I find myself dropping by Chuck Wendig's blog, Terrible Minds, several times a week. Why, you might ask, the man is loud and he uses curse words, why would you want to read his blog?
Because I always find some truth about writing in his posts. The man believes in what he's doing and he's not afraid to share what he's learned or what works in his writing process. Take yesterday's post for example http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2010/05/25/before-you-start-writing-ask-what-is-this-about/ And not just the post itself, but the discussion that follows is full of intelligent ideas to consider when you're writing.
The big what-is-this-about question raises it ugly head every time you put words to paper. I've never been one to ask before I start writing - but somewhere into those first five hundred to a thousand words of a short story I do start asking myself what is this about, why is this character acting like this, is there a point here? If there's no underlying reason for the characters to be doing what they're doing the story usually falls flat on its face.
So, you're wondering, does every story need a point? Well, haven't you read a story and got to the end and said, "Yeah, so?" I have, especially in some of the neo-noir work. It just seems like the writer is going from one massive gross-out scene to the next and then the story ends without there being any rhyme or reason for the character's actions. All stories need a purpose, they need to have a reason for being other than for the writer to get a publication credit for their resume.
In a short story you don't need to beat your reader over the head with your theme, but it does need to be there to make your story more than just pretty words. Every story deserves a reason for being.
7 comments:
Very true. I find too many short stories online that are about a hitman making a hit (or failing) but having no other point or aspect than the action itself. It's numbing. And the sad thing is, I'm guilty of it myself.
Sometimes it's hard for a writer to juggle both the images of the story and the point of the story. Good writers do it and good stories do it, but it is two different things that a writer has to keep in mind.
I find myself doing the same thing, Naomi! I think it comes down to the fact that we're told to jump into the action to get the readers attention and then we don't know how to get off the roller coaster gracefully.
I agree, Charles. The images comes faster for me and I'm so busy writing them down, that I tend to forget that there needs to be more. Thank god for rewrites!
I haven't read any stories that left me asking, "yah, so?" but I've sure written a few like that.
Most memorably was a short story serial I wrote for my blog. I had no idea what I wanted one of the main characters to say, which was the central theme to the story.
I kept on writing the story, assuming all the while that the key plot point (what the main character wanted to say) would come to me.
About twenty pages later, that key plot point never emerged, even though I kept on writing various situations for the main character to get in and out of.
Suffice to say, I wound up shelving that story, and for the past nine months, has sat lonely and forlorn waiting for me to figure what the heck was that key plot point supposed to be.
I have a few stories like that in my files, G. After a while something will click and you'll pull that story out and finish it. Sometimes you just need a little time and distance to see where the problem is.
Paul Schrader used to ask would be screenwriters what he called The Question (though it was really two questions).
-Why do you have to write this?
-What do you really want to write about?
Both good questions, Brian! I found myself writing some pretty vulgar stories back a couple of years ago until I realized that those weren't the stories I wanted to tell, and I didn't need to write that type of story just to get published.
I think writers try so hard to fit into a niche or to write what they think will sell, that they forget to stay true to the real stories that live in them. That sounds kind of woo-woo, but I believe every writer has those stories that only they can write. They just need to let go and write them.
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