#wrex writes

Okay let’s see:

What originally made you want to write the story? Like, what was the idea nucleus around which it first formed?

Who is your main character and what is their main concern? 

Or if it makes more sense to ask this, what is the story’s central relationship, and what is its main unresolved issue?

What was the main “problem” or unstable situation the story began with?

Or, alternately, what major aspect of your story world and your characters’ lives has been consistently changing as the story progresses?

Stories at a most basic level tend to be: “first things were one way, then stuff happened and kept happening until a certain important point, and now things are this way.” Figuring out the first two components of that - in very broad terms - will give you a sense of what the third component should be - again, in very broad terms. Then you can kinda work out the details.

FPS Resource Thursday:

@wrex-writes

Twitter: @WrexWrites

If you are a writer who is struggling with getting the words out or tenses at the thought of writing, especially because of mental illness, Wrex Writes is a great blog with compassionate, sympathetic, supportive, thoughtful, and practical advice. Wrex reframes many of the ubiquitous writing “shoulds” (write every day, write a shitty first draft, no adverbs/adjectives, just to name a few) opening up the possibilites to try different paths to the same outcome—writing without pain. Check out her “Essential Posts” to get an idea of the kind of help she offers to those of us who find ourselves feeling lost and alone when traditional writing advice doesn’t fit. You can send her questions (anonymously if you want), or dig around her posts to see if she’s covered your particular problem. (Also, check out her FAQ to get to know Wrex herself.)

I found Wrex when I was at the end of my rope with my own writing hang ups. I came upon a post she had written about why it can be hard to “get” ourselves to write. It resonated with me because I was tired of hearing that if I wasn’t writing every day I wasn’t a writer. Not writing was shitty enough without feeling like I was being ejected from a group I’d always belonged to because I was going through a tough time. It made me feel less than, on top of just being angry at myself, for not solving the problem faster. In the post, Wrex talked about self-forgiveness and letting go of the shame that holds some of us down, and I felt like I’d been given permission to stop banging my head against a wall I hated. I’m happy to say thanks to the shift in perspective, I write most days now and when I get hung up, I'm more willing to sit with the why of it and address that instead of wallowing.

You and me both, friend.

I’ve found it helps to go back to one of the stories I’ve abandoned for a newer, shinier one and really think about why I abandoned it. Chances are good the new idea distracted me because I was looking for a way to avoid the old one, and if I can understand why that happened, I can address it.

Usually the answer is: the pressure to finish the story killed any excitement I felt about writing it. I’d look toward the finish line and think “oh god that looks so hard,” and then I’d glumly start in on the story as if I had to bail all the water out of the ocean. And because I wrote with this sense of obligation dragging me down, the story itself got boring - like, for me and everyone else. I got less creative, less playful. You know how some scenes feel like scenes you just gotta get through? All scenes became that. And so of course I wanted to write the story even less.

When this happens, you gotta step back and reassess. Personally, I have to make myself stop avoiding and face the story head-on. Why was I excited to write it originally? If I can figure that out, I can focus all my attention on the exciting stuff and ignore the details until I’ve built my momentum back up. If I genuinely can’t remember why the story seemed worth writing, well, I should probably set it aside.

I’ve also gotta coax myself back into that headspace of exploratory creativity. Writing the draft is never quite as free and fun as coming up with new ideas, but you can do things to get some of that freedom back. For one thing, remember: no scenes have to be boring. As I said above, there’s this idea that some scenes are necessary but not much fun. This is untrue. If parts of the story are dull to you - not because you’re tired and you’ve thought about them too much but because they’re fundamentally inert - take those parts out. If you need to get from one place to another and the way you’d planned on getting there bores you, make a different plan. Throw out the boring idea and experiment with new ones. Take that old story that seems so fixed and predictable and play with it again. Surprise yourself.

I could only do this, though, once I recognized that my excitement over new stories was masking my fear of the old ones. So yeah, first step: take out one of those old stories and just…sit with it. Say “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you yet, but I’m not going to avoid you anymore.”

Folks?