Have you ever heard an author make the comment that a story wrote itself or a certain character dictated how they should develop? For example, Neil Gaiman, a favorite author of mine, just posted the following a few days ago on his blog:
I'm more or less happily writing Chapter Six of The Graveyard Book. I say more or less as I'm at that place where I hope that the book knows what it's doing because right now I don't have a clue -- I'm writing one scene after another like a man walking through a valley in thick fog, just able to see the path a little way ahead, but with no idea where it's actually going to lead him.This kind of comment has always made me mad. I've always thought, "Writing--good writing at least--is hard work. Where do these people get off with the story doing all the work for them? I've never had one of my characters come to life and tell me, 'Okay, Mister, this is how it's going to be.'"
I think I understand the comment a little better now. I just finished the first draft of the third episode of Map Makers. It currently comes in at 5,049 words. I wrote about 2,200 of those words (about half the story) in five hours today. Trust me, that is extremely fast for me. I like for them to come in under 5,000 words, so I still have a little revising to do before it's ready to post (and I'll be officially creeped out if it comes in at exactly 4,989 words.)
There is a plot development in the third episode (I'm not going to give it away, so you'll just have to read the story to find out) that I really didn't want to happen. I built the complication up and up and up until it was the only resolution that made sense. I thought of three alternate resolutions, but they all seemed such a stretch that they cheapened the story, so I kept the one I really didn't want to happen. I guess you could say, the story wrote itself.
2 comments:
When people say that a story wrote itself, my first reaction is to think that the story must not be very good, since it apparently didn't require a lot of thought.
Sometimes I'm wrong though. J.K. Rowling claims that the entire story of Harry Potter just popped into her head during a train ride one day.
I happened to write some anime fanfics a couple of years ago. I personally think that some stories write themselves because you have grown so accustomed to the characters (either the ones you create or the ones that you're fan of), that you already know how they'd react in a situation.
And this makes the characters do something that might affect others. So when you're punching the letters on the keyboard, the characters come to life. You're trying to adapt as best as you can, but your imagination is faster than the keyboard. You're just typing down, typing down, and wham. The next chapter is completed.
Writing a story requires both thought and imagination. But sooner or later, the imagination (i.e. the story) will lead the writer, and he'll have a hard time deciding whether to write what he saw and writing what he wants. Either way it's interesting and fantastic.
Post a Comment