A question felled
me: axe meets tree. Answer is a splinter from the main trunk. I was asked what
my favourite story of mine was. And this was put to me as playing favourites.
It’s difficult to play favourites with stories, as they are all written wildly differently.
Yes, they are typed. And yes…I still
scribble notes by hand to help build those stories. So they are written. The
physical process of generating letters that grow into words and sentences and
paragraphs and chapters…
That is the same as it ever was, since time
out of mind…or so it feels.
But the circumstances behind stories vary
with the turn in the weather. And in the Grand Duchy of Scotlandia, the weather
turns on a whim by the moment – not by the hour. Some stories read easily, but
were difficult to construct. Other tales feel complex on reading, but fell onto
the page with ridiculous ease.
So I like one story more than another,
right? And I like one story above all the others, obviously. When I thought
about it, I picked one. Then I thought about it some more. And there’s always
that feeling that I’ll write one that I’ll like even more than the finished one
I just mentioned as the best, or the favourite, or the most treasured and meaningful…
There are unfinished stories that mean a
great deal to me, and unpublished stories that are, technically, finished. For
technical reasons, they remain unpublished for now. But I can’t overlook the
abandoned stories that mean a lot to me.
I’ve written stories that fell apart.
There’s almost no way to salvage them. But I learned a lot from failed writing.
The story with a sub-plot obscuring the main plot. Or the story with no plot. A
tale featuring a character going nowhere, standing in the way of other
characters who had so much promise.
Broken stories, fragments, half-ideas, lumpy
porridge…
Is there such a thing as your favourite
story? Opinions change. Nostalgia surfaces and takes a dive. Your best story is
for others to consider. Don’t dwell on that stuff, with so many opinions out there.
Writing is the thing. Here I am, looking back on slivers of storytelling that
never went anywhere. I wandered in the fairy realms, chasing marsh-gas to no
end.
But.
That wasn’t about producing stories.
Instead, it was about the journey. Dead-ends. Struggling with paragraphs that
never quite took you anywhere. Acidly, this was about learning by not-doing.
There’s a saying in writing that there’s no wrong way to tell a story.
This is a fucking lie.
Harsh? Better, perhaps, to say…there are plenty
of wrong ways to tell a story. Yet, in walking down every single one of those
marshy fucking paths, you’ll learn – through persistence – better ways to tell
your tales.
I’m not here to list all the things you
shouldn’t do at the start of a story. Item one on that list? Don’t begin your
story with the examination of the thoughts of an alien worm as it sails
gloriously into the cocktail glass of a disreputable character only a robot
could love.
Hell, that used to be top of my list.
If you want to start your story with a
character waking from a dream, fuck it, start it that way. There are too many
people out there telling you how not to start your stories. Fuck that shit.
START YOUR STORIES. To subvert cliché, first use cliché. Lumpy porridge is edible.
Satisfying? Doesn’t matter.
Wander in the marshes. Trip early, trip
often, but make sure you pick yourself up every fucking time. The thing I like
about writing is the writing. Could I really select a favourite story? Moods
change. Opinions swing. Doesn’t matter which story I favour as the wind changes
direction. It’s about the writing.
Coming up with an idea and stitching it to a
twist in the plot and throwing that onto a landscape with a veiny skein of
turmoil running over the picturesque scene…I like all that.
While the story unfolds, paragraph by
paragraph, perhaps that’s my favourite – in the moment. I am concentrating on
that story above all others, after all. The one I am typing.
*
While that question
was rumbling and tumbling in what the ancient scholars called the ground of back, I tripped over and fell into a connected conversation
concerning the way you feel as you write/don’t write. This…I’ve covered before.
There isn’t a test for detecting how you
felt while you wrote a story. A gloomy tale is written on a sunny day with a
bounce in your step and a songbird trilling as it circles your heart. And a
story of happiness goes down on the page word by shattered word as you deal
with the horrors life throws your way.
But.
Either way…
You still write. Word by shattered word you
write, come rain or shine, hell, high water, low spirits, surprise kangaroo
attack, you name it. If you feel you can only write while you are happy, that
is a feeling. Given the human lot, it’s unlikely that you’ll get much writing
done, though.
Write when you feel like writing. And write
when you don’t feel like writing. Then, either way, you will be writing.
Granted, you might be writing shit. But you are wandering the murky paths.
Learning by doing. And learning by not telling a story. This is how you learn
to tell a story.
The mood is to write while in the mood to
write, or else it feels strained. Now go back and burn all the words after the
first use of the word write. The mood
is to write. For the mood is to write while you still draw breath. This I’ve
also covered before. We have the same deadline.
Death.
I face death by fire. If I forget to empty
the oven on time.
*
The house wasn’t
consumed by fire. Yes, I consumed a meal. And then I wrote this and that and
the next thing. I created content and consumed it as well. Never mind my
favourite story of my own. What are my favourites written by others?
I’d mention one. Really, I would. However,
it is an absurd story for a number of reasons that utterly destroy its plot.
And if I tell you what those are, I will spoil the plot for you. Best if you
find the tale out in the wild. I don’t think I can name some of my favourite
stories…
With time, they still stand up. I guess
that’s what matters. My opinion of a tale may shift with the dust of years. Not
often, though. If that is something that comes up, a change of view, it’s more
than likely a piece of news about the author that emerges to bring about that
shift.
That takes me back to the question I was
asked about my own stories. Those, being personal, shift and change for many
reasons. Published works. Finished but unpublished stories. Unfinished stories
that will see publication. Broken stories that are absorbed into other tales.
The truly ruptured tires that’ll never carry the story anywhere ever…
There’s something magical in every category.
And then there’s the stuff I haven’t written yet. What about the really
important material, though? I’m talking about the stuff that YOU haven’t written
yet. Word by fractured word, painful step by agonising step, and grating
paragraph by jagged paragraph…
Write.
Never mind what my favourites are. Go and
write a few favourites of your own. This isn’t about me. It’s about you and
what you are going to write. No matter the mood you are in. Good, bad,
indifferent, it doesn’t matter how you feel as you type as long as you scribble
and write and create.
You don’t have to write anything good. As
soon as you’ve written crap, be inspired to write better than that and go at it
all over again. Disappear up the arse-end of your own story. Then try to write
your way out of that dead-end next time.
There are people out there, struggling to
write. Nothing wrong in that. It doesn’t come together. The story is too short.
No character to speak of. Historical research is thrown to the wall, where it
slides down behind a lumpy couch. That shock twist to the finish has been used
a bajillion times.
How do you cope?
If it doesn’t come together, go back in and stitch
beginning to end with a middle. Then it’ll be long enough to avoid being too
short. With no character to speak of, speak for the character. If your killer
hesitates without explanation, bolt one on fast. Throw in a flashback about
having a code of not killing women and children and cats. Then have your
assassin walk in on grandma handing Tibbles to her grandson.
Throw historical research to the wall,
update your story into the far-flung future, and invent your own history. That
shock twist to the finish that’s been used a bajillion times? Put it at the
start and give it away so the audience is in on it ahead of the bad guy. Then
you have room to make all the twists and turns you feel like.
I’m talking in vague abstract-ish terms.
Really I’m saying…just go and fucking type some shit. Then make it better than
shit next time, nexter time, and the nextest time. You needn’t show the words
to a damned person. Flay the rough passages behind closed doors where no one
can hear your characters scream.
One day you’ll realise that it doesn’t
matter how you feel as you type. Except in the sense of feeling the keyboards
under your fingers.
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