11I’m… freaking out.
So I am currently working on my original premise for Many Bells Down (what the “bad” guy’s up to, how that affects people, etc.) and even though I had outlined this a while ago, knew it was going to cause strife in Riverside, the honest-to-God truth of it didn’t hit me until now – that I’m going to be breaking up a happy family. *cries* This is too hard! How in the world am I going to put them back together again?!!!
Have you ever written a storyline that you feared couldn’t be resolved? But you whole-heartedly believed in what you were attempting to write? What did you do?
Related Posts:
- Many Bells Down (12/12) – from November 9, 2011
- Many Bells Down (11/12) – from November 8, 2011
- Many Bells Down (10/12) – from November 6, 2011
- Many Bells Down (9/12) – from October 30, 2011
- Many Bells Down (8/12) – from October 28, 2011
I’m not a writer, but a reader. A long time reader of angst at that. Sometimes you gotta tear the characters down, make them hit rock bottom, then drop a burning house on them… before getting to a happy ending. I think all happy endings end up the way they want. Sometimes characters can’t be coaxed to go the exact way you want, so sometimes it’s for you to let them go their own way for awhile. That said – I hope you get them back on track. As much as I love angst, I hate sad endings. *cheering you on!*
*Edit: I DON’T think all happy endings go the way they were planned. Gah!
Thank you. It’s good to see the reader’s viewpoint on this, not just the writer’s. You are absolutely right about happy endings. I found that out while working on The Boy and the Sea Dragon. Originally it was meant to be one story, but then its ending came about in a way I didn’t anticipate beforehand. So… I had to keep writing, producing two other stories to finish out the story arc – as you say, continually dropping burning house on already devastated characters – until the happy ending finally made an appearance. I get exactly what you’re saying. I’ll try to forgive myself if I end up in this situation again. :) I’ll probably just write sappy fluffy one-shots on the side to console myself.
Always a good choice. And if it comes out sad, sometimes it just does. We’ll forgive you, especially if ployed with sappy fluffy fics.
I’ll say it again… write it as you will, no matter how long and painful… just make sure it ends happily. Please? (And yes this sounds demanding, but it’s not, really. I am a sap and needs me a happy ending.)
I’m not gonna lie – I generally need a happy ending too. :)
I’ve had to do some things to my characters that I didn’t want to do, but I could never have gone through with it without knowing that everything would turn out ok in the end. The hardest thing I did was kill a character in front of the person who loved him, but even though I knew he was going to be resurrected, it took WEEKS for me to write the scene. Eventually, I just had to power through it, hard as it was. The resurrection was well worth it in the end.
Isn’t amazing how emotionally involved we are with the stories we write? Otherwise you would have whipped through the death scene and be muhahaha you’re gonna diiie now and probably ended up with a story that felt somehow detached from the experience of losing a loved one. >.> Can I just say I am glad that you are not a person with trouble understanding basic human emotions like grief? LOL.
Aww, thanks! Even before I had personal experience with dealing with grief, I was always reluctant to kill my characters. I don’t think I’ve ever done it permanently – not with one of the good guys, anyway. Lol, wow, just the idea of enjoying killing my character, omg!! Lol, only the bad guys? Even then, it can be hard to make the decision to do it!
Can you write it out of order? I just went through this while working on stbb, and what I had to do was basically write shallow versions of each scene I’d thought of until i got to the end, and then I skipped over the parts that were too heavy, until I got some of the happy endings downish. Then I was able to go back and completely rip Jim’s life to shreds, because I knew that his happy ending was already in place.
That is actually similar to what I did. I wrote a quick sentence or two for each scene I needed to get from point A to B to C, etc. and then started at the end where a lovely fun character just makes me all happy to write and I could throw in tons of humor to boot. Then I worked backwards and hashed out the somewhat unpleasant revelations that led to that last scene. I also remember when I wrote my first Big Bang that I had to start with a scene two chapters ahead and literally go back in time to figure out how the story could possibly come to that point. I had been so frustrated; I thought I would never figure out the plot, that my writer’s block would kill me, and yet this technique knocked through the block with amazing ease! I like the idea that you essentially gave yourself a psychological boost in order to write the parts where you ripped Jim’s life apart.