So I posted a little blurb on Facebook about starting over in a novel I'm working on (the one I did NaNoWriMo about) because I was writing the wrong story. A friend of mine asked--in all caps, so I know she was serious--how that could happen.
To her, then, and to anyone else who's interested, here's a little more on that.
What I meant was that I'd created my protagonist and had her pretty well fleshed out (not quite where she was always writing herself, but close) and had done a lot on world-building to where I was satisfied. I had the end line all worked out, and the main beats of the story plotted.
But I was almost 60,000 words in and I wasn't interested. I myself was bored, which would mean the reader would be very much bored. I wasn't telling her story--or rather, I wasn't telling the story that needed to be told. I was telling (which was key right there: it was really telling, not showing, which I know is trite but it's still true) her background, her circumstance, everything that I knew about her that had gone into making her who she was but wasn't actually giving her anything to do, other than just live her life.
I told myself, "it'll get good once I get through all this stuff. I have to tell it, because it sets up some stuff later."
What I forgot was some advice I usually give out to my own students and fellow writers when they ask me questions. The most interesting part of your story is the part you're working on now. The best page of your story is the one your pen is on. And so on. You get the picture.
It's not all bad news--all the work I've done is valuable, since it goes to her character and backstory. But that doesn't mean it all needs to be written out. I need to know it, and I need her story to inform the parts I'll show the reader, but I don't need to show Captain Kirk filling out personnel reports. Sure, he must do that, but that's not where his story is.
I hope this makes more sense now, my friend!
Be seeing you!
To her, then, and to anyone else who's interested, here's a little more on that.
What I meant was that I'd created my protagonist and had her pretty well fleshed out (not quite where she was always writing herself, but close) and had done a lot on world-building to where I was satisfied. I had the end line all worked out, and the main beats of the story plotted.
But I was almost 60,000 words in and I wasn't interested. I myself was bored, which would mean the reader would be very much bored. I wasn't telling her story--or rather, I wasn't telling the story that needed to be told. I was telling (which was key right there: it was really telling, not showing, which I know is trite but it's still true) her background, her circumstance, everything that I knew about her that had gone into making her who she was but wasn't actually giving her anything to do, other than just live her life.
I told myself, "it'll get good once I get through all this stuff. I have to tell it, because it sets up some stuff later."
What I forgot was some advice I usually give out to my own students and fellow writers when they ask me questions. The most interesting part of your story is the part you're working on now. The best page of your story is the one your pen is on. And so on. You get the picture.
It's not all bad news--all the work I've done is valuable, since it goes to her character and backstory. But that doesn't mean it all needs to be written out. I need to know it, and I need her story to inform the parts I'll show the reader, but I don't need to show Captain Kirk filling out personnel reports. Sure, he must do that, but that's not where his story is.
I hope this makes more sense now, my friend!
Be seeing you!
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