So, I have this really great story. How great you ask? Well, not so great, it's been rejected by AHMM and Plots With Guns. But the thing is, I love this story, so I started reworking the ending as I felt maybe I'd rushed it a bit.
In reworking the ending I found that my character, who'd spent time in prison and was heading home after twenty years inside, had also been tapped by law enforcement ( still working on which branch ) to help them break up a drug ring inside the prison. Since he's served his time, he's heading home to another set of problems ( still working on that, too, as the ones that put him in prison, don't quite work with the new direction of the story ). Now, he's pissed off the cons because of his undercover work and he's pissed off the law because he refuses to keep working for them, and once he gets home his brother presents another set of problems. God, this story is getting complicated!
Anyhoo, when I get to a spot in a story that isn't working, I drag out my note pad and start writing down questions and possible answers. Five pages in, I realize that, hey, this the back story of that guy in one of my (many) unfinished stories. The story that I couldn't figure out an ending for after nearly two grand in words. So, I start making scribbles with the pen to see if maybe this could work and another five pages into my notes? Hey, this might work.
So now I've got ten pages of notes and 5000 words of already written stories that need to be combined into one. Not sure what I'm looking at here or where it'll end up but hey, I ain't complaining.
What about you? Ever combine bits and pieces of stories together to create one better story? And how do you work through your plotting woes?
And our advice today comes from David Morrell's "Lessons From a Lifetime of Writing".
"The key to your character is what he or she wants and what obstacles must be overcome to achieve that goal (the motive and conflict without which there cannot be a plot).
2 comments:
I have done that while finding a common element so it fits with the credibility for a reader. I tend to write my stories in bits and pieces and then sew them together with to allow them to flow.
Welcome, Barbara! I prefer my stories to just flow from beginning to end when I'm writing but that doesn't always happen. So there's great joy when something clicks in one piece to mix with another. It's getting them to blend together that gives me fits, as I really hate to delete what I've already written and always when combining two stories something has to go. At such moments I do my mantra, "Kill your darlings - kill your darlings - dammit, suck it up and kill your darlings, it has to be done."
Post a Comment