I've spent the last week or so writing a new piece that I was planning on entering in this weeks writing comp - I'd come up with a really enjoyable story with some fun characters, and after a quick plan everything seemed good to go. I was aiming for about a 2000 word count, or thereabouts. Usually I don't have trouble writing short pieces, but this one seemed to have other ideas. As soon as I'd got the momentum of the tale going, I knew it wasn't going to fit the intended profile - maybe I'd put too much into the characters, or maybe they just deserved more, but somehow I couldn't limit them. Instead, I'm allowing them the detail they need and letting the story flow at it's own pace - and, funnily enough, it is coming out exactly how I wanted it. Possibly I'm just too much into these characters, but I've written 2000 words thus far and feel like I've only reached the halfway mark. I've given up on this being short enough for a competition piece, so it's much more a labour of love now. I'd much rather the narrative play out in due time than try to limit the word count purely for the sake of the comp. It's not that I couldn't, but that I don't want too. Somehow, I feel it would take something away from the characters. Do you ever find that your piece has a momentum all of it's own?
I find that my stories can have their own momentum. But at the same time, they need to be designed, which means I need to push them in the right direction.
Sometime's they have the momentum, but not the speed, that I wish them to have. As a behemoth; unstoppable, but slow.
Don't stop! Let it go wherever it wants to go. The first time I ever sat down to deliberately write something, it started out as a children's book. 28 pages later... It was still a children's book only now I was *forcing* it to end. I had to manipulate the book until it had become an entirely different thing. The ending was fine and it "worked" but I still wonder how far that tale could go. Maybe I'll go back to it someday and let it finish itself naturally. In other words, I regret artificially ending the story before it would have ended naturally. My advice is to completely ignore the contest. Your story is worth giving rein to. Let it determine its own destiny for a while before you start trying to guide it. Your characters can solve their own problems, amazingly, without your input!
I like this advice. I once promised to write for my girlfriend a short story about us. It quickly manifested as something else, bounding relentlessly down an unexpected path, and I could only follow it. It led to a wonderfully dark and depressing story, which I'm still immensely proud of. My girlfriend didn't mind, luckily xD
