Cafe Topic For 3/17

[Comicality]

Often when an author starts out a story, there's some kind of vague 'plan' in mind as to how the story is going to go. For me personally, before I even start a story, I sort of have a 'highlight reel' playing in my mind as to what's going to happen from beginning to end. The big moments, the dramatic elements, the characters....and then I use that to pretty much plan out things so I know how it begin, how it ends, and most of the 'good parts' in between.

 

But what happens if a writer has a few really awesome ideas for a story, but during the natural telling of the story, they find themselves not being able to use those ideas any more? Maybe there was a change in story structure, or the writer's feelings had changed, whatever it is...those ideas don't necessarily 'fit' any longer.

 

If an author feels that it's really an intricate and important part of the story, or just really wants to keep those elements in the story...should he find a way to force them back into the formula somewhere? Or should he just let them go? What do you guys, as writers and readers, think? Let us know!

[Dolores Esteban]

If it's an important part of the story, then the author should find a way to add this part. Letting go important parts of a story would change the story considerably and probably make it flat or even incomprehensible, I think.

 

Sometimes, though, parts suddenly don't fit in anymore. The story I submitted to the anthology was part of a longer story, for instance. When rewriting this story, I found the side story was distracting from the main plot. I rewrote the story and made a whole new story of the omitted part. I have lots of parts and drafts that I hopefully can weave into future stories.

[Graeme]

If it's an important part of the story, then the author needs to overcome the challenges that are preventing the item from appearing. That can sometimes require a lot of thinking and stretching probability at times, but it can usually be done without blatant forcing. Once it's completed, the reader shouldn't realise it wasn't planned that way in the first place.

 

In my first novel, for a particular scene I desperately wanted in the story, I had to have two main characters angry with each other. Unfortunately, before I got to that scene, the initial reason for the anger was going quickly and I knew I couldn't sustain it. What I did was to find another reason for the anger, slowly morphed the point of contention between the two characters to the new reason, and then used that to keep the two characters at loggerheads until I could drop in the scene I wanted.

 

Other times, though, the author should just accept that the story has changed and drop the scene. The idea can be kept for another story, but if it doesn't fit, it doesn't fit. I've done this enough times, too....