11/18/2014

Story Drift in Process

I'm in the middle of writing a short story for an anthology to be published by a group of Indie writers I hang out (hide) with in a private group on Facebook. It's different, experimental even, and loads of fun to write.

The setting and characters and conflict and story-arc are radically different from the style and stuff that I usually write, which is part (most) of the point for me. Writing in under 10k words is much tighter than I'm used to, meta-fiction is a whole new thing for me, and I'm purposely coloring outside of the lines as regards my regular process.

The cool thing (or one of them) is that it's working ... the story is coming together in an interesting way, I'm enjoying the unusual and somewhat unlikable cast of scoundrels, and it all feels as though things are working together in a way that will make people scratch their heads, look up at the ceiling, and think (in a good way).




The surprise for me is that although I had envisioned a story with some reversals and twists, the words and scenes coming out on my laptop are not what I saw when looking down the road ahead of my flying fingers. The story is changing as the characters grow to fill, and then escape the corrals in which I originally housed them.





This story (which I hope to finish this week through the application of a few stolen hours here and there), is schooling me on what the writing process actually is, and what my role is in the creative process.

When complete, my hope is that the story will imply more than it tells, suggest more than it states, and leave readers peeking around the corner of the final page ... hoping to see what comes next for Richard and Pepper.

I've been having a blast, and as is true for every word I write, I feel that working on this story makes me a better/stronger writer regardless of the actual final product I'll serve up to readers sometime early in the new year.

Thanks,

Jamie




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