 For Authors: June 07, 2006 Issue [#1089] |
  For Authors
This week: Edited by: phil1861
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| Knowing the end from the beginning; is that the formula for writing? Is it to know every in and out, every plot point, every character, and every circumstance to bring the beginning and middle out of the ending. Is this something we are to know before we start? Do we always follow a pattern for what we sit down to write and in the process make sure it bleeds of profundity or success? Or do we write because the story is as much a mystery to us as it is to our characters in it. Is this the right way or the wrong way to write? |
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I’m coming to the end of my historical novel and beginning to wonder if I have lost something of the message that I wanted it to say. As with any historical the ending was known from the beginning accept for the actions of each character within that frame work. The story is there and the characters have acted out their personalities as convention and flow seemed fit. The battle is over (an American Civil War novel) and all that is left is to conclude each character’s experiences into the final words. I find myself wondering if there really is an end. Did my characters portray what it was that I wanted to say with all those thousands of words and chapters? Was history taught? Were my characters likable? Were they compelling and if this is not the case then have my efforts been in vain?
I am at the end, the point where the climax has happened and the mystery of what was to come has passed; all that remains is to collect all the pieces and put them together. The allure of the story is fading and now I understand what the story is about as before it just took me where it wanted to go. But the ending comes and that mystery dissipates into the need to “wrap it all up”. I find that my creative part is losing interest in the story and the editor is taking over and starting to bug my conscience with all these questions meant to whip the novel into a best seller than to really help me finish it. One can fight off the editor for only so long but eventually it asserts itself and the ending must be figured out. Our artist or creative part would create the never ending tale just to keep the mystery alive and the plot twists coming. But it must end somewhere or the book never can see the printing press. Where does it end? How does it end? Is it alive and surprising or is it formulaic and rushed?
Too many questions my mind screams. The spark that propelled us into the story from beginning to middle cannot propel us longer into the death of the story; for that is what it is. It dies with the last tapping on the keys or scribbling on the page. It once lived in our imaginations and now it ages into that life cycle we too will taste of one day.
“A painting is never finished. It simply stops in interesting places” said Paul Gardner. In other words it dies a creative death from birth to mid-life to death on the canvass. I’ve come to understand and accept that a story can never be better than it already is floating around in the stratosphere. We pluck it out and write it down and edit it but a bad story is never made a great story and a great story is never made a poor one. It is what it is while we work on it and it is what it is when we are finished. Yet what is it that we write for? A few moments of fame is a poor excuse for motivation especially when the moment never happens. Was the story your ticket or was it something given to you to tell? Does the story care if it is something that bestows glory upon you? Is the tale chosen by you or where you chosen by it? Do your characters have a stake in that promise of success? Did the story want to be told by someone? Yes, if you believe in muses and creative personalities held within yourself. “Only Nixon could go to China,” is a phrase meant to communicate that not everyone is given the same chances or the same outcomes.
My ending and my novel are decided and from that will come an opportunity to edit and shore things up within the frame work of that story. How I go about that will mean either frustration or finding that groove that allows for a glimpse again of that creative spark we all long to keep hold of in any project. I won’t be able to make a bad story better without starting over on a whole new story. Is it the child’s fault they were not gifted to be what you want them to be? Parents are given the choice often to allow their offspring to become what they have potential to be or what the parent wants them to be. Your stories and poems only want to be what they are. They rely upon you to mature them and to trim them into something they can be but remember that a lime cannot be a lemon and nor can a good story become a great story. If your creativity does not produce what you want it to stop punishing it for being what it is not. Create and create more and more until you die; that is if you can shut out your ego for long enough to actually finish something  .
Do you create prolifically or sparingly? Do you work and rework the same project over and over again or do you, like the painter Paul Gardner, end in interesting places?
phil1861
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Questions from the 05/10/06 NL
What opportunities have you come across for creative change that you took?
What opportunities did you regret not taking?
billw231838
Submitted Comment:
Good luck in your transition. Nothing tried, nothing proven. I suspect you aim high and score high, even if just under your target. You are an inspiration.
DB Cooper 
Submitted Comment:
The articles about screenplays fascinate me. I want to write a B movie called,
"Converting superficial academics into excellent Hungarian sausage"
That certainly would be a B movie!
Musings
Submitted Comment:
Dear pookie,
I just finished one of your earlier newsletters. I found it informative and found myself in compete agreement about this subject.
It was the newslettter that dicussed lyrics but also how life and creativity takes unexpected turns.
Personally, I went from nurse to nursing family members and making gift baskets to sell.I also work making flower arranging to wring.
fran
The transitions sometimes mean more for our futures than the things we are holding on to and refuse to let go of.
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