#wrex wreplies

I don’t know if this will work for you, but I’ve had some luck splitting the difference, as it were. I’ll explain: what I do is, I reread the early parts and make lots of revision notes, decide what I don’t like and what I plan to change...and then I don’t make those changes, I just proceed with writing the rest of the story as if I’ve made them. Basically I’m imagining better versions of the early parts that don’t yet exist, so it’s a little bit of a mental trick I play on myself, except not really, because I will eventually make those changes - they exist, I just haven’t executed them yet. 🙂

I would say, don’t start with a character’s qualities - start with how they’d act in specific situations. If you make this behavior unexpected, BAM, you already have an interesting character. Then you can work backward - who is the person who would do this? etc. 

The key is, make their actions BIG - even if you tone their personality down later, exaggerating them in this experiment will give you more information.

You can play with the situations too - doesn’t have to be something ordinary like getting yelled at in a parking lot (although it could be!) It can be specific to them - the kind of situation only THEY would get themselves into. Or something broadly related to your story idea.

You don’t have to put whatever comes out of this in your final story. It’s just an experiment to define your character.

And most importantly...don’t, like, think about this too much. Think of your situation, and then think of something someone might do that is Very Much Not What You Would Do, something that would startle you and make you curious. 

You may have to do this several times to get the character you want. But basically, this is a way of creating characters that surprise you, which will make them more interesting to you. 

This does mean relinquishing control. Just remember you can always throw them out and start over. In general, though, I think to get through your troubles, you are going to have to plan less - to loosen your grip a bit. Once you get used to the uncertainty, you’ll be amazed by how freeing it is! 

(I actually wrote a post about this a while back, as well as a follow-up on a similar topic.)

I just need to know what to do when I have all the ideas and the desire, but the day job leaves me physically and mentally exhausted. And on my day off I have to just stare at the TV like a zombie trying to build up the energy to go back.

This is a tough one... the toughest one of all, really. How does one write when one just does not have the bandwidth?

The only idea I have for this situation is to write just a little bit at a time. Like, maybe ten minutes every other day? And use that time for doodling, not intense, goal-directed writing. Don’t think about your huge project and how far you have to go. Do small things, little scenes or scraps of description, short sketches related to your project, anything that doesn’t consume a ton of mental bandwidth and allows you to be creative and free for those ten minutes.

Maybe by doing this for a while, you will build up stamina. Or maybe not. Either way, you will write something, and no writing is ever wasted.

A good question. Possibly the question! I think about this all the time because yeah, a lot of my ideas start that way too. One approach might be to think about, given the emotions your character is feeling (or that you want them to feel), what situation would most stir up those feelings? Or to put it in a less pleasant way, what would be the worst-case scenario for them? (A crowded party for a character with social anxiety, that sort of thing. That example might have virtually nothing to do with what you’re doing, but you get the general idea.)

Hm, let’s see. I think the first step is simply to write the ideas down in list form. In fact, I’d recommend trying to generate as many ideas as you can. Get those possibilities out of your head and onto the page. That way, you can 1) consider them more objectively, and 2) clear them out of your mental machinery, so to speak. 

(That’s a metaphor, obviously, but I find that unarticulated ideas feel as though they’re literally gumming up the works in my head. If I don’t write them down, I can neither accept nor reject them, and they just float around up there half-formed, blocking the way for other, possibly better ideas.)

What you do next kind of depends on how the list-making turns out. The list of ideas might really crystallize/clarify things for you. Or it might not. Once you have your list, though, you can start asking yourself questions like “what is this story really about?” which will help narrow your options down.

And of course, always remember you can go back and try something else. It’s a huge pain in the ass, of course, but if you start down a path you don’t like, you are allowed to change your mind. 

Oh interesting! re: asmr. Is it like having company? :)

Well first, let me ask, do you have to write a novel? Some ideas just are not novel-shaped, and that’s okay.

(Second, do any of my followers have criteria for deciding if an idea is suited for a novel vs. short fiction? I wouldn’t know where to begin.)

A great tip, thank you! Yes, it can be hard to strike a balance between distracting noise and silence, which can be its own kind of distracting, and those are great suggestions.