Talking to a friend on the phone last night about his WIP, an epic fantasy novel for which he has created everything about the world in which it exists. It’s a brilliant storyline, with characters that leap from the page. However, he has, it seems, hit a storyblock (it’s like a road block, except it takes place in a story, natch).
He called because he seemed to have reached such a tangled knot in his novel, he wasn’t sure how to detangle it. I interrogated him on the story, and he kept reverting back to telling me all of the backstory elements of the trilogy. Originally, he set out to tell this story, but felt that the reader wouldn’t understand the entirety of the story without all the backstory, and so he started over from “the beginning.” What happened, in my professional opinion, is that the backstory eclipsed the brilliant and moving real story.
We chatted for more than an hour, me ferreting out the original story while he continued to circle around it, insisting that the back story needed to be told. I did not disagree, but suggested that perhaps the backstory could be woven intricately in to the real story, since it was so dynamic and a plot that I had not previously encountered before, thereby making it very unique in the realm of fantasy writing.
By the time we ended the call, it had become clear that he also saw the ways in which he’d gotten in his own way in writing the story, trying impose his will on the story and characters rather than letting the story evolve and grow on its own.
What a great example of the ways in which we, in our writing and in our daily lives, tend to get in our own way, tripping ourselves up and creating various blocks to success and happiness.
When things don’t seem to be moving forward, it helps to take a step back and really look at the process we’d been working with, maybe getting a second opinion from a trusted friend. Many times, we’ll find that it wasn’t outside elements blocking our way, but an impediment we’d placed there ourselves. Perhaps even just our way of thinking.
CHRISTIAN
We can definitely be our own worst enemy, but with the best of intentions. It is wonderful to have friends to be honest about this.
I would personally love to know how to pre-empt this. Any advise?
By: Susan on Friday, June 13, 2008
at 1:37 AM
I mean, advice? …
By: Susan on Friday, June 13, 2008
at 1:37 AM
Susan~ I believe that we teach ourselves to get in our own way by blinding ourselves to the Truth. There are no quick fix/easy answers to this. What works for me is, when something isn’t working in an organic way, I stop, take a step back (mentally), and ask myself very honestly what my motivation is for “wanting’ a specific outcome. Sometimes we become too involved in the outcome instead of the process. For example, with my writing client, I believe that he was too focused on what he “wanted” the story to be (which also, when we hear it in that voice in our head, sounds a lot like “should be.”) instead of allowing the natural story to come through. By imposing his will on the outcome, he became lost in the swamp of “I Want.” The same was recently caused by me with a novel that I’ve been slaving over for nearly eight years. After my conversation with my other client, I realized that the things I was saying to him also applied to me. The insistent writerly voice in my head kept telling me that I “needed” to tell the story a certain way. When I realized that I didn’t need to tell it in any certain way other than the way it wanted to be told, the frustration cleared.
We might do that in our daily lives by telling ourselves that our lives “should” be a certain way. An example of this might be (and this is taken directly from my own thoughts): Gosh, I’m in my forties already. I should be settled down by now.
You can put any false desire after the “should be” in that statement. As a writer, I tend to question everything. (and as a human) So when I heard that statement in my head, my first impulsive response was: Why? What rule book states that by such-and-such an age “should” I be anything? Lo and behold, I was immediately able to trace that thought back to my parents, whose favorite things to say were: Why don’t you have a “real” job? Why aren’t you settled down yet?
That is them imposing their limitations on me, and I turned around and adopted them as my very own, and they came seeping out in my own way of thinking. As soon as I lost the “shoulds,” things smoothed out tremendously. Now, the questions I ask myself are:
Does this feel right?
Do I get a sense of my own happiness performing this?
Can I see myself in five years still doing this? Ten?
Am I too invested in the outcome to be able to trust my motivation?
What is my motivation? Where does this perceived “need” come from? What’s behind it?
I believe that if we learn to question ourselves incessantly, without doubting in the process, we can learn to trust our inner voice when it makes a suggestion, and we learn to avoid getting in our own way.
By: Christian on Friday, June 13, 2008
at 6:46 AM