN to play the violin. You have to learn to write fiction. It takes countless hours of practice to get past the equivalent of howling screeching cat-like sounds, to something even passable. So it's too early to work on the novel. Would you START your effort to learn the violin with an effort to play a complex piece to a quality level suitable for publishing as a CD? No, you'd start with the simplest of basics. And would you expect your starting, cat-screeching efforts to satisfy your desire to produce music? No; those early efforts are going to be pure, exhausting, laborious skill-building. --- You're doing the equivalent of trying over and over and over to play that beautiful piece as a new violin student. I say this in part because I'm doing the same thing. I may be at the point where I can play a passable "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" with only an occasional discordant screech, but I'm no further. I need to write fiction. Hundreds of thousands of words of fiction. Regularly, as a disciplined habit. It's not going to be happy fun inspiration, it's going to be a long laborious slog. And there's no guarantee that at the end of it I'll find out that, yep, I can write fiction. I know this, and so far I haven't done it. I'm trying to maintain my story-a-day habit, and so far I'm getting a story done less often than once every three days, and those are little bitty stories. I need to break through that resistance to doing the work. Right now, I'm reading the book Grit, by Angela Duckworth, in the hope that the burst of enthusiasm that I often get for a concept when I've just read a book on it, might push me to form a habit that then sticks.
I cut my teeth on fanfiction. I know it's not very well thought of by many authors, but it helped me learn the fundamentals of writing while not having the overwhelming task of coming up with everything from scratch. I already knew what the characters names were, how they dressed, what kind of family they had, etc. The more I wrote, the more comfortable I became with creating original characters, diverting from cannon, and maintaining a story's arc over many chapters. I refer to it as my "writing with training wheels" phase, and it was a crucial part of my journey to become a novelist of original fiction. In one of the reviews for my first original novel (from a reviewer at USA Today's website, no less!!!), the reviewer states "you won’t believe she isn’t a seasoned author without an extensive backlist." The reason for that is that I wrote nearly 40 fanfiction works (a few novella to novel length) before I started Under the Knife. I'm not saying every writer should start out that way, but it is a way to not have to go from zero to sixty overnight. In regards to @BayView's excellent point that wanting to write and wanting to have written are two different things, I can relate in a different way. I love the idea of running half marathons and trying out for American Ninja Warrior, when in reality I struggle to run a 5K and the beginner's obstacle course mud run I did last summer nearly killed me. I could get there if I was willing to put in the work - spend much of my free time working out, watch my diet carefully, stop drinking so much damn wine, etc. But I don't really want to do any of those things, so I'll continue to putter along in my little local events and comfort myself that what I am doing is still better for my health (especially as I get older) than sitting on the couch.
Add another voice to the fanfiction recommendation - I always wrote total alternate universe stuff, so I don't think I got all that much help from pre-established settings, etc., but what was really helpful was getting immediate feedback. Instead of waiting for, in many cases, years to have the fun of sharing my work and having someone respond to my ideas, I could write a chapter a day, post it, and get feedback five minutes after. It was a really, really useful way to build confidence for the longer slogs.
As the title says, nothing inspires for whatever reason, nothing excites me. I have no picture, no idea, no story in my head, no scene I'm itching to write. All the premises that do pop into my head are cliche and I know they are, I know they're not your million dollar jackpot idea, which discourages me from writing it. I've reworked my WIP so many times (with multiple finished drafts, all full of so many plot holes they might as well be made of Swiss cheese) that the idea of writing another scene for it bores me to tears, because I've written it all before. Let me just add that I do think the idea is promising, I do wanna finish, but at the same time I no longer wanna write it. STUCK. I have no real excitement or desire for my other ideas that I started work on already. I also have no new ideas currently. And I feel the more I go do something else other than write, the harder it is to find new ideas, because I've simple stopped imagining in that direction. I've also stopped believing I could ever finish anything because I find it hard to flesh out ideas and plot properly. (yes, I'm reading How To books on structure and plot now) Anyway, if I never finish anything, then I feel like it's pointless to put in all that hard work to actually write. What do I do?
To spark my creativity I usually have to branch out more beyond my comfort zone. I love art so I usually go for something visual and if I like surreal things I decide why not start looking at other art forms and see if something sparks my interest. From surrealism I've looked at pop surrealism, new surrealism, graffiti art, art installations, pop art, graphic illustrations, etc. I look up things on social customs, and history. I browse blogs, and Pinterest, I take walks and visit flea markets. And watch old movies I've never watched before. And pick up children's books or non fiction just to get a different perspective. I'm also on a real old photo kick on Pinterest typing in depression era pictures and vintage pictures anything that jumps into my head. Every face sparks ideas for characters for me. It's not really genre related. But some of what I look at actually bends to genre's I like. Looking at pictures of baroque vases helped me fix a plot element in the Worms of Wicher-Woo. Finding a photo on Google actually gave me the idea for my WIP Falling Child Star, and the fad of upcycling helped me flesh out my plot for In The Pit.
You're a new mom. You don't have the same 'imagining' time you used to have. Just be patient. It'll come back. When Tingka gets old enough to tell stories to her, try telling some instead of reading them. That will be fun for both of you, and may well get the creative juices flowing again.
My greatest inspiration comes from reading chapter openings - from particular books. Unfortunately it's only an instant hit of inspiration, and even if I had a document open at the same time, by the time I'd started typing, that hit would have dissipated. I don't know what you write, but my go-to book is a novel called The Motel Life by Willy Vlautin. It helps that it's written in 1st person (my chosen POV when writing) but the prose is so beautifully simple and straight forward, you just can't help but think, 'Man this looks so simple!' It's not, of course, but it's nice to read something that, even if briefly, gives you that feeling. Take a look for yourselves: (Can't post links for some reason, but amazon has it with the 'look inside' feature.
I know what you're saying, somewhat. It's not like I get great scene ideas and have to stop everything to write them down. I actually sometimes fear that I have run out of things to write, that I will never have another really good idea, but when I sit down and do it, I manage to pull something off. I find going out and doing non-writing things inspires me to write. Life and experiences should inspire our passions. But I also know what it's like to be in a slump. Writing is a hard business and has us spending long amounts of time in solitude. If you don't want to write it, don't. If you don't want to write at all, don't. Inspiration will probably come again and you can decide how you want to channel that. Also, reading always gets my writing wheels turning. Tin House recently put out a great summer issue with some killer fiction in it. It's really good and might inspire you to do some storytelling of your own.
At the very least you should take a break from the thing you are currently working on. I believe Brandon Sanderson mentioned in one of his lectures that it can be wise to leave a project alone for a while after the first or second draft is done, and start making something new. That way you'll have a fresh perspective on the other project when you come back to it; perhaps even new inspirations and things you didn't realize about the story when you first wrote it. It's good to keep things fresh if you want to keep motivation running high. You might not have any new ideas right now that you really want to write, but just try coming up with something and then just write it. At least it will be something different. I've never found myself being short of ideas I really want to write, though, so I can't say I know exactly how hard it is to be at a loss for them.
The thing is you can do this if you really want. But it sounds like writing might not be what you really want to be doing. Nothing wrong with that. Whenever you want to write you can. Saying life is easier when you have no desire to write makes me wonder why you would ever want to write. And since you don't care about publishing, what sort of incentive do you have? I know some people just write to write, but that's a concept I have never truly understood. Let me ask you this. Are you a reader? Are you still reading when you're not writing? Personally, I think short stories are way more fun than novels. And you should be able to finish one in under a week. But don't be fooled. The short story is a very hard thing to master. I have been dedicated to the form for a few years, but publishing these babies the places I want to publish is really hard. But if it's not your thing, it's not your thing. I don't think writers are supposed to start with short stories. I had a long writing career before I decided to pursue writing short fiction.
Exactly. There really is no shame in only coming up with characters, plots, and what-if scenarios. If that's what gives you pleasure the most, then that's what you should be doing, OurJud. Literally no one will judge you poorly if you decide that writing just isn't for you. Most sane people would rather you go do what makes you happy. You think anyone gives two flonks if I don't watch sports? No, no they do not. But if you honest to God want to write, even if it's just for your own personal pleasure, then you have to write. There's really no way to get around that one. :/
As I keep saying in this thread, which in turn keeps getting overlooked (I understand it's easy to miss when there's a large number of posts) I have written several, probably hundreds, of short stories, so it's not a format I'm unfamiliar with or have never tried. I am a reader, yes, but I must admit my urge to write and my desire to read go hand-in-hand. During periods when I have no urge to write, I usually have no desire to read either. No, I understand that. I suppose I just created this thread to sound off, to whinge, and because it's something that's always frustrated me. I know there's no magic answer, and I didn't expect one, but I am very grateful for all the tips, advice and encouragement
It may be that what you enjoy writing is short stories, even though what you want to have written is a novel. That would, I understand, be annoying. Apparently what I enjoy writing is non-fiction, even though what I want to have written is fiction. I'm fighting that trend, and I think that the fight is going to involve a long period of slogging, uninspired effort.
I agree with a couple of things U.G. Ridley said, particularly that about the oft dreaded word: discipline. Skip that word if there's a bad connotation - it's really just dedication. Writing, as with anything, is done to the standard that you create the discipline or dedication to reach, be it pro or dabbler. First, there's nothing wrong with being amateur or a dabble writer, if that's all you care about being. But if you really want to become expert than the possibility of it happening is greatly reduced if you don't understand the rules of the game. I'm not talking about the egregious number of writing rules some would have us believe are necessary, but a game must consist of some barriers and inabilities or it's not a game, and serious or not, writing is a game. The genius that suddenly, magically and mythologically springs from the brow, without sweating an ocean to earn it, is too rare to spend time lamenting not having been sprinkled with that pixie dust. I image everyone feels at one time or another that they should be able to just sit down and simply knock out a brilliant, award winning piece, and it’s frustrating to me that I haven’t done it, but the prodigy is extremely rare, and good luck on being able to live like the magical people you create in fiction. People used to talk about the 10,000 hour rule - that it took that long to make a true professional, and though there are many exceptions to that there is a valid point here. When I first started writing in earnest I sat down for 6-8 hours daily and consistently pounded out 3-5k words daily for months. I was on such a high passion that I couldn’t stop - deliriously happy. I wrote with little attention on editing, just spontaneous creativity. After +450k into a sci fi novel, I finally had to confront this mass and mess of verbiage, to put into sequitur sensibility at least approaching understandable entertainment. Suddenly I found myself, very chagrined, in a purgatory of overwhelming, unresolved sins. That’s when the discipline entered the game, and my lack of it, and lack of research, all but broke me for several months. I went from the classical creative high to a low that I’ll spare you from vicariously experiencing. Luckily I was brought up as a classical musician so understood what few in this world really do; PRACTICE! And practicing anything normally consists of doing it incorrectly for a long time until you, finally, get it right. But again, it’s the standard that you require of yourself, and creativity in any form is participating in life, and not just participating in the spectatorism that makes up the vast majority of this culture. I’m one that firmly believes anyone can do most anything, if you resist the temptation of sucking on the inevitable shin wounds before you can jump the hurdles. Don’t know if anything here helps, but it’s all in the state of mind, and you can control and channel your emotions. And remember who is your worst critic.
I teach English as a Foreign Language, and it might help to approach your novel the same way I have my students approach their essays. They're struggling with not only a foreign language, but a different style of writing, so we work up to things. First, I have them write a simple five sentence paragraph, with a topic sentence, three supporting points, and concluding sentence. This is new to them, so there are a lot of hiccups on the way, but once they've got that, we move up to adding two supporting detail sentences to each supporting point. Then we turn the topic sentence into an opening paragraph, and each supporting sentence and its details into a supporting paragraph, with the concluding sentence becoming a concluding paragraph. Sounds pretty obvious, but you could approach your novel the same way. If you have the basic story in your head, write it as a flash-fiction (1000 words or less) story first, then add more details to turn that into a short story. Once it's a short story, work on adding sub-plots and more characters, and you'll be well on your way to a novel. I know he's not popular now for certain reasons, but Orson Scott Card did something just like that with "Ender's Game". From Wikipedia: Now I need to go take my own advice.
Nailed it. Write something else and come back later. Your main WIP isn't going anywhere. Fresh perspective will help, and the feeling you'll get after creating and completing something else could do much for your inspiration.
I thhink it depends what the problem is. Like if you are actually burnt on creativity, then you need a break, but it sounds like that isn't your problem. Personally? I think setting a project down to let it cool is a great thing to do. So you will get no gruff from me about it. I do the same thing. So, then actually inspiration? For me? Talking or chatting. About other peoples work or my own. Or watching movies or TV. Basically in a sense, nothing makes me more hungry to dive into the field than to watch it as an outsider. When a person talkes about there favorite project. It makes me even more hungry to dive into mine. Because hearing their passion for their story reminds me of my own passion. Even if it had been cooling. In a similar way that is why I like movies. I can't "veg" as people call it in a movie. I am consantly thinking about why a scene went the way it did and when a scene really captures me, it maes me want to write and try and capture soment else the same way. If ya ever want to try my method, either tell em abut yout stories(and be reminded why ya love them) or hear about mine(same reason). Ya know where I am.
