Revisiting former narratives

[truepenny]

Ran errands this morning, which is good.

Now hot, sluggish, mostly stupefied, half-an-hour to kill before I go pick Mirrorthaw up from work.

Have come to some realizations about some of my older stories, namely that the story escaped from my butterfly nets and what got down on the page was a bunch of twigs and leaves, sort of outlining the space where the story ought to be. I have a hard time learning to listen to the narrative as I'm writing; I tend to cling doggedly to my original idea, even when it's obvious to the meanest intelligence (other than my own) that that idea isn't what I need to say--it's reductive, or it's a cliché, or I'm looking at it from the wrong angle. Which means that the finished story will be competent, but lifeless. Or bipolar. Or I'll know it doesn't work, but I won't be able to figure out why. And then I'm frustrated with myself and with the story, and even more so when I finally figure it out, because it's always something I should have been able to see in the first place. I'm hoping that this is the sort of thing that will improve with practice and that I won't be stuck in this loop for the rest of my writing career. Because I'm bored with it.

I don't deal with heat well. I never have. I proffer this as an excuse for the egregious mélange of metaphors in the preceding paragraph.

Comments

[oracne.livejournal.com]

Have come to some realizations about some of my older stories, namely that the story escaped from my butterfly nets and what got down on the page was a bunch of twigs and leaves, sort of outlining the space where the story ought to be.

This is rather a cool metaphor. And it makes sense. I've had stories like that.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I'm pleased that metaphor made sense outside my head--because they don't always, and I wasn't sure that one did.