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I've been writing a scary story for the last while, but I think I've written myself into a corner.
if anybody thinks they could help, I'll share what I got.
thanks in advance.
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Comments
"It is not unusual"
to quote the title of an old Tom Jones song.
My best advice is to leave it alone for at least a week if not two otherwise you could end up trying to flog a dead horse.
Come back to it with fresh and especially critical eyes. Read it as if it was written by someone else. That may well show you where you turned right instead of left.
If that fails then ask for help.
I know that I'm not alone in saying that this happens all the time. Our 'muses' are often as uncontrollable as a wild stallion/mare. There is no telling where it is going to take us. If that happens to be a box canyon then so be it.
Don't get downhearted. Just do something else (but don't kick the cat ok!) for a while.
Samantha
If you do get stuck
in a box canyon, take the ladder out of your stocking and climb up the side.
Like Sam said, leave it for a bit and come back to it with fresh eyes and you can usually see a solution, though it usually means a bit of rewrite somewhere.
Angharad
Welcome to my world.
I currently have seven such stories on my hard drive. Some got no farther than 500 words before I got stuck and couldn't get my mind or my muse to do anything more with it.
But take heart. I left "Dumb Bet" in that condition for nearly a decade, then one day I read it over and the story came alive; the characters took over and I completed it. When I published it, it became my most well received work with over 54K reads and over 400 kudos.
I'm currently struggling with two others that I really like, but I'm having trouble. The one I'm working on most is because I've badly jumbled the time line and it's a bear to straighten out. The other is older, probably 20+ years and I'm only able to get a few thousand words at a time before my muse takes a hike. What's really frustrating is that I know how the story ends, but I just can't seem to get the parts in order to get it there.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
Only 7 stories/books unfinished?
I have going on 50 stories that mostly and very stubbornly remain unfinished in my WIP folder tree. Some of them date back to 2010.
Every so often I go through them and sometimes something clicks and I finish the story.
That is all part of life as a writer. There are ups and downs.
Samantha
You've got me beat.
I used to have more. I recently managed to clear a few. When we did "One Dozen Roses" I repurposed two of them to put into that work (A Rose By Any Other Name" had had a working title of "Taking in Boarders" and "Give Me An R...O...S...E" had had a working title of "Rah Rah Rah". Both were supposed to be much longer works.) "Galentine's Day" went straight to Smashwords. I was counting only my TG stuff in the unfinished count and even then I didn't count my Petticoat Detective" fan-fic that's also unfinished or the nine in the other genre I write in, under a different pen name. Counting that it would have given me an even 20. I'm not a very prolific writer, and I don't believe that I've had more than 25 or so, counting both genres, at any given time.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
Could Be the Next Moby Dick
Supposedly Melville started writing Moby Dick going down one plotline and then realized he should be following another.
Just make sure your minor characters have names suitable for coffee franchises.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Escape from corners!!!
Playwrights have struggled with this corner problem for centuries. They came up with Deus ex Machina (sorry spelling) as an escape mechanism. You could use it too! (Well, maybe.) (I’m sure Bru can find a twisted use for it.)
BAK 0.25tspgirl
Don't take things for granted
I can tell you that happiness ISN'T being all dressed up and having somewhere to go. Not if dressed up as a bride when you are a boy and the somewhere is your wedding to a nearly menopausal, fat, stinking Male-order King in need in need of a Queen. Or should we say a queen and I'm the dancing queen only 17. Unfortunately "his" body compares favorably to "his" personality.
Fortunately I'm the main character in a Bru story so there will be twist to get me out this, a Deus ex Machina.
- Hey, Bru time to get going!
- No god available? What do you mean?
- On strike!? Since when do gods strike?
- A union? Because they don't like the way you treat them? Why did you have to piss them off just now?
- They want more Ambrosia? Oh no, I hear the guards. They are coming to take me away (ha, ha). Damn it Bru, get the gods that ambrosia NOW!
- What do you mean? Too expensive!?
- You cheapskaaaaaaaaaaa....
Sorry Dot for hi-jacking your thread but I couldn't resist.
now I want to read that story, Bru
send some Ambrosia to your muse and write it!
Earworm
Now I've got Harry Belafonte singing in my head.
De . . . us!
De . . . us!
De . . . us!
Say Deus, Say Deus, Say Deus, Say Deus, Say Deus. . .ex Machina!
Ending come -- and I need to tie up.
JIll
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
I have lots of ideas. Got
I have lots of ideas. Got about 5 on going stories. i could finish them all. Just keep getting new ideas. I'm sure my twisted mind can help. Possibly because I am new to writing, I haven't used up my "well" of ideas.
Leeanna