The art of the story

For what it's worth, for me (just me) the words and phrases and sentences and paragraphs are controlled by the conscious executive-function mind. I rarely put a scene aside without rewriting it five or six times, even though that's arguably a huge waste of time given that I may end up throwing away the scene. It's the content of the scene that my subconscious drives.

For roughly three weeks, the executive knew that the next scene in the last section of the story that's been written so far--basically, the next scene that was going to drive the story forward into story future-- was going to be a catch-up conversation between two characters that parted in dangerous circumstances and on bad terms. They had had a few words since being reunited, but no time for an actual conversation. That conversation was what the executive thought I "should" write.

The subconscious said, "Nah. I want to write over here, and over there, and over there." The theater in my mind showed me other scenes. And I let it do that. For each of those scenes the subconscious put together the events and emotions, and then the executive wrote, and polished, and arranged paragraphs, and decided what was too much angst and where we could allow a little more angst. So writing quality, on a paragraph and scene level, isn't determined by that subconscious driver. The subconscious drives the subject, not the writing.

And I can see, standing back, that all those scenes had something to do with the relationship between those two characters. In fact, it's more specific--once they were all written, I realized that they were all about just how much he was willing to hurt her. They were about the elements of his character that told him that his duty, his identity as a good man, required him to hurt her. And about whether he was able to obey his conscience (the conscience telling him to hurt her).

Only then was my subconscious ready to write the conversation that will allow the end of the timeline to progress further into story future. At that point, just this morning, it handed me several fragments of dialogue, and the scene is half written.

Now, after the first draft of the whole novel is done, the executive might decide that I made the wrong call and that he needs to be more callous than I made him. But right now, I'm trusting the subconscious.

 

OK, @big soft moose so you've never written when you're in that sort of Alpha state sort of zone then. (I'm calling it Alpha state for lack of better term, not in the scientific sense.)

Just because you don't experience it for yourself doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

My fiction writing really only flows when I'm in that very relaxed state. When I'm in that state, after I've finished writing it almost feels like I've woken from a dream. When I try to control the writing in a "wide-awake" fully present state, it's God-Awful.

Musicians do the same thing, by the way. It exists. Some people call it a different form of intense concentration. Whatever you call it, to me, it feels similar to meditation. And when I'm in it, I have no idea what's coming out of my fingers next.

When I do know what's next, my writing is hideously bad and rushed.

Conversely, my non-fiction writing is very much in my control, and I must be fully wide-awake to do it.

ETA: And to the original poster, yeah, I trust it. You have to. But it comes with experience. Is it always right? Nope. But my fiction writing does not work when I plan. When I plan I spend hours staring at blank pages.

 

Um...there is no plan, for some of us.

 

I rarely start writing with a plan, and have never outlined a single fiction project. However, this doesn't necessarily mean that the story just does whatever it wants and I'm along for the ride, flying by the seat of my pants; you read and observe your own story, even live it (or relive it) on some level, and you're going to intuit where it needs to go once you get there because there's only one way that makes complete sense—that is to say, the story's way—and you'll know it when you get there or before you get there if it feels right or not. Some of this may sound like mystical mumbo-jumbo, but it's the way I've always written, through intuition. I'm discovering and experiencing the story too as I create it, which is an unparalleled, harrowing experience. I'm not saying such experiences don't/won't occur if you outline and plan your narrative progression far ahead of time, but the sense of spontaneity is muffled quite a bit.

 

THIS!!!

In lighter moments, I sometimes say that subplots are what your characters do while you're trying to get them to do what you want them to do. But what that really means is that there is a dynamic that occurs in which new aspects of your characters occur to you while you're writing and new plot elements occur based on new aspects of your characters. It may be pleasing to think of this phenomenon as "magic" or "characters acting on their own" or "the story telling itself", but it really is just the imagination at work, filling in the blanks. Personally, I prefer to take the credit for that when it happens.

So, getting back to the OP's question, I "trust the story" in the sense that I trust myself to render it completely, doing full justice to the story idea and the characters. If I ever reach the point where I can't do that, it means that the story has lost forward momentum and should be set aside.

 

Which reminds me of something I heard, recently: "It's not the fall that gets you. It's the sudden stop at the end."

 

That is so how my creative process works!

It's why we didn't bother writing a rough draft... it seems to be the prevailing wisdom that you spill your guts onto the page, quickly writing your rough draft, then, go back and attempt to edit the hell out of the story. I do believe it's the underlying reason so many hate the editing process. I love editing!

We have a pretty good idea where things are going, and where they might end up, but aren't chained to a rough draft. My writing partner writes ahead of me some few chapters, with me following behind and doing some heavy editing. I've time enough to find the hooks in the material, responding to her ideas and exploring ideas of my own... and having those wonderful moments of clarity when the story presents itself to you. Since we haven't invested months and months of time on the story to come, we're free to change things at will. Yes, it does mean entire chapters will need to be rewritten, as in fact I'm working on now, but the burden isn't so heavy when you see how far you've come and that the process really works.

However, you do have to be fearless about it. You go full steam ahead not knowing where, when, or how the great ideas will come, you just trust that they will.

 

I think you have to trust your process, whatever it is. My own has evolved over time, from "writing where the story takes you", to strict outliner, to very loose outliner.

 

Some of you seem to just love to spit out things you heard before just to sound right or smart, but, for those of you who do this, I'm not so sure it's working for you. I thought this could be an interesting conversation, but that is clearly not what some of you are looking for. What's going on here lately? People just don't seem as nice as they used to. Sad.

 

I was just thinking the same thing. A lot of contemptuous comments.

 

I say again--metaphor.

 

I wasn't complaining about anything!!! Seriously, it's a little insulting to be called out on something I never said or implied. And you may be here to develop writing skills, but good luck because I don't think that's what this forum is about. I thought it was to discuss the craft. But obviously you have some hang up that probably has way more to do with your writing than mine.

 

That's a fair remark, so it leaves me with this next question.

Are you really asking: 'Do you trust your ideas?"

or

Are you really asking: "Do you trust in your abilities (craft) to give these ideas life?"

These are two separate problems. Some people have really great ideas, but can't give them life. Other people have terrible ideas but have great writing skills.

I believe in the Robert McKee definition of a successful story: A great idea that is well written, but what part is that you worry about trusting. 'A great idea' or 'well written?'

 

I didn't see anyone in this thread complain about their story steering them the wrong way or letting that excuse "garbage", but I did see people who were "kind" enough to point out that "kiddies, it's just your imagination working." What? I thought it was some kind of leprechaun writing my book while I go on a coffee break, because that's how it works for me... Yeah, not condescending at all.

 

For me, it's more an issue of trusting the idea. And not planning things out or working off an outline, it kind of feels like blind faith. I don't think my story is writing itself. I'm just wondering if this is really going to come together in the next unthought-out 200 pages. Does that make sense?

 

I don't remember anyone ever saying "Its not my fault the characters won't". Can you link to some posts where they say this? I'd like to see if they really don't seem to be using it metaphorically.

 

I'm certainly guilty of saying "sometimes my characters won't do what I want" or "Sometimes my characters do things I don't expect" and am likely one of the people irritating the hell out of you @big soft moose . To be clear though, I don't think my characters have some life of their own, though I do realize how that sounds. Perhaps I didn't consider that some people mean that (or take it) literally. I think I'm most similar to @ChickenFreak on this one.

Most recently - I've been incredibly frustrated with a story that would not work the way I want it to. It felt plastic and fake and for the life of me, I could not figure out why. I did not, however, believe that the characters had taken over my mind, I just knew that something wasn't working and I was having trouble figuring out what it was. Last night, it occurred to me what it was while having an unrelated conversation. Subconsciously I hated what I was writing. It wasn't true to what I wanted to say, and instead was what I felt I was supposed to say. Now I have a decision to make, but that decision is mine, not my character's.

And I don't know how well that answers your question @deadrats . I don't know that I can trust a story, but I do trust myself to know when something just isn't working - even when I can't quite figure out why.

 

Speaking of metaphors about transferring responsibility for (some of) the writing, Elizabeth Gilbert chooses to believe in a muse and thinks that it's a good sanity-preserving defense.



You may or may not like her writing (though my understanding was that she was reasonably well-regarded critically as a fiction writer before her freakish success with Eat Pray Love and so far I quite like her subsequent The Signature of All Things) but you can't argue that she's not a success.

Quote: "...psychological construct to protect you from the results of your work. ...So the ancient artist was protected from certain things... If your work was brilliant, you couldn’t take all the credit for it, everybody knew that you had this disembodied genius who had helped you. If your work bombed, not entirely your fault, you know? Everyone knew your genius was kind of lame."

 

That's really interesting! I've referred to my "muse" in a half joking way since I started writing. Usually I use it do describe why an idea does or doesn't light my creative fire, like "I'd really like to start working on Project A but the muse is steering me towards Project B so that's what I'm going with for now." I know I don't really have a muse, but it's shorthand for that weird disembodied subconscious decision making that happens outside of my awareness.

So to answer the OP question, yes, I trust my muse and I trust my process. Based on my experience they have rarely steered me wrong, and thus have earned that trust many times over.

 

I'm like this as well. My family has walked into the room where I'm writing more than once to hear me yell at my computer screen OH MY GOD WILL YOU TWO JUST STOP TALKING ABOUT YOUR GODDAMN FEELINGS AND JUST HAVE SEX FINALLY I DON'T HAVE ALL DAY HERE YOU KNOW

I do know that I'm the problem, not them, but I don't like yelling at myself.