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| Posted By : T A Markitan - 3/25/2008 8:51 PM | Two weeks ago I sat down to write a story that had been rolling around in my head in various forms for months. The story line and characters were clear in my mind, all I needed to do was write it. Had most of it tapped out in an afternoon, but then I got to the climax of the story . . . and drew a total blank on how to resolve the action.
I knew the what, who lived, why, where it ended, but not the how. It's still eluding me.
Anyone else freeze up at the peak of the action?
I do horrible things to punctuation.
"careful what you wish
you may regret it
careful what you wish
you just might get it"
Metallica~King Nothing |
| Posted By : ennubi - 3/25/2008 11:14 PM | i've got a parallel problem....it's not the ending that's typically a problem, but the combat.
the, okay, now how do i kill x and position y over here at the end of the fight and not make it sound like two year olds going at each other with paper towel rolls?
i've stalled for as long as week to just sit down and attempt the fight. i think what always kills me is the fencing....it's really, really hard to make the combat sound realistic 'cause i've done the sport.
ennubi |
| Posted By : tchernabyelo - 3/26/2008 5:47 AM | But fencing has precious little to do with real combat, and real people trying to kill each other.
I'm intrigued by your comment about "position Y over here". People aer normally highly mobile in a fight (if they have any sense), so it's surely easily hand-waved to have protagonist finish in a position that the plot requires?
Brian Dolton
Yi Qin stories:
"The Box Of Beautiful Things" - IGMS#3
"The Man Who Was Never Afraid" - Abyss and Apex #20
"At Blue Crane Falls" - Abyss and Apex #25 "Where No Wind Blows" - Staffs & Starships #2
"What The Sea Refuses" - Black Gate (forthcoming)
"What The Heart Bears" - Black Gate (forthcoming)
"Above The Clouds" - Paper Blossoms, Sharpened Steel (forthcoming)
Other Land Of Wind And Ghosts stories:
"The Dragon Path" - Fictitious Force (forthcoming)
"Three Out Of Four" - Sorcerous Signals Feb-Apr 08
Stories in other settings:
"The Unicorn Hunter" - OG's Speculative Fiction #8
"Call Centre" - Necrotic Tissue #1
"When Winter Came" - ASIM #32
"Cold Fire" - Flashing Swords #9
"St. Saviour And The Devil's Dandy" - Flashing Swords (forthcoming) |
| Posted By : ennubi - 3/26/2008 6:44 AM | exactly :). fencing has given me just enough of a touch of the actual taste of what combat *might* be like that i have a high respect, maybe too high, for the actual. i'm always nervous i won't be realistic enough given no one's actually ever tried to kill me :).
position y isn't always easy to achieve :), at least not for me who has no spacial sense worth mentioning. good case in point is a scene out of a defunct book i was working on. lead and his treacherous buddy where in a graveyard where they were to be ambushed. i needed them to end up in a tomb, spot y, so they could find the secret passage and head out from the city. so....how to force them into a certain little building in an area full of them? my friends thought i was nuts, but a lunch with lots of muttering, the salt shaker, the pepper shaker, and various french fries finally got me seeing where the other building were in the relation to the target and how to possibly set up a roof top crossfire. this is where that nobody ever tried to kill me thing comes back into play too :). wanted to see it very, very sharply before i tried to write it.
ennubi |
| Posted By : FredLand - 3/26/2008 11:17 AM | I've hit that wall so many times it makes me furious. So now I never begin a story unless I have a well thought-out ending first. It helps. The story may not be any better because if it but at least it gets finished.
I have a story that's been sitting around for months because of the ending. I love the story and I know where it should go but there it sits like a stain on the carpet that I keep reminding myself to clean.
I feel your pain!
Fred. |
| Posted By : Keralen - 3/26/2008 12:36 PM | | The climax often is the first thing that occurs to me, being the most exciting part of the story. It's getting everybody there that's the hard part for me! |
| Posted By : FredLand - 3/26/2008 7:07 PM | Good call, Lyn. I'm a big fan of opening scenes that grab the attention.
Fred. |
| Posted By : FredLand - 3/26/2008 7:12 PM | Keralen, good for you on the climax part. My problem is I can think of an exciting journey and don't know what to do when I get there. That's why I write only if I have a good climax in mind.
Good Luck,
Fred. |
| Posted By : Hermit - 3/26/2008 8:30 PM | My, what a tittilating thread title!
Do you really want to finish the story? Usually there's a deeper reason for finding such blocks that may or not have anything to do with the story or art. At least that is my experience and the experience of many I've coached. So, I usually suggest you ask yourself why you're blocked. It's usually the teller, not the story that's blocked. So find the origin of the block and fix that.
I write epic fantasy with slipstream characteristics. I have too many climaxes to get stuck on one. I've gotten stuck before in many places, but all were on the way to the climax. Since I learned to write without blocks, I rarely get stuck once I've begun. But my guess is that there's something sticking in your subconscious that is keeping you from writing through. Could be something with the characters or plot that seems off to your subconscious. Have you tried re-reading your story from various perspectives?
Combat is easy for me. It's the conflict either side of it that sometimes seems a bit weak . . . If I'm not into the scene while I'm drafting, I just insert a place holder, i.e. [Jared kicks the stuffing out of the vistadolopus with a few minor complications and the consequences, etc.
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| Posted By : Gustavo - 3/27/2008 4:02 PM |
MysticWino said...
My, what a tittilating thread title!
Curse you, MysticWino! You beat me to the reply... I was going to say something about hypoxia at inappropriate moments, but now there's no point!
As for the writing bit, it happens to me due to bad planning. If I don't know What exactly I want to happen at a certain point, it means transmitting the HOW I want it to come across becomes nearly impossible...
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| Posted By : crystalwizard - 3/28/2008 2:03 AM | I've got the same thing going with the climax of my 6 book series. I've got it completely plotted out, I'm not drawing a blank, I just can't make my self actually sit down and write it. Every time I start, I find other things to do.
Never meddle in the affairs of a wizard unless you are soggy and hard to light!
Managing Editor of Flashing Swords
Visit my art gallery on art wanted
All my books in print |
| Posted By : Rob Mancebo - 3/28/2008 3:57 AM |
T A Markitan said...
Had most of it tapped out in an afternoon, but then I got to the climax of the story . . . and drew a total blank on how to resolve the action.
I knew the what, who lived, why, where it ended, but not the how. It's still eluding me.
Anyone else freeze up at the peak of the action?
-  This is the climax. It needs to be-- It needs to be-- He should-- She should--
- No- no- no- no-! Bad writer! Bad writer! Smack yourself on the hand!  You've been sucked into the dreaded vortex of the 'Writer's block'!
- Forget quality. Forget 'getting it right'. Forget even making it good. Just put on your high-topped boots, grit your teeth, and start shoveling manure.
- Just-write-the-G.D.-story!
- ' Joe pushed jim off a cliff. The end.' (well, okay, a little more than that.)
- Doesn't matter if its done in baby-talk, or greek, geek, or hyper-text, or miss-spelled, or chicken scratch-on-cardboard. Once you write 'something' down from your artistic-brain, your 'logical-brain' will correct and finish it during editing.
- One side of the brain is artistic/creative the other is logical. Trying to make things right during 'creation' is a killer of inspiration and creator of 'writer's block'.
- You have to get the artistic brain to put something (anything!) down for your normal, logical brain to work with. (Most people work with their logic more than their art so the artistic-brain is harder to access.)
- Begin typing: This is garbage. This is trash. This is garbage. This is trash. . . . .
- Continue that mantra until you just start writing the simple words that need to be written to tell how the story ends. You'll fill holes and correct things later. Just build the frame as a draft--a rough draft--and your editing skills will ask-and-answer all the questions to fill it in later.
Adventure-History-Fantasy-Folklore
www.geocities.com/robmancebo/
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| Posted By : BethS - 3/28/2008 8:36 AM | Maybe you're trying to push the story into an ending that doesn't fit as well as you thought it would. Try brainstorming alternative paths.You may end up with something better than what you originally planned.
~Beth |
| Posted By : T A Markitan - 4/11/2008 12:27 PM | Thanks everyone. I think I was trying to force and control it too much, and it refused to be forced.
On the other hand I have a story where the ending came pretty easily to me, but when I sent it off to a friend to critique he responded, "I really like this story, but what the hell did you do to the ending? All of the sudden you went CSI on me."
I don't think the CSI analogy was fair. Columbo would have been more accurate, all my character needed was a trench coat and cigar. *bangs head on wall*
Haven't decided if I should leave it alone or tear it apart and rewrite it.
I do horrible things to punctuation.
"careful what you wish
you may regret it
careful what you wish
you just might get it"
Metallica~King Nothing |
| Posted By : Gustavo - 4/11/2008 2:26 PM | Why don't you send it to an editor (Neo-Opsis or ASIM for scifi / Fantasy will give great comments if it needs fixing).
And even if it does need fxing, it might be worth a shot if the rest of the story is good. I sent a story called "Defending Fjordland" to Darwin's Evolutions, and the editor replied: I'll buy it if you write a decent ending. And he did.
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| Posted By : ScrewMoonshine - 4/27/2008 12:06 PM | I'm like Keralen; I usually have the climax in mind almost right from the get-go and have to somehow figure out how to get there.
Of course, the problem with that is sometimes by the time you get to the end, you find that the climax doesn't quite make sense anymore. At that point, I usually overcome by simply letting the characters and situation dictate the climax. After all, I've already done all the work of creating and fleshing them out; why not make them write the rest of the story? 
The really cool thing about having the climax in mind from the beginning is that occasionally it actually makes more sense when you get to the end.
Robert Orme
Out now:
"More Than One Way to Protect" in Lords of Justice (www.carnifexpress.net/)
"Time in a Capsule" in Unparalleled Journeys II (www.journeybookspublishing.com/)
"On the Tree Top" in Ultraverse vol.3 #5 (www.ultraverse.us)
"The Scab, the Man, and the I.V." in Mount Zion Speculative Fiction Review #3 (www.mountzionpress.com)
Coming soon:
"Replacing Someone" in Aoife's Kiss #26, September 2008 (http://samsdotpublishing.com/aoife/main.htm) |
| Posted By : Hermit - 4/29/2008 9:34 AM |
ScrewMoonshine said...Of course, the problem with that is sometimes by the time you get to the end, you find that the climax doesn't quite make sense anymore. At that point, I usually overcome by simply letting the characters and situation dictate the climax. After all, I've already done all the work of creating and fleshing them out; why not make them write the rest of the story? I built a lot of false leads into my Kumari Vale novels as a sort of leit motif. One of my readers raked me over the coals for it - as well as numerous other 'inconsistencies'. All my other readers loved that aspect of my novels ["okay we're going to a-b-c-d " . . . which turns into s-u-r-p-r-i-s-e]. It seems like a situation of unreliable narrator, but in reality it is a demonstration of how life changes from the planning to the execution of a brilliant plan - any plan for that matter. Like a novel whose characters make organic decisions and skew the arc away from the author's original outline.
Read me soon in The Return of the Sword!
Blog: http://bitterhermit.wordpress.com
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Poetry Blog: http://fringemonkey.wordpress.com |
| Posted By : Nathaniel Morgan - 5/14/2008 3:25 PM | T A Markitan said...
Two weeks ago I sat down to write a story that had been rolling around in my head in various forms for months. The story line and characters were clear in my mind, all I needed to do was write it. Had most of it tapped out in an afternoon, but then I got to the climax of the story . . . and drew a total blank on how to resolve the action.
I knew the what, who lived, why, where it ended, but not the how. It's still eluding me.
Anyone else freeze up at the peak of the action?
A better question would be: "Is there any part of a story I haven't frozen on."
The answer would be: No.
I have discovered any and every way to ruin a story.
I seem to go through phases where I have trouble with beginnings, middles, or ends. I could save myself a lot of time if I could better foresee that trouble ahead of time. |
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