Thursday, April 2, 2009

Wasted Writing?

A couple of posts back I was bemoaning the fact that I'd totally screwed up a short story I was writing. Now, that story is mellowing out in my brain, searching for the proper notes to make it dance to its own music. But in that wrong story, I discovered several paragraphs that work within the frame of another story I'm working on.

One of the things I discovered was a description of Rachael Reilly's home that I'd been wracking my brain for. I could see the space in my mind but I couldn't seem to get it down on paper in a way that captured the reasons Rachael lives the way she does. Here's her home as seen through Harry's eyes.

"Rachael lived on the upper floor of a two story brick building that used to house a dress factory before they started shipping that kind of work overseas. The space was completely open, almost bare, so the line of sight wasn't cluttered. In one of the back corners a loft had been built for her sleeping area. There was no way anyone could ambush this lady, even in her own home."

What I love about that paragraph is that it captures the state of the city she lives in, where jobs are vanishing and buildings are being deserted. It also shows how paranoid she is about keeping herself safe, which goes back to her days on the street. How cool is that?

I was also able to draw a better picture of a few other characters who live in Rachael's world. While the original short story didn't work on one level, it did open up enough to give me a better feel for Rachael and her world. Which proves the point that no writing is wasted, there's always something in the words we put down on paper that we can use, even if only a simple sentence or paragraph.

So the next time you're getting ready to toss a story in the circular file, take a second look. Maybe your brain wasn't working on that story because it was mulling through another one, trying to pick up threads that you dropped. No time spent writing is wasted, you just have to pick through the muddled story to find the true gems that your writer's brain was searching for.

10 comments:

Barbara Martin said...

Nothing is wasted, Sandra. I jot down my dreams each morning that I have them and sometimes there is an scene or two that can be made into a short story. I have one about talking mice with a vicious twist at the end.

sandra seamans said...

Talking mice? That sounds like an intriguing story, Barbara. I'm afraid I'd be writing only war stories if I wrote from my dreams. Some of the most vivid ones involve entire battlefield scenes that would make you shiver. And I haven't a clue where they come from.

pattinase (abbott) said...

This is so true. Sometimes you just have to put it aside and let you subconscious to what it does.

sandra seamans said...

Yeah, but learning to trust that subconsious voice is difficult. Some days I try so hard to shape a story into what I want it to be that I just want to throw it up against a wall. But if I force myself to let go, it suddenly turns into something beautiful that I wasn't even expecting.

I wonder why we're so afraid to trust that voice in our head and give it free rein?

pattinase (abbott) said...

Well, on my part, I was brought up by people rooted in everyday stuff. Daydreaming was not encouraged.

G. B. Miller said...

I have on many occasions, gotten completely lost while writing stories, simply because I was juggling two or three at the same time.

But like you said, if you put them aside and just let one perculate in your head throughout the day, it really does make the writing easier.

Conda Douglas said...

I never completely throw anything away (God bless computer files). And I've found the "trash" stories to be simply the beginning of a story. I'll pull elements out, much as you did here, Sandra and find them extremely useful--as was this post!

sandra seamans said...

Growing up in the country where the closest neighbor kid was half a mile away, I spent most of my time with my nose in a book and my head in the clouds, Patti. Probably where all those strange voices come from. ;)

That's the worst part about writing several stories at one time, G. You tend to get lost but stepping away and doing something else does makes it easier to focus.

I'm a packrat when it comes to my writing, Conda. Lots of times I'll be writing a story when it hits me that one of those stalled stories is exactly what I need to make the new story work. Or the characters for one story will work better in another.

Barbara Martin said...

Sandra, your battle dreams: are they recent times or from the past?

sandra seamans said...

Not sure, Barbara. I'm always running with smoke and bombs going off, bullets flying and someone chasing me. I find myself bellycrawling across the ground and rolling through ditches until I wake up in a cold sweat. Really freaky.

I was thinking about this after you asked your question and realized that I do write some war stories but they're always of the spec-fic genre with aliens or angels in them.