Friday, May 20, 2016

Writing Corner: When The Story Fixes Itself

You may remember the last Writing Corner post I did where I talked about one of my current WIPs.  Today I'm actually going to talk about another one that I've been working on.  Quick summary:

It's an original fairy tale based that came from the thought process "What is Pokemon existed in real life?" and the story of a dying girl.  It follows Jocelyn and Wylan, who are both plagued by curses cast on them (or their families) by a witch.  They must fulfill the quest of the Kings Ransom in order to finally break their curses.

I call it an original fairy tale because it plays on fairy tale tropes and is set in a world where these things are possible and taken to be fact.  It's a shorter novel, perhaps even a novella, and I'm trying to make it as tight as possible.  As I was writing the first chapter, I stumbled across a little gem of an idea that I didn't even know I was missing.  It was only a line of dialogue, but I realized as I was writing, that it fixed the major problem in the plot.  Not only does it give the King motive to have this quest in the first place, but it makes the ending practically perfect.

I love when this happens naturally as I write.  I'm somewhere between a planner and a pantser, normally sketching out the big ideas and then expanding on them as I go and stumbling into new things.  It's not so rare that characters will change on the page (for the better) but I don't always have this spontaneity with the plot.  When it does happen, it's never been as drastic as this.  But I'm rather pleased with how this changes and betters the story!

For all you writers reading this; has this ever happened to you?

4 comments:

  1. I think as we discussed, you know I'm a pantser. So everything for me is spontaneous. There are definitely times I get confused about how I'm going to make things work, and when I go back and revise, things just click and fall into place. But it takes me a lot of time.

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    1. Sometimes it takes me a long time (normally in edits) but I just fall in love with those rare occasions where it fixes itself on the spot. Since I'm not as much a pantser it doesn't happen as often,

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  2. Isn't it awesome when that happens? XD

    More often than not, though, when I write ideas come waaay too quickly for me. I'll be focusing on one plot idea, then another way the story might be told pops in my head and then I can't stop myself from thinking about how things might end differently. This helps with IDEAS for novels, but isn't very helpful in my completing a novel, lol.

    You story idea sounds pretty awesome, btw. (I freakin' love Pokémon. XD)

    Oh! And the image for the Review Train is up on my blog for you to grab whenever. ^-^


    Brittany @ Space Between the Spines

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    1. I used to have that happen to me A LOT and it's part of the reason I have such a hard reason finishing anything now (so many ideas just floating around, and even if they're not as commonly appearing anymore the old ones take up so much space!).

      Pokemon is the absolute best! Oh, thank you, I'll gab the image right now!

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