Finding Your Stories
Dec. 29th, 2003 08:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cpolkA lot about writing is hard, don't get me wrong. And it seems like it's a never ending series of skills that you must learn. First you're avoiding the passive voice and said-bookisms. Then you're sailing through the wreckage of descriptive passages that halt the story in its tracks or questions of narrative perspective. Then you're looking at characterization and poring through rhetoric, trying to make your phrasing sing, because next you're looking at style and structure and trying to write a story that works...
And on top of all this, you have to be original? Dude, you're killing me here.
But it's true. Some may argue that it's even truer of the incredibly competitive short fiction market, but not only as a new writer do you have to write a story as good as the established pros, you have to write one that's *better.* Because your story has to beat their stories. So yeah, you have to be original.
Ah, I hear you say. But all stories have already been done! Observe: The 36 Dramatic Situations!
Yes. I see your 36 Dramatic Situations and raise you The Grand List of Overused Science Fiction Clichés AND Stories We See Too Often. Howzat? It might give a sense of what I'm talking about here. Especially when you look down the list and point at things you know you've seen in stories before, and in good stories, stories you sincerely enjoyed.
Yes, that's true. absolutely. You've seen these stories before, and they've kicked complete butt. Heck, I accepted a story for Ideomancer that was "Medical Science discovers a way to recreate you after your death, but here's a case that goes wrong." I *sold* a story that was little more than a twist on Dorian Gray. At pro rates.
Oh, I've betrayed the key word here - twist. But that's only half way. So instead of it being a portrait of the eternally young that takes on all the age and dissipation of the eternally young, instead it's a painting of someone the supernatural person loved, and wanted to create a good afterlife for - and so it became an afterlife, and everyone she loves goes there, making her a kind of lord of the dead.
But that's not what sold the story, either.
What sold the story was that I took the idea and put myself into it. I made it my story. I put my own hopes, my own fears, my own romanticism into it, and by doing that, I made a story that no one else could. I have to do this, if I'm going to write a story. Otherwise it's just going to be flat.
I don't come up with original stories. I work on coming up with a unique story, the one that only I can tell. I did a retelling of Cinderella - quite possibly the most re-told fairy tale ever. I even tossed in The Heir To The Kingdom is Given To Humble Peasants To Raise, Until the Day of Destiny Comes. What came out barely resembles Cinderella. What came out was a story that was mine.
One of the things that folks in my cabal mention is "toss out your first three ideas." Those are the easy ones. The ones that spring to mind are the simplest, the closest to the original story model, and also the most impersonal. It's not so intimidating to write a version of The Little Mermaid as it is to get down into how it felt to suffer unrequited love in 1997... or even a month ago. But dare to unearth that pain, and you'll find people connecting emotionally with that character.
To write the story that stands out, then, you've got to get personal.
And on top of all this, you have to be original? Dude, you're killing me here.
But it's true. Some may argue that it's even truer of the incredibly competitive short fiction market, but not only as a new writer do you have to write a story as good as the established pros, you have to write one that's *better.* Because your story has to beat their stories. So yeah, you have to be original.
Ah, I hear you say. But all stories have already been done! Observe: The 36 Dramatic Situations!
Yes. I see your 36 Dramatic Situations and raise you The Grand List of Overused Science Fiction Clichés AND Stories We See Too Often. Howzat? It might give a sense of what I'm talking about here. Especially when you look down the list and point at things you know you've seen in stories before, and in good stories, stories you sincerely enjoyed.
Yes, that's true. absolutely. You've seen these stories before, and they've kicked complete butt. Heck, I accepted a story for Ideomancer that was "Medical Science discovers a way to recreate you after your death, but here's a case that goes wrong." I *sold* a story that was little more than a twist on Dorian Gray. At pro rates.
Oh, I've betrayed the key word here - twist. But that's only half way. So instead of it being a portrait of the eternally young that takes on all the age and dissipation of the eternally young, instead it's a painting of someone the supernatural person loved, and wanted to create a good afterlife for - and so it became an afterlife, and everyone she loves goes there, making her a kind of lord of the dead.
But that's not what sold the story, either.
What sold the story was that I took the idea and put myself into it. I made it my story. I put my own hopes, my own fears, my own romanticism into it, and by doing that, I made a story that no one else could. I have to do this, if I'm going to write a story. Otherwise it's just going to be flat.
I don't come up with original stories. I work on coming up with a unique story, the one that only I can tell. I did a retelling of Cinderella - quite possibly the most re-told fairy tale ever. I even tossed in The Heir To The Kingdom is Given To Humble Peasants To Raise, Until the Day of Destiny Comes. What came out barely resembles Cinderella. What came out was a story that was mine.
One of the things that folks in my cabal mention is "toss out your first three ideas." Those are the easy ones. The ones that spring to mind are the simplest, the closest to the original story model, and also the most impersonal. It's not so intimidating to write a version of The Little Mermaid as it is to get down into how it felt to suffer unrequited love in 1997... or even a month ago. But dare to unearth that pain, and you'll find people connecting emotionally with that character.
To write the story that stands out, then, you've got to get personal.
