How Can I Stop Writing Nothing?

[JoanDrake]

Mind, I'm not asking where does one get ideas. I don't get as many as some but it seems enough for my purposes

I can write short vignettes, and a few times I've even managed to string them together into fair length narratives. However, I can never manage to get them to GO anywhere, to make a story with a beginning, middle and end.

A big problem I have is that I just write. I don't work from an outline and sometimes don't even have a general idea. I know that sounds just terribly lazy but I have tried and it never works. The result seems terribly forced and I'm denied one of the real pleasures of writing, when my characters do things that surprise me.

I've had this problem since HS and college, even with nonfiction and assigned subjects. I would often have to write the paper and THEN outline it. I always got them in on time but I had to work really hard the first few weeks of some courses.

I've read some books on outlining but have never yet found one that tells you how to do it as you're writing. Does anyone know of any?

 

[HareBrain]

Can't recommend any books, but I think it might if you decided where you wanted the story to go (or one important place along its length) without working out how to get there. That way you might get a sense of direction without removing all the surprises you might feel a detailed outline would deny you.

All my long stories came about by figuring out how to join up scenes I had in my head before I started.

 

[Dante DiBenedetto]

Start with an end to a Plot. Make some interesting characters than can lead you to that end. Throw in some subplots to keep it not too one dimensional.

 

[Abernovo]

Not sure how much this will help, but use any part of it if you think it might.

I have two separate documents open. The first is my story. The second is for my characters and where they're going in their next few steps with the script. I started using this to keep a note on names (despite a pretty good memory, I'm useless with names in real life as well) and the characters' relationships to each other. Then I started adding to it as I thought of something, but didn't want to break away from the scene I was writing, so I made a quick note.

It builds into a plot as I'm going, with who's going to come in an do 'X' and what my characters' aims/desires etc. may be. Admittedly, I normally start with something vaguely in mind, but it tends to be pretty open and unstructured, so hopefully not so different from you. I find it focusses my mind a little, so that the characters can still do something surprising, but keep following some semblance of a path. And I can always change things as a new development occurs - it's not rigid.

As to why no book has worked for you: possibly because you haven't found the right system for you yet. We're all different and one structure does not fit all. Good luck.

 

[allmywires]

Remember it's different for everyone, though, and planning everything meticulously isn't always the way forward. The WIPs I've enjoyed writing most are the ones that are not constrained to plot: I started with a simple idea and expounded on it. I think the most important thing is to know what you want to achieve by writing it - how you characters will change with the journey - and what you want them to go through during the book. I keep a notes file, like Abernovo, which gives me a very, very rough sketch of the near plot points of the novel. These are usually loose enough that they can be changed quite easily.

I'm sure you'll find your 'way', you just have to unfortunately go through ones that don't work first to see which style fits you.

 

[Montero]

Well, you could try talking with yourself. This is a variant on what others have already said.

Sometimes stories just flow, other times I reach a point in a story and start a separate file and discuss all the options with myself.

Very basic example here:

A - really likes fast space ships and is a bit short on morals, what if he finally gives way to temptation and nicked a space ship - "just for a quick try".

B - is really in a hurry to get their goods delivered on time, getting anxious, but there is no reason why the delivery shouldn't be on time, everything has worked fine all week so why are they being such a fuss budget?

Options

1 - delete all the fussbudget stuff because it is boring me and will bore the reader

2 - A nicks B's space ship (or is that too obvious and too dramatic for this stage in the story?)

3. Because A nicked a space ship all the shipping lanes are shut down and hence B's delivery is late, if only he'd left ten minutes earlier he'd have lifted before shutdown.

4. B witnesses A stealing a space ship and has the moral dilemma of making his delivery on time or reporting the theft and losing his bonus due to being a good citizen.

5. During the theft, A crashes into B, initially causing his life to take a plunge due to the non-delivery but he meets a really cute nurse in the hospital.

Sometimes I then have an "ooh" moment. As in, ooh, if third character comes along and does "x" that will then make option n really make sense and lead to x and y and z and oh look here comes a sequel.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Everyone has their own way. I just keep asking myself ''How can I make this worse?'' Then when I hit about fifty thousand words start asking ''How can I make this better?''

If the scene is comedic then using ''How can I make this even sillier?'' also works.

 

[Montero]

Further thoughts - ask yourself what would happen through combining some of your ideas.
As in think about putting two of your ideas in one story, instead of separate ones - pick two and just take a look at how they'd fit and how they'd interact.

(Though your stringing together remark suggests you've already tried that.)

 

[Tecdavid]

Don't try to outline the entire story when you get started on a new piece of work. Think of a premise, and a conclusion/ultimate that you'd want the story to come to. After that, try only outlining specific points in the story. Not the whole thing - just important points throughout it. These might help keep the direction of your story in check, and how the characters reach those points is entirely up to you.
I can't say how well it will work for you, of course, but if you give it a try, you might find that you can write as freely as you like, but with a direction set firmly in mind.

 

[goldhawk]

A good part of learning to write is learning what works for you. From what you wrote above, it seems that outlining is not for you.

I think the reason your stories aren't going anywhere is because your protagonist doesn't have an internal conflict. A story has an action conflict (physical struggle) or a character conflict (social struggle) that put pressure on the protagonist's internal conflict (emotional struggle). When writing, ask yourself: What part of my protagonist's personality is the part he doesn't want to face and what external events can I create to put pressure on him to face it? I think you'll find this will carry your story to its climax. There, your protagonist finally faces it (comedy) or avoids it (tragedy).

 

[Mouse]

Start with an end to a Plot.

I agree with this. I start with a vague idea but usually after the first chapter I know what my end scene is. Then all I have to do is make up the middle!

So yeah, maybe try starting with what you want the end to be then just work out how to get there.

 

[notveryalice]

I find my subconscious mind usually plots books for me--which means I pants my way through, and by the time I get to the end the plot resembles nothing so much as tangled coloured yarn (you can follow each strand to the end if you try hard enough but do you really want to?).

I have to go back and clean up/simplify before the book becomes readable. Please do not follow in my footsteps.

I love Goldhawk's post, and I agree. I add, from my own experience--do not rush plot. You must have things happening on every page, but if you rush plot points you'll put too many of them in and voila: yarn.

Have patience with yourself. What takes you three days to write will often take ten minutes to read.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Joan, I am exactly like that, myself! I always did the outlines last -- because how are you supposed to know where everything goes until it's there, anyway?

And I write the same way -- just sit down and go, and find out what happens.

I don't know of any techniques for outlining as you go, really, but I've found with my WIP that a framework kind of fell into place along the way. I hit a point where something occurred to me that made it all make sense. I had to go back and change some things after I thought of the outline, but if I'd had to wait for the outline to be there before I started writing, it never would have been written at all, so it was much better to do it the way I did and lose some stuff.

 

[Boneman]

Stick at it, you're already a long way on the path to the endpoint. You have to write a million words before you can see clearly... Even if the end-result in your opinion is rubbish, you can then go back and edit endlessly and end up with a crucible full of gold, with all the impurities burned off. But you gotta put the base metals in there in the first place...

 

[Hex]

I agree. Just write and keep writing. I normally have an endpoint in view (I was trained to plan extensively, point by point, so I get twitchy if I have no idea where I'm going). Despite that, I normally end up with a tangle (though probably not as colourful and attractive to kittens as nva's) and have to go through and rewrite so the start bit fits with the end -- writing the end is normally where I get the sense of the full shape of the story and what's actually going on at the beginning.

Having said that, I've only written two novel-length manuscripts (and only finished -- almost -- one of them) so it's maybe a bit early to claim I have A Method.

 

[chrispenycate]

I'm not much of an example, not having got anything longer than a short story finished to my satisfaction yet, but I do like to have a final destination visible on the horizon when I start writing (America, land of the free, which will allow me to stop looking up the tail end of this donkey, and let me start watching the equivalent portion of an infinitely preferable transatlantic beast, while worrying if heathen savages might want to give me a very short haircut), even if I'm fully aware that the quality of characters I can afford are bound to get lost en route, and end up far off their original plotted path.

But I'm just the author; they only have to listen to me at all because otherwise I might rain earthquakes or hurricanes at them. Gods don't have it easy, but do get the opportunity for smiting occasionally.

 

[matle]

I find it useful to maintain a bullet point list of the main things I want to get into the story...then once I have a decent number of words on the page I try and write a brief overview covering the story from start to finish. This is normally one of the key things for me as I often find that my stories can be drifting off (and becoming a bit too long) so maintaining a focus on where I want to get to is key, otherwise I end up having to be a bit militant and cut swathes of text out at the end anyway which can be a bit disappointing!

 

[Toby Frost]

If I was in this position, I'd do the following:

1) Not write anything at all for a while. Just turn over ideas and wait for the ones that really interest you to push the ones you're less keen on out. For ages I've had this vague idea of a fantasy story set in the English Civil War, but I've always had something better to write.

2) Having got some sort of idea/theme/image that hasn't faded, have a very vague idea of a story - ie how the story begins and ends. What sort of people are in the story? Is there romance, violence, betrayal etc? Very loosely, what sort of plot is it?

3) Figure out the main landmarks in the story. These may involve different characters, but they will be all have to interest the reader. X discovers that Y is a spy. A proposes to B, etc.

4) Figure out the smaller points between the landmarks. How do the characters get from one landmark to the other? This step can easily be skipped if you're feeling confident.

5) Write it.

At least, that's how I'd do it. But I think the first step is the most important. Before you write something long, you've got to find something sufficiently interesting to write 70,000+ words about.

 

[Stephen4444]

Joan, I feel your pain. I feel the same way about outlines and start the same way you do. But.... when I get stuck, I combine the two, to help with direction.

A big problem I have is that I just write. I don't work from an outline and sometimes don't even have a general idea. I know that sounds just terribly lazy but I have tried and it never works. The result seems terribly forced and I'm denied one of the real pleasures of writing, when my characters do things that surprise me.
?

The way I solved it was:

I opened an Excel spread sheet, then numbered the left column one to forty.
I placed a synopsis of what I had written, in the blank space, next to number that I thought that idea might happen in the story.

If I had several major Ideas I separated them out and gave them different numbers.

Looking at the numbers... with the synopsis spread out... I start to think logically about what happens before and after my entries.

Then I start to fill out short synopsis for the other blank spots, even if it is wrong.

I then look at it again and say "No... No" that wouldn't happen. Then I would replace it, with what "My guy" would really do.

You get the idea. I'm a logical person. If I see it put in a logical format, I can work through it.

My new problem is... Once I start writing, my characters hijack the story line. Then I have to rewrite the synopsis or get the character back inline.

 

[Grinnel]

Have you thought of writing short stories?

Many writers got thier starts doing shorts for magazines. If you get a few of them published you may be able to put a book together made of the shorts (The adventures of Shelock Holmes). At some point one of your short story ideas might work for you as a novel or novella.

That way at least you won't be putting a lot of pressure on yourself that you have to write 80,000 words or your story isn't complete.