Making decisions in a story
Mar. 4th, 2024 09:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jajalalaI've been spending some decent time working on the romance/adventure werewolves-and-vampires-in-space story, the original work I started a few months back for fun. I think I'm about half-way through the story, but the section I'm at... I've been struggling.
The characters travel to three planets, so most of the story is kind of divided into three arcs. I completed the first planet and felt satisfied that things made sense and had an overall guiding structure--they're searching for their missing human friend, but also encounter a main character's family who she had a falling out with, and learning+integrating with the culture there made for a good guiding star while writing. I felt like most the scenes naturally led into each other, and there were a good number of scenes I was excited to write. The fight scenes also worked and I felt like had clear stakes and played out in an organized way that made sense. There was a decent overall rising tension and climax for the arc.
Now though, they've gone to the second planet (vampire planet) and I find myself in much rockier ground. They're still trying to find their missing human friend, but they go about the search in several different ways, and I kind of feel like scenes are just getting mashed together. Occasionally I've been able to punch up some scenes by finding something to be excited about, but especially recently I feel like some of the stuff I'm writing is purely connective tissue that's not doing anything exciting.
And now I'm at a fight scene that I'm truly just like... "Why? And how could these two possibly get out of it?" I had a scene I was excited to write that I'm trying to build up to, but now looking at the setup I'm finding it unbelievable to lead to that, and it's frustrating to write.
There was a talk at Boskone about writing a fight scene, where the panelists talked about how it's important to set up the stakes of a fight scene and what needs to happen at the start, so as a reader you can gauge how close a character is to winning/losing a fight as its happening. I'm struggling to articulate and make clear the goals.
That might be it: I'm struggling to create a larger goal in each scene that makes sense and doesn't just feel like the characters riding down a river of a plot.
Anyway end result is that right now I'm looking at the past chapter or two I've written and am considering just trashing it to try a new direction. I already kind of did that once already where I trashed a page or two I had written and restarted. But even if I trashed this again, I don't even know WHAT new direction I would go that would still allow me to fulfill the key scenes I want to get in there... UGH! I need to take a long shower probably to force myself to really rotate the issue in my head.
Since my previous post bemoaning my struggle with world building, I feel like I have a strong sense of the first planet's world, and a decent sense of the second planet. Perhaps part of my struggle is that I haven't truly fully defined everything on the second planet--the second is a little more populated and city-like so it's hard to figure out restrictions. Still, I feel like I've got some handle on it.
The thing that's currently making me frustrated with myself is how I skip over side characters constantly. I just binge-read Dungeon Meshi, a lovely manga with really rich world building and characters, where every single character from important to background all have unique designs and a rich backstory that can be dug into, and now I'm looking at my own stuff like "WEAK".
I like to think I do a decent job with developing main characters. But when it comes to the people they sort of pass by and encounter along their journey, I tend to create the blurriest/default versions of characters. Like if I'm writing them checking into a place, why should I bother to develop the receptionist that checks them in? Or am I missing out on someone who could bring the world richness?
I don't know. At some point during the first planet arc, I paused and wrote out a little blurb for each person in a group of antagonists that I had been treating as sort of a cohesive blob, since I was getting them mixed up and struggled to keep them straight. Laying out a very brief backstory and personality for each really helped with an eventual fight scene, where I could have each react and play specific roles based on that guidance I laid out.
So in theory I feel like pausing to give each character a life and a unique personality SOUNDS good and all, but... there's only so much space on a page! I feel like I'm wasting time if I linger too long on extraneous info, and even if I spend time developing a receptionist's life story and the color of her nail polish does it really matter or is it worth it if her entire purpose is just to tell the characters there's only one room left at the hotel?
So as per usual I'm struggling to pin things down, whether that's scene stakes/goals or side character personalities. I'm indecisive at heart, so perhaps it's my natural indecision that wants to leave everything and everyone a bit of a blank slate for the reader to default their own conceptions into... but I don't think that's actually immersive or intriguing writing. It's more like my own cowardice/laziness/lack of skill in finding ways to balance describing the character/worlds without feeling like I'm just writing a laundry list.
The current scene(s) I'm writing are giving me a struggle, but maybe I can give myself a break by editing previous chapters and forcing myself to make more concentrated decisions. I could stop at every side character and imagine a backstory/personality. I love stories where every side character feels unique and like they could be someone's favorite (probably a key reason I love My Hero Academia!) but I haven't committed to that in my own storytelling.
(And yes, I AM writing this post to procrastinate instead of actually working on my story... ack!)
The characters travel to three planets, so most of the story is kind of divided into three arcs. I completed the first planet and felt satisfied that things made sense and had an overall guiding structure--they're searching for their missing human friend, but also encounter a main character's family who she had a falling out with, and learning+integrating with the culture there made for a good guiding star while writing. I felt like most the scenes naturally led into each other, and there were a good number of scenes I was excited to write. The fight scenes also worked and I felt like had clear stakes and played out in an organized way that made sense. There was a decent overall rising tension and climax for the arc.
Now though, they've gone to the second planet (vampire planet) and I find myself in much rockier ground. They're still trying to find their missing human friend, but they go about the search in several different ways, and I kind of feel like scenes are just getting mashed together. Occasionally I've been able to punch up some scenes by finding something to be excited about, but especially recently I feel like some of the stuff I'm writing is purely connective tissue that's not doing anything exciting.
And now I'm at a fight scene that I'm truly just like... "Why? And how could these two possibly get out of it?" I had a scene I was excited to write that I'm trying to build up to, but now looking at the setup I'm finding it unbelievable to lead to that, and it's frustrating to write.
There was a talk at Boskone about writing a fight scene, where the panelists talked about how it's important to set up the stakes of a fight scene and what needs to happen at the start, so as a reader you can gauge how close a character is to winning/losing a fight as its happening. I'm struggling to articulate and make clear the goals.
That might be it: I'm struggling to create a larger goal in each scene that makes sense and doesn't just feel like the characters riding down a river of a plot.
Anyway end result is that right now I'm looking at the past chapter or two I've written and am considering just trashing it to try a new direction. I already kind of did that once already where I trashed a page or two I had written and restarted. But even if I trashed this again, I don't even know WHAT new direction I would go that would still allow me to fulfill the key scenes I want to get in there... UGH! I need to take a long shower probably to force myself to really rotate the issue in my head.
Since my previous post bemoaning my struggle with world building, I feel like I have a strong sense of the first planet's world, and a decent sense of the second planet. Perhaps part of my struggle is that I haven't truly fully defined everything on the second planet--the second is a little more populated and city-like so it's hard to figure out restrictions. Still, I feel like I've got some handle on it.
The thing that's currently making me frustrated with myself is how I skip over side characters constantly. I just binge-read Dungeon Meshi, a lovely manga with really rich world building and characters, where every single character from important to background all have unique designs and a rich backstory that can be dug into, and now I'm looking at my own stuff like "WEAK".
I like to think I do a decent job with developing main characters. But when it comes to the people they sort of pass by and encounter along their journey, I tend to create the blurriest/default versions of characters. Like if I'm writing them checking into a place, why should I bother to develop the receptionist that checks them in? Or am I missing out on someone who could bring the world richness?
I don't know. At some point during the first planet arc, I paused and wrote out a little blurb for each person in a group of antagonists that I had been treating as sort of a cohesive blob, since I was getting them mixed up and struggled to keep them straight. Laying out a very brief backstory and personality for each really helped with an eventual fight scene, where I could have each react and play specific roles based on that guidance I laid out.
So in theory I feel like pausing to give each character a life and a unique personality SOUNDS good and all, but... there's only so much space on a page! I feel like I'm wasting time if I linger too long on extraneous info, and even if I spend time developing a receptionist's life story and the color of her nail polish does it really matter or is it worth it if her entire purpose is just to tell the characters there's only one room left at the hotel?
So as per usual I'm struggling to pin things down, whether that's scene stakes/goals or side character personalities. I'm indecisive at heart, so perhaps it's my natural indecision that wants to leave everything and everyone a bit of a blank slate for the reader to default their own conceptions into... but I don't think that's actually immersive or intriguing writing. It's more like my own cowardice/laziness/lack of skill in finding ways to balance describing the character/worlds without feeling like I'm just writing a laundry list.
The current scene(s) I'm writing are giving me a struggle, but maybe I can give myself a break by editing previous chapters and forcing myself to make more concentrated decisions. I could stop at every side character and imagine a backstory/personality. I love stories where every side character feels unique and like they could be someone's favorite (probably a key reason I love My Hero Academia!) but I haven't committed to that in my own storytelling.
(And yes, I AM writing this post to procrastinate instead of actually working on my story... ack!)
no subject
Date: 2024-03-04 06:11 pm (UTC)I really like the tip you shared about making the stakes clear in a fight scene! Also I do remember being given the advice that when getting stuck, the problem is often a paragraph or a chapter earlier, so you're likely thinking about it the right way. Good luck!
no subject
Date: 2024-03-05 09:53 pm (UTC):'( Yeah but when the problem is earlier that means I gotta rewrite more 😭😭😭 Alas. We fight on.
Thanks for the luck! I will keep trucking along.
no subject
Date: 2024-03-06 08:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-08 02:03 pm (UTC)Ahahah thank u I will share any tips if I find them. Unfortunately I've been procrastinating (and my roomie just finished draft 2 of a book that I've been spending most my free time reading) so I haven't actually done that editing I said I would yet XD
no subject
Date: 2024-03-09 11:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-05 03:43 am (UTC)*cheering for you*
no subject
Date: 2024-03-05 09:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-08 02:17 am (UTC)And I feel regarding being indecisive, it's hard to have a route being locked down without feeling trapped by it or sth idk
Anyways best of luck, you've got this 🍀💪
no subject
Date: 2024-03-08 02:04 pm (UTC)Thank you!!!!