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Writing a first draft is rather like climbing a mountain. You set off full of enthusiasm and it might seem easy to start with –a gentle climb on grassy slopes. But then the going gets tougher, and you puff and pant with every step as you tackle a steep part of the climb. You lose sight of the top of the mountain and think you’re never ever going to reach it, or you reach a seemingly insurmountable rock blocking your way, or the mist comes down and you can’t see anything ahead of you.
I’m sure we’ve all been there with our stories. At the moment, I feel as if I’m wandering around in the mist and bumping into rocks at every turn. In the last three days I have written and rewritten one conversation about a dozen times and it still isn’t right. In fact I’ve been struggling with the whole chapter since the beginning of May, and am still under 2,000 words with it.
I know some writers would advocate leaving that difficult scene, jumping ahead to an easier scene, and coming back to the first scene. However, I once tried that, and it didn’t work for me. The difficult scene kept gnawing at my mind, and wouldn’t let me concentrate on the later scenes.
So I’ll persevere and keep at it. My one consolation is that I’ve been in this situation before, and have somehow, eventually, got over that huge rock or found my way out of the mist. I'm sure the same will happen this time – until the next obstacle presents itself!
How do you deal with difficult scenes that somehow don’t want to be written?
If I can't plow through them I actually do set them aside and work on something else while it percolates in the back of my head. I know you can't write that way, but I find it helps me over the hump.
ReplyDeleteI'm tempted to do that, Jen, or at least skate over it briefly and come back to it later!
DeleteI'm like you, Paula. I can't write ahead. I have to labor over a chapter until I get something I can live with. Each chapter sets up the next. I will revisit it for further polishing, but the plot details in each chapter are too critical for to allow me to leave a gap.
ReplyDeleteMaybe someday I'll have the confidence to allow myself to go back and fill in.
Agree about each chapter setting up the next, and I know I can edit this section later, but I'm stubborn enough to want to sort out at least the basic details!
DeleteI love this analogy. Yes, we've all been there!
ReplyDeleteI'm one of those skip ahead people. If I'm stuck, I'll skip to something else and eventually go back to the thing that was driving me crazy.
Sometimes, and this is a bit 'sillier', I'll move away from the computer and do some writing long-hand. I don't know why, but sometimes that stirs something up for me and I can work through something I wasn't able to do on the computer. Who knows, maybe it's the fine motor skills firing up those brain synopses.
I like the silly solutions, Debra! My silliest seems to be leaving the computer and going to the bathroom, which can give me a binding flash of inspiration. I won't even start on the psychology/brainwork of that!
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