(no subject)

[aliseadae]

I am good at writing, finishing, and editing poems but I keep getting stuck in the middle of stories. I think part of it may be that I am not good at writing characters and that I don't understand them well enough. How could I become better at writing and understanding characters? Any other advice on how I might fix my problem of frustration and stopping in the middle of stories? It seems to be a sort of circular problem. I stop, get frustrated that I've stopped and stop because I'm frustrated. Help?

ETA: Another part of it is that I know what the place is like first. I am good at places. I get super excited about the location and setting of the story and I have So Much Energy! and then suddenly I have to settle down and write the actual /story/ and plot and there have to be people and I loose that energy and I don't know what words to put down and I stare at the page in frustration. Help me translate my place-energy into writing energy?

Comments

[lerite.livejournal.com]

Skip the next part and write the part after it.

Write something out-of-continuity about the character.

Switch POV and have another character talk ABOUT the character you're having trouble with. (Depending on how long a story, re-writing the whole goshdarned thing from another POV can help, even if the other POV is too boring to show to other people.)

Write the end, then fill in the middle.

See if there's something in the end of the beginning that's clogging up the middle. Be willing to delete a paragraph.

[aliseadae]

thank you!

I think another problem might be that I have no real clue what the next part is. Though I do in one of my stories. Some of my stories seem so big that I have no idea how to hold it all. I am much better at writing places than stories or people.

[lerite.livejournal.com]

Use the place to orient the plot; reveal it part at a time, move the characters through it, or change it somehow as they change. Y'know, symbols 'n' stuff.

[lerite.livejournal.com]

I suppose I meant write A part after it; just write whatever happens later that you have an idea for.

[aliseadae]

I have no clue what most of those next parts are except for with the story that I'm already starting off with a framework (the framework of a pre-existing myth) for.

[aliseadae]

I started working on a part after where I was in the story with a framework and there I go writing word after word! Seems to be working for now. Thank you!

[http://users.livejournal.com/__gilded_lace/]

Observing and knowing how people work also leads to good characters.

[aliseadae]

True. Thanks!

I'm alright with understanding (at least at some level) people that already exist. I need to improve my abilities to create people from scratch.

[notadoor.livejournal.com]

A lot of times I start a story with a fantastic element I'm excited about, and no plot/characters; I figure out the plot/characters by asking who would be most affected/likely to run into this fantastic element, and why.

So that might be a way to use your penchant for setting. Once you have a really cool place in mind, look around and think what kind of people would be in this setting -- and more importantly, what kind of people are going to have problems in this setting. Problems create story.

[aliseadae]

Thank you!

Looking around for people who might have problems in the setting is something good to do with new stories. I do have characters (well, not enough of them in one of my stories) in the stories I have now but I might work on examining what their problems actually are and what steps ought to happen to fix things.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Hi! I don't think I've commented before.

I agree with what notadoor says. You say cool setting; notadoor says fantastic element. When I put it into my own words, it's what I call a scenario. I can imagine a cool situation or set-up... but now what happens?

... Not all things make great stories, in my experience. Some things make great mood pieces, or beautiful poems, but not stories. But if you feel the urge to tell a story, then I am sure you'll find the techniques that work for you to get you there. The experimentation itself can be fun.

(also, from the perspective of a greedy reader, hey, evocative descriptions of cool places sound great to me!)

[aliseadae]

Mm. I much better at situations which leads to poems. Though sometimes poems have their own kind of story.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Do you know what happens in the middle? Or do you tend to have beginnings and endings but not much grasp on the middle? Because knowing what goes there and being unable to write it is a different problem from not knowing.

[aliseadae]

I think I mostly know beginnings. I also might start writing too soon. I tend to know sort of where I want it to be eventually. Most of the time I don't know middles. Sometimes I do, though.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Have you ever tried starting with someone smack in the middle of a thing, not as a way to begin in media res but starting with writing the middle of the story?

[oarlock-queen.livejournal.com]

Try taking what you know about the place and creating parallels to the person. (Some people think of their settings as additional characters, but maybe you need to think of your characters as additional settings.)

One thing Zee pointed out to me once: you should know what your character is WRONG about. What do they believe in, which is mistaken? What bad judgements have they made? If somebody were going to try to overpower them, foil them, hurt them, get past them, or whatnot, where would be the flaw in them that might allow that to happen?

What are things they have to deal with on a daily basis? What are things that they are avoiding? What draws people to them? What makes people turn away? What do they see or feel that no one else does? How does this character remind you of someone that you know? Or even yourself?

[aliseadae]

Thank you! Those are all good questions to ask about them. I think one of my problems is that I try to write without knowing any of those answers and I can't do that. No one can. I suppose some people can learn those answers through writing but I think I need to write out a couple charts about the characters before I can learn more about them in writing.

[voey.livejournal.com]

Hm. I like Zee's advice, there, quite a bit. I'ma start thinking about my characters like that.

Also: if places are easy for you, define the life stories of your characters in terms of the places that are important to them. Where did they grow up? What was the light like in the room where they first made love? What smells remind them of their childhood friends, or their childhood terrors? What places haunt their dreams? What sort of person would have grown out of the journey between all those places?

This might make for an interesting piece on its own, that you can use to inspire you as you write your character into newer settings.

[aliseadae]

Thank you! I really like your last question especially. I suppose all of us are the intersection of many places and the experiences and people we know through those places. I was with some high school friends tonight and we were talking about how we have multiple lives now - our college lives, high school lives and many of us also had lives at camp. Parallel ways of being ourselves.