Support for Indie Authors discussion

Does anybody else have the problem of having a really good story line, start writing, know where you want the characters to end up (middle/end of book) but once you start writing you suddenly hit a point where you have no clue what your characters should be doing and you feel like you are just writing stupid pointless scenes just to kill time until you get to a point where your characters can do what you want them to do? For example, two characters need to meet but you aren't sure how to make them meet and what they should do to get to know each other before you have them fall in love?

I wouldn't worry. I think a lot of writers experience that kind of doubt about fleshing out the body of their story. If it's your first draft then just chuck it down, even if you think certain parts are weak. Write the rest of the story and by the time it's all done you'll know which individual parts need strengthened. Make notes along the way too of these parts and always bear them in the back of your mind. Inspiration will come (probably when you're not sitting at the desk typing) By the time you've thrown down a messy draft (be it first, second or third), you'll probably have ideas on how to make those weak points stronger. It's really just a case of being patient and working through it. Easier said than done I know, but you'll get there.

Mark wrote: "I wouldn't worry. I think a lot of writers experience that kind of doubt about fleshing out the body of their story. If it's your first draft then just chuck it down, even if you think certain part..."

Great advice, Mark!

Samantha, just keep writing. It will flesh itself out in time. Daydream about your story and your characters and see where they lead you.

Good luck!!

I seriously wrote my first and last chapters on the same day on my second book. I knew where it started and where it needed to end. So I didn't want to lose that and hashed it out so I had it and filled in the middle.

Likewise April - daydreaming is key :)

I do daydream a lot, but not always about my story, this is probably why I have about 5 story ideas written down right now, some have more notes than others. I guess I need to really start focusing on the story I'm actually writing

I find I'm best able to resolve it by daydreaming. I go to bed, then envision the scene. Then all of a sudden it hits me, and I'm taking notes.

Many a time I've written a few pages or a chapter only to delete it all, thinking it was all weak sauce. That's when I remembered I needed to allow my mind to drift. I've always been a daydreamer, so it was natural for me to concoct my stories that way.

My first draft is drastically different than my second. By the time I publish, 8 rounds of editing later, it's two different entities: one is the working-it-out-vomit version, the final is the story I wanted to write from the beginning, back when I had no idea the route I needed to take to get to that point .

It's nice to know that I'm not the only one who writes their stories and thinks that it's total crap going onto the page, only to find out after your done that you actually had some pretty good ideas that just need a little help. I always feel like "who the heck would actually want to read this?" when I write. Then again, since I'm still pretty new at this that probably doesn't help. I'm hoping if I can get people to review my novella and then finally publish this book and get reviews it'll help build my confidence a bit.

After you've written the parts, give some space between yourself and what you wrote, and return, in perhaps a week or two, and you'll see things in the story that will change everything.

Usually, if you get to know your characters well enough, they will lead you from one point to the next in a way that is surprisingly natural and flowing.

I think the most important thing about your first draft is to put ANYTHING on the page so you have something to improve upon. Let it spill out and worry about whether or not it's good, or if makes sense when you get to your second draft.

Write the parts you are sure of and the rest will fill itself in as you go. I found when writing my novel that the more I unburdened myself from the noise in my head by writing writing writing the parts I was sure of, it freed up space in my cluttered brain to work out the stuff I wasn't sure of.

So... spill what you can (as quickly as possible) and come back for the rest. And whatever you do, just keep writing!

PS I agree with the comments. So, don't be afraid to vomit on the [monitor/keyboard] page. The story and the juicy bits come after that. Not the upchuck bits. The deliciously prepared, not-yet-consumed bits, I mean.

Quoleena wrote: "PS I agree with the comments. So, don't be afraid to vomit on the [monitor/keyboard] page. The story and the juicy bits come after that. Not the upchuck bits. The deliciously prepared, not-yet-cons..."

Good advice and an even better dietary aid. ;p

Sometimes, if random scenes is all you have, that's all you have. Trying to force more might just jam up the works. Try putting it aside for a bit or just keep writing out those scenes. You may be surprised to find that you've set yourself up nicely to segue into the parts you didn't think you had.

Quoleena wrote: "PS I agree with the comments. So, don't be afraid to vomit on the [monitor/keyboard] page. The story and the juicy bits come after that. Not the upchuck bits. The deliciously prepared, not-yet-cons..."

Um... yuck?

Strangely disgusting but also helpful advice. Remind me to never watch you write... sounds like it gets messy.

I'm not ashamed to admit my first drafts are a vomiting disaster of Sunday buffet proportions. Trust me, no one wants to see that.

I'm a big fan of the vomit-first-draft method™ myself. Although I had to learn it the hard way. I spent four months fastidiously writing the first chapter of my novel and then vomited the next fourteen chapters in the same amount of time. And big surprise... 75% of that laborious first chapter was deleted from the final draft.

C.S. wrote: "I'm a big fan of the vomit-first-draft method™ myself. Although I had to learn it the hard way. I spent four months fastidiously writing the first chapter of my novel and then vomited the next four..."

Wow, maybe the "vomit" method should be taught in schools. It seems like everyone writes the first draft that way. I feel like the same thing was mentioned by Stephen King in On Writing, but in a more sophisticated way then "vomit method"...

Quoleena wrote: "I'm not ashamed to admit my first drafts are a vomiting disaster of Sunday buffet proportions. Trust me, no one wants to see that."

I'm doing a little bit of that myself right now. :)

I just did some and I think it might actually be usable. dialogue is evil though.... just saying

Samantha wrote: "I just did some and I think it might actually be usable. dialogue is evil though.... just saying"

I've read through some of the comments here and you're getting a lot of great advice. I'll just say that I agree with everyone that says just write. You can always go back and take out anything that isn't working in later drafts. If you have a strong idea for scene A and a strong idea for scene F, write those, even if there's supposed to be a lot of other stuff in between. The in between stuff will work its way in eventually.

What sort of issues are you having with dialogue?

Trying to balance the dialogue with action so you know what the characters are doing (body language) and also making the dialogue sound believable while still giving the reader information that they need to know. I've never really liked writing dialogue. I wish that writers could just summarize every conversation into a neat little paragraph, but I don't think that would make for a very good story...

When I get to the point where I don't know what my characters should be doing and I'm writing those nothing scenes, I skip ahead to the next important/interesting thing I know needs to happen. Sometimes it's a battle, or a first kiss, or a secret revealed. Once I've written that part, I have a clearer picture of what needs to come in between, and usually more enthusiasm for the project.

L.S. wrote: "When I get to the point where I don't know what my characters should be doing and I'm writing those nothing scenes, I skip ahead to the next important/interesting thing I know needs to happen. Some..."

I might have to steal that idea...

Samantha wrote: "Trying to balance the dialogue with action so you know what the characters are doing (body language)..."

That can be tricky. If you don't describe the body language, the characters are just standing there, rigid, and talking and their dialogue may "sound" rigid to the reader. Too much description and they seem to be dancing. I try to work in a movement, gesture, eye roll, sigh, what have you, about every third line of dialogue or so.

My stories are pretty heavy with dialogue, so it's something I've been working on for a long, long time.

You probably could get away with summarizing a conversation now and then when information in the conversation is stuff the reader has seen before or it's not a conversation that is going to move the story along (ie. "Bobby and Brenda enjoyed a nice, civil chat on the bus as they went to work, even though neither of them was a fan of small talk") but it's not something you're going to get away with in lieu of conversation that carries important information (ie "Brenda sat Bobby down and explained to him that the baby was not his after all. Bobby was devastated and refused to believe Brenda. Brenda explained that the baby belonged to another man. Bobby wanted to know why she thought that. Brenda said she knew it was true. Bobby was mad and asked for a paternity test. Brenda said no and Bobby said he would take the case all the way to the Maury show if he had to").

Just relax. Let your characters tell you what they want to say to one another. Don't overthink it, just let it flow. Later you can read it out loud and fix anything that doesn't sound natural.

Thanks :)

Dwayne wrote: "Samantha wrote: "Trying to balance the dialogue with action so you know what the characters are doing (body language)..."

That can be tricky. If you don't describe the body language, the character..."

Great advice, Dwayne. As a reader, I'm a less-is-more type of person when it comes to stage direction and body language cues within dialogue. If there's too much interruption to the dialogue I get annoyed.

As I writer, I put it all in the first draft so I know what's happening in my mind and then strip away as much as possible in the re-write until only the most important gestures, cues and movements remain.

Samantha wrote: "Thanks :)"

I think I say this in almost every forum, but there's some great advice in Stephen King's On Writing about balancing description, dialogue and action.

I guess I should go re-read that book for like the 10th time.

Samantha wrote: "I guess I should go re-read that book for like the 10th time."

Haha. Me too.

C.S. wrote: "Dwayne wrote: "Samantha wrote: "Trying to balance the dialogue with action so you know what the characters are doing (body language)..."

That can be tricky. If you don't describe the body language..."

I agree. As a reader, once the author establishes the mood via body language and initial dialog, I enjoy reading and picturing the scene.

Getting a scene to flow organically will eventually happen if you let the characters/scene lead the way.

My background is indie film editing. Films don't shoot linearly. Generally the scene with the most people are shot first, and the scenes with the least people last. It doesn't translate to writing (my writing) so much - save that if I hit a road block after writing the first few scenes I might jump to writing the last few. Maybe I'll tag the two halves together with bullet points for continuity. Sometimes the end writes the middle. Sometimes.

Samantha wrote: "Does anybody else have the problem of having a really good story line, start writing, know where you want the characters to end up (middle/end of book) but once you start writing you suddenly hit a..."

Genre fiction gets hung up on what the genre requires. Romance requires its 'meet cute.' I read in an essay a couple of days ago that the key the great writers understood was the reality of human 'want.' I liked that idea. Maybe understanding the want will inform the meet? Maybe their respective wants will intersect.

Hello! So what do you do if you start a series, get the first (or second) book published, but then you get a new, really good idea and you want to work on that one instead. Should you continue the series or work on the new idea?

Grace wrote: "Hello! So what do you do if you start a series, get the first (or second) book published, but then you get a new, really good idea and you want to work on that one instead. Should you continue the ..."

You might be able to do both. I always have more than one thing on the go.

When I finished my last book the depression was really bad. It just happened to coincide with the death of my 19 year-old cat who sat beside me the entire time I was writing it. I dealt with it by taking a few shots of Gammel Dansk, and then forcing myself to edit a trashy novel I had written ages ago. It was too much to outline and create characters again, so the editing helped. Meditation helped tremendously too, but the alcohol was more fun, ha ha.

My philosophy has always been to never worry about the first draft. It's always going to be a mess, with some first drafts messier than others. The next of my novels in line to be published I had to force myself to write, and I didn't end up actually liking the thing until around the third draft. I wrote it just to have something to write, now I love it to bits.

V.M. wrote: "Grace wrote: "Hello! So what do you do if you start a series, get the first (or second) book published, but then you get a new, really good idea and you want to work on that one instead. Should you..."

Thanks!! I'll do that.

Samantha wrote: "It's nice to know that I'm not the only one who writes their stories and thinks that it's total crap going onto the page, only to find out after your done that you actually had some pretty good ide..."
I actually struggled through my last book because the idea seemed more interesting in my head than it was when it came time to write. But when I had a draft and sat down to edit, I actually found what had come out to be more interesting to me than most of the other books in the series.

You can always go back and clean up a scene or get rid of what doesn't work, but sometimes if you just fight through a script, you'll come across an idea you might not have considered if the words flowed easily. I've discovered new directions with the characters and the stories that I wouldn't have otherwise found if I didn't struggle to write the first draft at times.

I think once you've followed the advice of everyone before me, if there's still a chance you don't like the scenes that lead up to the couple falling in love, you could change it into a short story of flash fiction. I heard that with short stories, you're supposed to start as close to the end of the story, so I don't see anything wrong with starting with a couple that has already fallen in love, and that can be reinforced with intermittent flashbacks.

Yeah this happens to me quite often. As a matter of fact, I'm just about at a really great series of scenes in my book that I'm working on, but I have some time to kill before I get there and I don't exactly know what to do.

In a broader sense, there's times when I know how my story starts and I know how it ends. It's just trying to connect everything together.

It's hard to give advice on this because eventually, I get an idea or two and I just run with it. Maybe just sit and brainstorm ideas as to what your characters would be doing at the current moment and seeing if that sparks something. Perhaps work on a different project. Take a short break and clear your mind and then maybe ideas will flow more easily.

Like I said, ideas come to me at random times so it's hard for me to give good advice.