They say that a good story writes itself, well I have been mulling over a project going on 5 years now and in that time have written maybe 2 or three paragraphs on page 1. I think that I have a great plot, good solid characters, and an emotional through-line that ties it all together. It's it just possible that, even with all the right elements in place and a real love for the characters and the plot, there's just no story to be told? There's no impetus. No inner life to be examined and sorted. I mean, I love cake and have all the ingredients on hand to bake a cake, but I've never baked a cake. It's the only explanation I can come to for not being able to get my characters moving, on the hunt, and jetting across the globe from point A to point B. What can you do if you have the desire to tell a story, but have no story to tell? The main reason I am asking is because I plan on going back to school and the application process requires submission of a portfolio and writing sample and feel that my project would serve as a strong foundation for acceptance if I could just show them that I know what I'm doing.
Haha. No it doesn't. You're going to be staring at a blank page for a long time if you wait around for that to happen. Whoever coined that phrase needs to be caned. Well, if you've got characters and a plot, that's a story. Sounds to me you're looking for some kind of deeper meaning or theme that makes the story "important." Those are good thoughts to have and be concerned about, but none of that higher order stuff has anything to adhere to until there's a story to support it. I guess if you have nothing to say then you have nothing to say? Have you written anything before? Do you enjoy doing it? Not to be cheeky, but if you answered no to either of those then maybe writing isn't for you. It's really hard, it takes a long time, and the payoff is often limited to your own pride and self-satisfaction. And not to be presumptuous on top of being cheeky, but if you've only written a few paragraphs in five years it doesn't sound as if you have much desire to write. You're probably closer to becoming an astronaut than a writer if that's the sum total of your creative output.
If you ever find you story writing itself, you may want to consider that you've got a haunted computer / typewriter / pen, and also I'll buy it off you for anything. Seriously though, this shit is work. Sometimes it flows easier than other times, but it's still work. I've had ideas sitting around for years that I haven't gotten to or haven't finished planning, and some of them I'll end up dropping because I've lost interest, while others are just waiting around for their turn - maybe in another few years. They're not gonna write themselves. I gotta actually do it. It seems to me like you have a story. At the risk of sounding harsh, "there's no real story" is an excuse. Write the thing. Then you'll know if there's a story or not.
I thought they say a good story does write itself. I think maybe you should ask yourself if this is what you want to go back to school for given how much you've actually written in the past five years. I'm guessing you are looking into MFA programs. I got my MFA pretty recently. I prepared for my application by writing like crazy for a full year before applying. These programs can be really competitive, especially if you are counting on a funded spot.
If you seriously can't squeeze any words out of a project, move on to another one. I know that sounds counter intuitive considering you've put a solid 5 years of mulling into it, but if in that time you've only managed 2 paragraphs then if might be time to cut the beast lose. If you'd rather not, and this is something I'd consider anyway just because it seems like it might be an issue, you might want to reevaluate your writing process. This isn't the same for everyone, but before I even start officially writing something I generally have, just, scads of things written already. Like, notebooks of how I imagine my characters, lines and conversations I imagine for them, plot points I want to include, etc. Mostly because I ain't gonna remember all that, but also because it's a great point to kick off a story from. Also, don't be afraid to badly write bad stories. Because remember:
If that was true, then we writers would be out of a job Personally, I have to build every story one piece at a time, and I'm constantly taking pieces out and seeing how changing one piece impacts everything else. That actually sounds a lot like me: when I start writing, the focus is on the things that are happening, but as I go on, the focus shifts to the people who are doing everything. And not just in a chronological sense of the first chapters being plot-driven while the last chapters are character-driven. I mean in the sense that my first vision of my pre-written chapters tends to be plot-driven, while my final vision of my re-written chapters tends to be character-driven. What do you feel that an "inner life to be examined and sorted" would look like that it doesn't yet? Ultimately, the most important things for me are: Start writing about the half-finished pieces that I already have, knowing that I'm going to replace a lot of the text after I come up with a more complete vision later. I got 3 chapters into my Doctor Who fanfic before I realized that leading protagonist Captain June Harper was more interesting as a serial killer than as one of the heroes Try to combine bits and pieces of different incomplete story ideas to see which ones can best complete each other I spent a year working on an Urban Fantasy setting that I loved, with characters that I loved, but no stories to tell about them, and I spent months working on a bank robbery scene that I loved, but no way to flesh it out into an entire story. Realizing that my bank robbery scene took place in my Urban Fantasy setting gave me a story about my bank robber characters discovering the existence of the supernatural for the first time
This times 100000000. I've written some pretty good stories, good enough for them to be accepted by a publisher at least, and every single one of them was some of the hardest work I've ever done. Ideas and story elements are, in my experience, fairly easy to come up with. It's weaving them all together, then putting them on the page in a way that's interesting and enjoyable for readers that's the tough stuff. It's staring at your computer screen at 2am on a work night screaming GODDAMMIT WHY CAN'T I GET THIS SCENE TO WORK????? You know what I do every time I write The End in one of my novels? I cry, because it's so hard, time consuming and often frustrating, and it's the best sense of accomplishment in the world to finally be done with the damn thing. I would also like to put in a bid for the instrument that writes stories on its own if you have one available.
I can recommend two things: One, write a short story about your idea first. It can be several pages, or less. Once the short story is done, you can go back and add detail, first here, then there. Watch as the story grows bigger each time you add an element. The second idea is to not worry about writing just yet. Instead, create the perfect outline to your story. Spend time each day adding detail to your outline. When you have finished the outline, then begin writing. Focus on one item in the outline at a time.
Oohh!! Idea for a horror story. Guy invents computer program that writes its own stories. Sells to greedy writer-wannabee, who starts taking credit for the stories it writes. Program gets pissed. Seeks revenge... BWAAHAHAHA!!!!! Oh. Sorry, Doctor. Won't let that happen again.
As others have said, if you have a plot and characters, you have a story. Can you clarify what's going wrong? Is it about perfectionism in the actual sentences, paragraphs, and pages?
No offense, but you don't sound like a writer. Writers write, and it doesn't happen by itself. If you can't get into your character and feel what he is feeling, then you can't portray that to a reader.
If you've never written more than 1-2 paragraphs of page 1, how could you claim that you "know what you're doing"? You've... not written anything. Writing is more than just ideas. I can't help but think you might be stuck because you're perhaps taking more than you can chew. It's like someone starting off in a pottery class - they start by making cups, because they are easy. They don't start off making angel sculptures - they would fail if they tried. Or someone starting a cooking class - they don't go straight for the Michelin star meals. They learn to make pasta first. Is it possible that you do have a great idea, and a vivid vision of how things should go, and you are simply lacking the skills to have that realised to the level you'd hope? My advice - first, get writing. Everything else is just talk. You need to write. And I'd say, perhaps try and write something that matters a little less to you, something you feel has less stakes than this baby of yours. (I don't say "baby" to be patronising - books we have spent years nurturing are precious to us and close to our hearts) Write something smaller where you might feel more able to write poorly and take a few risks, strengthen your writing muscles, and then come back to this idea. And I guess I have a question: why do you keep stopping? What's stopping you?
Addressing this: In my admittedly non-professional, not-published view, no, it doesn't. It might work that way for some people, but I think that's rare. Until very recently, for me, the words have had to be captured and thumbtacked to the pages, and they howl that this is not where they belong, just free them and give up, give up! Quite recently, scenes or half-scenes or moments sometimes flow at a reasonable clip, but I'm still tossing at least one scene in two in the scrap bucket, and the survivors tend to require multiple rewrites, and I know that those aren't the last rewrites for those scenes. It doesn't write itself. Again, there are exceptions, but holding off on writing until you can prove that you're the exception is not a strategy that gives you good odds. Now, that's not to say that I'm recommending that you just accept pick-and-shovel misery, because if it's misery, odds are high that you won't do it. I've only recently found a way to enjoy the process, and I really really hope the trick keeps working. But I am saying that however you find joy in the process, it's probably not going to be the joy of rapid effort-free writing.
I'm pretty sure you have a story, it sounds like you're just overwhelmed with putting words on the paper. Perhaps you're afraid that your first draft won't be golden? You just have to pick words and write them. Get the basics of your story down on paper, don't worry about the little details, those come in later. You're going to have to have multiple drafts; there's no getting around that. If this story means a lot to you, you'll put in the time in front of the screen or paper writing multiple drafts, revising those, and working through every single problem, big or small, you run into.
To some degree I am like you. I have been writing my sci-fi novel since about March this year. It started from a nickname my daughter used on facebook. It grew out of that. I had been picking away at it a few bits here and there, but it wasn't until my last vacation that I started thinking about how I really, really wanted to finish this particular book. I've written other books and submitted to publishers. Mainly the children's genre, because I'm a mother and a grandmother. So my advice to you is to not focus on what a great story it is, but on the actual activity of writing itself. Sitting yourself down at your computer, or buying a little book to just brainstorm with. I bought 3 books, one was from a second hand store, the other two from actual authors who have some fairly decent advice to share. If you want to become an expert at your craft you have to be willing to just sit down and write. Even if its 10-15 minutes a day. I'm sure you wouldn't go out and run a marathon right now. So why are you expecting to sit down and write a book? No writer, unless they're high on mushrooms, or cranked up on LSD is gonna sit down and hammer a decent book out in a day or two. I joined this site as a result of wanting to take my 'thought' and make it a reality. I suspect this may be the reason why you joined here too. In coming here, you can prime your writing engine and surround yourself with what seem to be some pretty cool individuals who have the same goal as you ---- to see their thoughts and ideas translated into something someone might enjoy reading AND something they could potentially be paid for. Additionally, you may find someone you could collaborate with on a story. I hope you can take this with the best of my intentions. Sit down, shut up, and get writing! Just keep doing it till something falls together and you have something that resembles a complete project. Don't let another day pass by without doing something about this, otherwise another 5 years will have gone by.
This does not actually work, by the way. Just a heads up. Definitely would not recommend trying this at all.
I feel like I've said this before (remarkably), but no, he's not closer to becoming an astronaut. Becoming an astronaut is harder.
If you really have all of that in mind -- solid characters and the overall emotional line -- then write them down and let them develop as you do so. But I suspect you are like most of us, you have a vague idea, and trying write it out confirms that you haven't fully developed it. The only way to do that is to sit down and write it. Everybody has stories in their head -- writers write them out. No good story has ever written itself - and if and when you start writing you will see that anything that "writes itself" is not worth writing.
If you have the ingredients, go out and find a story diagram or a 3 act structure & plug in the pieces. If nothing happens then, move on.
