The End Has No End, or When It Doesn’t Come Easy

So this was where I was last week:

Le sigh.

I hate not knowing the ending to a story I’m actively working on! It’s like jumping from a plane without a parachute. Alas and alack, I’m freefalling right this very minute!

I’m in the midst of writing for a web comic my friend and I will be launching. There will be three series on the coming website: a set of more experimental or artistic comic stories; an action-oriented, supernatural venture; and a fun, fun good times end of the world romp.

The action-oriented series is my problem child. I’ve sketched out half the chapters, but the ending is still being either stubborn or shy and won’t come out of hiding. All I’m working with are vague shadows of what I’m maybe kinda of possibly halfway sure the ending should probably look something like. Arg! I can’t work under these conditions. If I could wring this story by its scrawny neck, I would have choked the hell out of it by now!

I’ve heard rumors and murmurings that there are writers out there who never know their ending until they get there. Purportedly, they “write to find out” how their story is going to end. That, my friends, sounds like a vital ingredient of insanity soup. It has to be! Because I am going crazy here!

And my brain hurts a little.

What is especially frustrating is that things have been going much more smoothly for the fun, fun good times end of the world romp. Ridiculously smooth…

Inspiration* (In Three Easy Steps!):

· Day One: Think of interesting phrase, realize interesting phrase would make as even more interesting title, come up with main character within minutes.

· Week One: Come up with supporting characters. Start settling on names. Steal time while at work to jot down the dialogue that keeps popping into your head. REALIZE THE ENDING TO EVERYTHING!! OMG!! IT’S PERFECT! IT’S BEAUTIFUL! I LOVE IT! OMG! I FEEL SO SAD FOR ALL THE PEOPLE WHO DON’T KNOW YET HOW AWESOME THE ENDING IS GOING TO BE AND HAVE TO WAIT MONTHS TO FIND OUT!!!!

· Onward: Everything flows naturally and easily from there. The characters never stop talking to each other in your head and every time you sit down to your computer liquid gold springs forth from your fingertips.

See! That’s how it’s supposed to go! Like Jay-Z laying down a track! (I hear he does it all in one go.)

Usually if a story isn’t agreeing with me, I’d switch over from Project A to Project B. Until I hit a wall on Project B. At which point I return to Project A with a fresh pair of eyes. But when I have a deadline (even if it is self-imposed) and am accountable to a creative partner, jumping ship just won’t do.

Where I’ve landed this week:

I’ve been forced to remember that even when the ideas aren’t flowing trippingly from the brain, stories still manage to get themselves written. They still want to be born into the world.

Ew. I just sounded all touchy-feely new age-y in that last paragraph. So let me say it this way instead: Just because the ideas aren’t leaping from the cliffs of your imagination and onto your paper like a herd of lemmings, doesn’t mean they aren’t there. What it means is you might have to reach up there and coax them down (or knock them loose with a broomstick. Whatevs). It’s important not to get trapped into one way of doing things. We can use what works while it’s working, but when the modus operandi stops operandi-ing, then what? We wait patiently for the muses to be so kind as to reappear?

Sure, if you have the luxury. But if not, it might be worth your time to know how to break on through to the other side of that stone wall you’ve hit. For me that means talking it out. This works best when I force– I mean, ask someone to be my sounding board. A family member, a friend, an innocent, bystanding co-worker who was unfortunate– I mean, privileged to take their lunch break at the same time as me.

This person doesn’t have to be another writer. Despite my threats, I’m not really demanding that they come up with the solution to my story troubles, though their questions are welcomed and helpful. The act of trying to explain what I want to happen in a story helps me untangle jumbled elements, calls attention to holes that need filling so’s I stop falling into them, or just forces me to actively think about what I’m doing for a concentrated chunk of time.

I’m excited to report that after cornering a co-worker in the break room and trapping my sister on the phone, I’ve realized my ending and the middle parts are now falling into place.

I guess I can’t be too mad at my ending for being all coy and elusive. It’s good and necessary to be reminded that sometimes the “being inspired” part of writing is hard work. It can’t all come from that magical land of “it just came to me.”

(sniff. sniff.) The video I wanted to share with you isn't working because it's mean and it hates me, but if you want to see an educational and relevant piece about where jokes come from click the pic or here. Or even here if you want to be different.

*Material derived from process subject to rewrites and revisions.

Pre-writing Schme-writing

So, it was pretty cool of Tahereh Mafi to host a bloglinkapalooza, huh? It’s been great seeing the many different approaches to doing this blogging thing. I found a bunch of new interesting, funny, clever folks to follow, as well as gained some new interesting, funny, clever readers (hello and welcome! I’ll try not to suck as a blogger!). I’m not even halfway through the list yet, but I’m determined to get all the way to through to the last blog because this has been a great opportunity to see who else is out there!

On to today’s topic!

I've never been a fan of pre-writing. It never seemed as fun to be as, you know, writing writing. Besides, any discoveries that I could have made while pre-writing can just as easily be made during writing writing, and then I just have to go back and adjust the manuscript as needed.

Yeah, well, when the thing you realize is a your characters’ wants, needs, and motivations – and you’ve already written the entire novel – going back and adjusting everything from the beginning turns out to be a lot of work. A lot more than pre-writing probably would have been. (That’s not to say that there won’t be things to discover along the way even after doing pre-writing.)

So this time around, as I regain interest in a WIP I started and then stopped writing months ago, I thought that maybe I’d give some of this pre-writing business a go. Tentatively. Not like it’ll kill me or anything. Right?

I’ve found myself gravitating toward articles about plot—and as you may already know, many folks have had much to say on the subject. I lean towards the school of thought that plot comes out of character. Learning about plot structures can be helpful, but is only half the job if I don’t consider who my characters are and how what they want effects what they do.

Thusly, ergo, concordantly, vis-à-vis, for my first official voluntarily-embarked-upon-pre-writing exercise in a really long time, I decided to start by asking myself: What does your MC want? From there I could ask myself what he would do to get it and that in turn would help me discover what should be happening in my story.

Way back when I started writing this particular story (and got 20,000 words into it), had I even asked myself what my MC wants?

Apparently, I was waiting ‘til I got to the end of the manuscript to find out.

Well, when I finally got around to asking myself that question, the answer was pretty obvious. But then I had a new problem. The thing he wants is not just out of his reach, it is as out of his control as anything can be. Fate, it seems, is the only thing that would land him his want. How does a character actively pursue something that is basically like pre-destined only no one knows who is pre-destined for it until it’s like “BAM! Congrats! You’re invited to the party?” He can’t! That’s how!!

I’m doomed. MY STORY IS DOOMED!!! DOOOOOOOOMED!!!!! DOOMY DOOMY DOOMED!!!!

Or, I guess I can try and see if there’s anything he can do about it. Since I’m already kinda invested in this.

So I continued my questions, typing my questions and answers out as they came to mind. After “What does my character want?” came “Is there anything he can do to make that happen? Why not? So what the next best thing?” and more from there.

I think I was going a little easy on myself as an interviewer. Barbara or Oprah would have asked better questions. Wendy Williams would have been more invasive. I'll have to work on channeling them next time.

But actually, my questioning sent me on a nice little winding road. If I couldn’t think of a question to prod things along, I fell back to “Then what?” and “What’s the worse that can happen?” This exercise took me places that had very little or nothing at all to do directly with his want, but since it came out of his want (bad decisions bring about certain consequences) I figured that was okay.

Soon I started a second document and started with the same four questions, but thought of a new answer as to what the “next best thing” might be. That sent me off on a whole other adventure. Then I had to open another new document because I thought, What if he hears a rumor that there is a way to trick fate into giving him what he wants? What would the rumor say he had to do? What’s the worse thing the rumor could say he had to do? What if he goes though all that and finds out the rumor isn’t even a little bit true? What if the rumor is true?

Maybe I’ll try this out on some other wants and some other characters. Potentially I’ll have like a gazillion strands of plot and I can let their powers combine to create some kind of super awesome plot mutant with rainbow powers of engaging the reader!

And this is before I’ve entered the possibility of how the antagonist may complicate things. Suddenly I’m wandering through a garden of forking paths (bonus points for literary reference!). Or I can use a door analogy.

Okay, maybe that last reference was a little forced, but Will Ferrell is just so funny!

While I may not put everything that comes from this exercise into my WIP, it has certainly given me a lot to think about. Maybe there is something to this pre-writing stuff after all, eh?

So, pre-writing. Do you do it? Got a favorite exercise?