Haha - you highlighted the pieces that I have to keep telling myself....and this is why we're all here.
I understand the OPs "I am my own worst critic" feeling. I think if they should feel the need to outline a story concept, that they should not be so strict in adhering to it when it fails to produce the desired effect/outcome. Perhaps they should give manifesting their characters/worlds a try. Doesn't have to be perfect, but will let them get a feel for the characters/worlds 'life' in a sense. I have drawn up a few concept sketches of my MCs (and I am by no means a master artist). This allowed me to get a feel for them, by having a physical representation of them. Though if you do this I recommend using a high quality eraser, because like writing you will make mistakes. That and I have cut quite a bit from my own first completed novel. As entertaining as a small part would have been for a little bit of comedic relief, it really had no intrinsic value in the over all story. Though I have written it in a unique way that does not follow the 'norm', I spent a fair amount of time rereading and adjusting elements of it. I guess what I am trying to say is that as hard as it may seem to commit to a lengthier story. Give yourself some room to make changes, and let it evolve. Get carried away, or caught up in the story, not yourself.
Wow, thank you all for this advice. You have a lot of different ideas, and it has got me thinking. The reason I started outlining things is because before I would jump right into the story and start writing without any outline at all. I'd only ever get at most 8 chapters in but then I'd stop. I'd get stuck or bored or lazy. So I thought, "I must be doing something wrong," and changed my method. Outlining seemed like a good idea as I would actually have everything planned already and I wouldn't get stuck during the writing process. I always hated coming up with the in between stuff (the content in between the scenes I'm excited about) but when I started outlining it finally all came together. Then I finally started writing and I got stuck again. I don't think I finished the first chapter of the one. I got stuck, didn't know what to do, and ran away. With the other book I outlined all I managed was the prologue. My one friend said she was going to edit it and give me feedback on it and so I waited. But she didn't get it back to me for a while, and by then the momentum was gone (I don't blame her, I messed up). Also, I wasn't sure if I liked how the story was anyways. All of this doubt... This is just a side note, but I actually have finished a story, 14 chapters long. It was a fan fiction. The feedback of the readers made me feel responsible and so I kept writing. I was happy to know that they liked it. I never got any negative feedback. It was something simple, I didn't outline anything and just kept writing. That sort of thing wouldn't work for a large novel though. The reason I was able to write that story was because I wasn't worried about doing my best. It was just a fanfiction. I already knew how the characters should act. I had the setting. I wasn't putting in my best effort, I was just writing what I wanted to write. I knew my effort wouldn't go to waste because it was something that I knew I could finish. Maybe with longer stories I just need to change my mindset then? I'm afraid of commitment, but you guys have given me some good advice. I put some stories I know I'm never going to finish in an archive. I'm going to pick out a story or two that I like and commit to them. I just need to stop running away. Force myself to keep going. Before you all responded I assumed there was some big secret I didn't know, but now I understand that there is no one way and that you just have to keep changing the way you plan and write until something finally clicks. Everyone commits in a different way. Thanks everyone.
"I am afraid to commit because I don't want to put a lot of effort into the stories and characters only to give up later, because then all of that time and development was wasted and then I'm drained of creativity." (...) What if I really like a story idea and I decide to put a lot of effort into making the characters, which I never do 99% of the time, but then I realize that the story is stupid and it makes me sick just looking at it. Now those characters are just sitting there, unused, but quite developed. All of that effort- gone. I can't trust myself to stay committed, and so I end up not trying hard enough and the endless cycle continues. I am afraid of wasted effort. I want that effort to be worth it, but that is impossible to tell from the beginning no matter what story it is. How do you all take that risk?" I think that first line is what really determines your success in finishing them. Do you know how many unfinished novels I have on my computers? How many different beginnings and versions of each? Neither do I, they're too many, but I never considered that a waste of time, because 1. I have fun experimenting with them 2. I consider it practise and think trying different things, genres , stories, tones, voices, and so on, is an important part of your growth as a writer. 3. Often, I can find use for those characters in a different, but related, novel, or I pick it up years later with a better idea on how to approach it and finish them. I think as a writer you can't look at stuff that didn't work out as planned as a waste of time. Instead you should learn from them- what was it that made you lose interest in them, how could you have done to make them work? Is there another way to write the same basic story in a different way? Maybe even a different genre? Characters are almost never a waste, you can use them in different stories instead. I agree with who said maybe you should plan your stories less if that makes it easier, but I think the risk of losing interest when you find out it didn't turn out to be what you planned would still be there. Finding a different approach to writing and treating those abandoned drafts as a part of your learning process would probably be a healthier way. I take that risk every time I start something new, but I actually like that, it adds some excitement to the whole thing. And when you find the story worth sticking to, it feels even better.
I see what you mean. I guess I'm too stressed about the idea of completing something instead of actually liking and enjoying what I'm doing. Learning from my mistakes is a good idea as well.
Yes, and while doing so, you're finding your voice, your style and what kind of stories you want to write and what really makes you enjoy the whole process. I sometimes get ideas for stories that I now know I would never be able to finish, like, for example, I got this great Idea for a sci-fi, and lately for some kind of tragic story about a girl who was forced into prostitution by her mother, but Despite wanting to be able to write them, I know I won't because My Thing, what I really enjoy writing, is romance, womens fiction and chick lit, usually. I need a light and humouristic tone in my stories to be able to finish something as long as a novel, and I've learned that by trial and error. I could never commit to that kind of story and that doesn't mean that they're not important enough, they just don't inspire me the same way
I've seen this a lot and I've always wondered what this means. I've always thought it meant whether or not a story was light/happy, dark/foreboding, depressing, etc. But then I've heard of the terms "taking itself seriously" and "not taking itself too seriously". That's different, right? Here's a hypothetical example. Suppose I'm writing a story set during World War II in Nazi-occupied France. Would the mood have to be dark and depressing because of the setting, or could it be kind of light and cheerful? Let's say the story focused on something entirely unrelated to the Nazis, but the setting just so happened to be set in Nazi-occupied France. Would that change the mood of the overall work? Or would it be roughly the same? In rough tangent to this: what does it mean when a story either does or doesn't take itself seriously? I assume it would if it wanted to have a good plot, but does it really mean what sort of things the plot deals with? A jewelry heist in Nazi-occupied Paris can be as serious or comedic as it wants depending on the overall story? Thoughts?
Hmm...maybe a story set in Nazi-occupied territory isn't the easiest example to use to study tone. I can't believe that any 'ordinary' activity taking place in that location at that time would be lighthearted. I might be wrong, but trying to inject levity into that kind of situation might come across as flippant. That might be the tone you want, but I'd be cautious. However, if you take a more ordinary scenario, the writing can achieve almost any tone you want. And tone sets mood, doesn't it? A bank heist can be played as a farce, as a comedy, as a satire, as a thriller, as a mystery, even as a romance or a historical/news event. If your characters and situation seem lighthearted and the stakes merely a game to the participants, this should probably create a superficial, easy-reading mode. If the characters and situation are serious, and the stakes are high, then the tone will probably be more serious. This doesn't mean the serious story can't have humour in it, but I think it's the nature of the stakes that determine a story's mood more than anything else. In other words, if the bank heist fails, are the characters likely to escape unscathed and go try some other way to get easy money? That would probably be a lighthearted romp. If the characters are desperate for money, are likely to be hung if they get caught, and the likelihood of them being caught is high, then the story will probably have a more sombre mood. I'd say focus on the stakes in your story. That will probably determine the mood.
The TV comedy series 'Allo! 'Allo! was set in Nazi-occupied France. That worked (voted 13th best British sitcom, ran for 10 years), although my father (who fought in the war) felt it was disrespectful to those who had fought and died. So, yes, you CAN write comedy about dark times...sometimes it's the only thing you CAN write!
Yeah, I wasn't suggesting you can't. I was just suggesting that a writer needs to be cautious about it. And that it's a pretty extreme example for the nature of this thread.
@jannert - Yeah, looking back now, I don't know why I went with the Nazi route. I could've easily just said ‘A story set in the American Midwestern territories about a bunch of outlaws robbing banks and trains for money.’ Let's...just pretend I didn't use the Nazi example. But I like what you said about the stakes defining the mood of the story, and it makes a whole lot of sense. If the outlaws are robbing to get enough money to buy the medicine needed to cure their leader from a serious illness, and they know they'll be hung or shot if caught, the mood is going to be very serious and tense. Or take the movie Titanic. The moment the ship hit the iceberg, the mood very quickly shifted from a lighthearted romance fluff to a horrific, desperate fight for survival for everyone involved. Even the humor could be dark if the main character (hypothetical and mine) was using dark humor and snark to keep him/herself sane in a otherwise chaotic and hopeless situation. Just out of curiosity, if the stakes were still high, but the MC didn't really take it seriously, does that change the mood entirely or would it still be kept the same?
If you mean that the stakes are life-and-death but the mc doesn't take them seriously, I think that would likely intensify the mood. I'm thinking of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, in which Lyobov Andreevna doesn't take seriously the dire financial state she is in, giving a ball when she has no money to pay the musicians. When Lopakhin bursts in with the news that he has bought the cherry orchard, she is devastated (and if you see it performed, the mood is gut-wrenching, even if you think she kind of got what she deserved).
Sounds like I ought to read/watch The Cherry Orchard. I can see how it'll make the situation more dire. It's like, "Are you blind?! Do you not realize the stakes in this, and you're off acting like it's no big deal?"
Then there's Catch-22 (not the film; the film is garbage), which is very funny the first time you read it, bitter the second time and philosophical the third.
La Vita e bella (film) is exactly what you're talking about. "When an open-minded Jewish librarian and his son become victims of the Holocaust, he uses a perfect mixture of will, humor and imagination to protect his son from the dangers around their camp."
Did you see the movie Life is beautiful? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118799/ if not it's an excellent example of how to portray something tragic in another way than the most obvious. Plus it's the most heartbreaking movie I think I've ever seen.
The mood of a war story doesn't have to be dark and/or depressing. Hogan's Heroes (comedy) was set in Nazi-occupied Germany/France during WWII. It was lighthearted and helped heal some of the psychological wounds suffered during the war, not just for audiences, but also for those in front of the camera. Almost all the actors who played Germans were German or Austrian Jews (Werner Klemperer, Howard Cain) who either fled the holocaust or survived concentration camps (Leon Askin, Johan [John] Banner, Robert Clary). Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy definitely didn't take itself seriously. It's meant to be a romp through space and time, pure entertainment. The Fountainhead did take itself seriously. It was trying to head off capitalism's destruction of artistic endeavour. The best approach is: write what you write to the best of your abilities. Let the finished work stand on its own merits.
It would kill your suspense. You're biggest challenge would be establishing this is your world and character up front so that your readers don't get frustrated. I tried doing something similar on a story where my mc tried to bluff and ignore his brother's transformation because he was a weak person not up to handling the situation. I though I had handled it well - showing that he ran off when emotions got muddled, was irresponsible, but half the critiquers didn't get it. They still thought he wasn't taking it seriously and they were split on his reactions. I think it was because I had chosen to do something outside of normal and once you choose that you really have to make sure every motivation, action, reaction is understood - more so than a 'normal' response. You can do it but you'll have your work cut out for you. The beginning really has to set the tone.
The mood of a story is hard to explain. It's just the MOOD. The underlying feeling of the book. Something can be happy and good on the outside but the mood of it can be dark and sad. You can write the happiest story about a boy learning to write a bike during WW2 era Germany but have the smallest details about the going ons around him like "his neighbors 'moving away' so they use their driveway to ride around in" which would make it more dark even just a hint of it. That make sense?
Not to hijack another thread (about a poetic prologue) that got me reviving an idea I had a while back. I've got a mothball smelling piece of work that contains six or so chapters where, in each chapter, I've gotten a little too florid, self-indulgent and too (to my own mind) purple with my prose for general consumption. I'm quite sure it'd be off-putting for anyone wanting to blitz through the pages. So I made a mission of clarifying/ rationalising those chapters and rather than deleting the elements that I figured too pretentious; I gathered them up and moulded them into mini, backward facing summaries (laden with the flamboyance I'd extracted and definitely overcooked). The notion being to have a breather between chapters and at the same time reaffirm the story's most recent events. Also to have it appear optional, I'd intended the summary be set in a different more script style font and greyed to fifty percent taking up less than a page. If I could liken the idea to anything, it'd be a cross between a chorus in a song and the three minute recap you get when watching a fresh episode of a weekly drama. Always with a mind to continue with the project at some point I did set it aside when I felt my creativity slipping and to be honest also felt it a bit of a chore (but doable with encouragement) to maintain the effort. I'd like a little feedback on the idea and also to know if it's ever been done before?
If they're florid, self-indulgent, overcooked, and pretentious, they don't belong in your novel. It doesn't matter what font they're in or where they appear - they need to go. Kill your darlings. I recommend you paste them all into a new document, so you don't have to delete them - I know that hurts - and let your story stand without them.
I agree with the above, it sounds extremely complicated. Imagine the reader seeing that font and thinking, "Wow, the writer of this doesn't even know if this is worthwhile." Interesting concept, though!
