PAGES

Let Your Story Take Control but Not Take Over

 When I started writing my science fiction book, I began with a mental image of a story I had been incubating in my mind for a few years. Now that I’ve actually begun to write it, I’m seeing it take on a life of its own. 

As I write, I see things I didn’t see before. As I flesh out my characters, I hear them tell me who they are. As the story unfolds, I see the reasons for why things are happening and how those things are affecting the evolutionary development of my characters. 

The book has taken on a life of its own and is dictating to me how it wants to be told. What I find hard is listening to how it wants to be told or how I want it to be told. At the moment, the ending I envisioned doesn’t look like it’s headed in the direction I planned. 

I asked my fellow writers on Twitter recently whether they let the creative process dictate a different ending from the one they had planned. Everyone who responded said they did. 

My dilemma? I’m afraid that if I do that, particularly with the way the story is going, I’ll end up with a bloated storyline. I don’t want my story to end up taking control to the point where I don’t recognize it anymore and it stops making sense or is no longer entertaining for my readers. 

So I am currently in the process of negotiating with my own story trying to seek a workable compromise. Right now, my story has the upper hand in the negotiation process. 

No comments:

Post a Comment

My Brand

 Now that Destined: by Choice  or Circumstance is now a reality and no longer a work in progress, and since folks have asked if there’s goi...