McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Burn out?
meg_evonne:
Okay, this might be tough beliel, so hang in there. If you are lucky, it might be your work life. In which case, write a scathing, murderous short story with your work mates as part of a Stephen King short story. (Are you laughing yet? You should. It would relieve that pressure maybe. Just don't let a soul read it!)
You say you are ending the swampy middle and ready to connect to your ending. I think that point is generally a problem for writers. You've got two ends to tie together--assuming you have your ending roughly charted out. The goal of seamlessness is hard to do.
You might ask these questions:
1. In my swampy middle, did I do something that wasn't natural to my characters?
2. Did I abuse one of them without realizing it? Make them do something that deep down in my heart I realize on re-reading wasn't right? Maybe take a short cut with the character to get where I wanted to force the middle to go?
If the answer is a clear, no--then ask:
1. Is therea piece missing that my writer's soul knows and my conscious writer mind doesn't? Or
2. Did my swampy middle take control of me, the writer, and it's wanting to go somewhere other than I thought? If I have an end-point C in mind, but part B wants to go to alternate reality C--you might find that I, the writer, is in denial.
If that's the case, your writer soul is arguing with your writer mind to the detriment of both. If that is the case, then you can do two things, free up the stick in the butt writer mind to let your writer soul do what naturally is going to happen....OR you can be Jim Butcher and go back and take a whip and chain to work that plot line back into the form you want. I suspect he does that same thing to a crotchity swampy middle.
I know you fairly well from your posts and from your samples--that you will come out of this. It might get ugly, but you will. :-)
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: LizW65 on September 27, 2009, 03:06:32 PM ---Agree 100%. Interacting with real people (not just on the internet) is the best way to make your writing real.
--- End quote ---
I don't know, I find the internet lets me interact with a much wider rnage of interesting people than geography alone.
belial.1980:
Thanks so much to everybody for thier advice and encouragement. I went for two good hard runs this weekend, spent Saturday night drinking pitchers and playing pool with an old high school buddy who had the same kind of week I did. Things are on the upswing. My brain's still not fresh as I'd like but I can think about my story without blanching.
In regard to the Swamy Middle: I have set road markers that I definitely want in the story. But it's those middle passages between these scenes that present problems. I need to actually write those scenes to figure out what happens in between those points. That's where the story meanders and becomes frustrating for me.
So I think I'll probably be back on track pretty soon. Thanks again everyone.
Paynesgrey:
Something else to consider is to from time to time take a break from The Story, and just do things like character sketches, vignettes, random day-in-the-life of the character experiences. Jot down some notes on concepts for other stories. They can be unrelated to the current project, or something alternate you'd like to have done with this or that character or situation. This serves a couple of purposes. You aren't trying to hammer your brain through a square hole on The Story, but you're still excercising it, still creating. And you save those little bits you write, play with them later like toy soldiers or dollies or whatever in your mind. You might find them leading you to something that fits in the swampy middle, either in this story, or some other future project you've not even conceived of yet.
belial.1980:
Your suggestion to write vignettes is a great idea that I've used before. I ended up writing about some of the secondary characters in my novel. I think it ended up being some of the best stuff I've written to date. That's when I made the switch from telling the story in 1st person POV and used 3rd, so I could show things happening outside the MC's viewpoint. I actually ended up borrowing a few scenes from these side stories and putting them in my novel.
I know Jim and other authors recommend 1st person POV for beginning writers but I've since learned that I'm more comfortable writing in the 3rd. Wierd. Some things are lost from the switch but I think more is gained. Anyway, I'm back on the main story. I'm chipping away and skipping a few tougher scenes to write scenes that feel more natural but at least I'm back behind the wheel.
Thanks again to everybody for their advice and encouragement.
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