Advice?

[capncnut]

What advice would you give to someone who's been writing a zombie story for nearly 10 years and is too deeply stuck in a perfectionist glitch to carry on past 34 pages?

[GRMonLI]

What advice would you give to someone who's been writing a zombie story for nearly 10 years and is too deeply stuck in a perfectionist glitch to carry on past 34 pages?

wind it up, post it here and get some creative feedback.

Try it, it works!!!!!

[Adrenochrome]

.....too deeply stuck in a perfectionist glitch to carry on past 34 pages?

Oh man, I know how that is!
One of my biggest snags has always been that I keep adding to certain characters (throughout their developement) and "think I have to" go back and RE-introduce them or change things about them from earlier on. I understand how the "developement" process works and all, but......I'm quite stubborn. I think to myself, "Yeah, so, if I go back and add this or that earlier on, I can explain what I see him/her doing later on in the story alot easier....blah blah blah".
I've changed them from "innocent school-girls" to "abusive, business suit wearing, cocain addicts" - no wonder I can never finish this damned thing!
The only way I can move past my stubborn perfectionist-ism is to just buck up and move on...I make myself realize that the old adage is true - "An artist is his/her worst critic."
Oh, and then there's "the perfect sentence" problem I have.....

But, GRMonLI is right.....
I've found that a little feedback can be a short-cut for a perfectionist (unless he/she's a VERY stubborn one.).


peace

[MikePizzoff]

Quit worrying about perfecting it. That's what revisions are for. Just write out the whole story THEN go back and make changes to everything you feel necessary. It will be a lot easier that way.

[capncnut]

I've changed them from "innocent school-girls" to "abusive, business suit wearing, cocain addicts" - no wonder I can never finish this damned thing!

Oh, and then there's "the perfect sentence" problem I have...

I too have done the same thing. I changed my main characters from a young mother and her bitten four year old child to a black cop and white racist criminal surviving on the road together (the mother and child are still in it mind). As for the whole 'perfect sentence' thing, I have it too. What a glitch! :(

[deadpunk]

Quit worrying about perfecting it. That's what revisions are for. Just write out the whole story THEN go back and make changes to everything you feel necessary. It will be a lot easier that way.

I agree with this method. Also, something I've done in the past is forward what I have to another author, let them read it, then seek more one-on-one advice. I'm loathe to post an unfinished piece and let everyone on the board dissect it.

10 Years? Is this something you've been picking up off and on, or did you write the initial 34 pages and then stall out? If it's the latter, I would, personally, start over from scratch. I would keep the basic story line in mind and just begin with a brand new first sentence. Sometimes you need to wipe the slate clean and start fresh.

The funny thing is; some authors are never done. Even when the story is finished, it's not. Take Arcades057, for instance. He went ahead and wrapped up his SEAT series into a novel which he had published. Currently, he is working on a rewrite for it. Now,that is a perfectionist. LOL. SEAT is a monster that he doesn't feel he will ever kill. But, it satisfies him to try.

Something else you may consider... If you are snagged because of a specific section in the story, skip it. I had some many problems with the middle of one of my stories, I wound up writing the beginning, then the end, then filling in afterwards. It was the only way I could get it done.

Keep plugging away!:)

[Neil]

Write a bit ahead... When I've done my couple of contributions I've had scenes in my head, which I've put down on "paper". I then join them up, move them around and adjust them until they fit.

Wouldn't worry getting the beginning perfected, until the middle and end are there, as you may find on your "journey" things change earlier on accordingly.

[Graebel]

I had a novel I worked on for ten years, got a publisher to nibble at it and everything.

But in the end it was not my best work. I finished it just to say good riddance and started on other things.

I've now sold my first short story and things are looking good for a few more. There's something to be said for moving on.:)

[capncnut]

10 Years? Is this something you've been picking up off and on, or did you write the initial 34 pages and then stall out?

Wrote 10 pages in 1997 - scrapped it. Re-wrote it 3 times between 99 and 01 - scrapped it. Major plot revision in 2002 - I know the story intimately from start to finish (possible 200+ pages). Wrote 34 pages in 2005 - stuck in glitch!!!

[Arcades057]

Honest answer? Scrap it. 10 years and 34 pages? Are you sure it's something you are interested in? Zombie stories get a little redundant after a while and hard to complete.

Make sure your characters are people to you, not just ideas. I started a 3-part series for this site, finished two, took a bit of a hiatus from the third while working on other projects, and now the characters aren't people. I can't finish that one.

The setting has to be a place (real or imagined) that you can walk around in your head every day. You have to see everything there and make your reader see it. Can you do that with your setting?

Can you see where the end lies? If you can't, again, scrap the idea and come up with something new. If you can't see where you're going you have no bloody idea on how to get there.

Do you have characters who add to the story, or do some of them seem to detract from it? This is a problem I have worked through; in fact SEAT has a character that I would REALLY like to get rid of, but I can't find a way to do it. Instead of rewriting a third of the book, I said f*** it and went ahead with that character still in it... I just relegated them to a far smaller portion.

So basically if you can answer those questions you might have something there. If you still can't think of anything else to add, I'm not going to say "keep trying" because that's the definition of insanity. Scrap it and do something else. Try something that does not involve zombies; you might find that's a better fit. Believe me, it's far easier to write a good story or book and then throw zombies into it than it is to write a good zombie book or story.

[capncnut]

Make sure your characters are people to you, not just ideas. I started a 3-part series for this site, finished two, took a bit of a hiatus from the third while working on other projects, and now the characters aren't people. I can't finish that one.

The setting has to be a place (real or imagined) that you can walk around in your head every day. You have to see everything there and make your reader see it. Can you do that with your setting?

Can you see where the end lies? If you can't, again, scrap the idea and come up with something new. If you can't see where you're going you have no bloody idea on how to get there.

When I say I know the story intimately from start to finsh, I know the story. The major revision I had in my mind was an event that happened to me personally and I think it could work really well. My story is set in London (a place I live in and walk around in every day - in reality and in my head) and I have maybe an extra 50+ extra pages in ideas and quotes that haven't been applied as yet. I have an ending in mind but unsure how to TRULY end it. My glitch come in the shape of sentence formation and the perfection of it. I'm trying to write a screenplay but it keeps wandering into novel territory and it's frustrating. It's a part-time thing really so I haven't had the time to really dedicate myself to it. Bah, I'll get there someday!

[Arcades057]

If it's dialogue you're worried about just act it out in your head. Do the characters sound right that way? If they do, you've got it down.

[deadpunk]

Dialouge. Yeah, for me, in my stories, characters talk the way they do in real life. Their sentences are run-on, they use slang, mispronounce words. To me, perfect dialouge is when I can envision my friends speaking the lines. If every sentence comes out grammatically correct, then it sounds like what it is: a work of fiction.

[capncnut]

If it's dialogue you're worried about just act it out in your head.

That's the worst part. I can write 4 pages of dialogue for a throwaway scene without progressing the story in writing... it's sounds contradictory... I know the whole story, I'm so on top of it, what I've written so far is okay, I could act the whole thing out now but I just can't find the...

[Graebel]

Do you have characters who add to the story, or do some of them seem to detract from it? This is a problem I have worked through; in fact SEAT has a character that I would REALLY like to get rid of, but I can't find a way to do it. Instead of rewriting a third of the book, I said f*** it and went ahead with that character still in it... I just relegated them to a far smaller portion.



Sometimes killing that character that you just can't get rid of adds a lot to the story. It can really take things in a direction you didn't see it going.

[deadpunk]

Sometimes killing that character that you just can't get rid of adds a lot to the story. It can really take things in a direction you didn't see it going.

Yet sometimes, the untimely demise of a character that has served their purpose can be blatantly obvious to the reader. By far, this is one of the worst downfalls of horror movies: Character X shows up to deliver one important line, and summarily gets offed by the baddie. We all see it coming. :dead: :bored:

Want to really take a story in a direction you never saw coming? Try killing off a main character without using the old MARTYR plotline. Just have it happen out of the blue...

Capn..have you written anything else while working on this? Or, has this ONE story eaten up 10 years of your life alone? If this thing has kept you from writing anything else, then I'd agree with Arc: SCRAP IT! It's holding you back.

Whats interesting to note is, SK shelved THE GUNSLINGER for over 15 years. And when he finally picked up the series, it was worth the read for about 4 installments. The more recent ones, however, feel like he is just trying to appease his readers and get the monkey off his back.

[capncnut]

Capn..have you written anything else while working on this? Or, has this ONE story eaten up 10 years of your life alone?

Wrote a bunch of short stories, mostly non-horror. Some are completed, some aren't. As I said, it's only a part time thing so it's not eating up my life. An event occurred when my pc got corrupted and had to be re-configured, I retrieved many of my folders but unfortunately I lost a fair bit of the story. I still got my 34 pages though. It's a shame because I've pitched it many friends and work colleagues and they all say I'm really on to something. Since joining HPotD, my Dead story has started to progress a bit more. I just wish I had to time to dedicate myself to it fully. :(

[dracenstein]

Just write your story down. It's a first draft and intended only to clarify your plot, characters and story. Read it, then expand it and write in your best flowery prose.

I am intending to write a zombie novel and completed my first draft and it took more than a year to do it. I knew as I was writing it that it was nowhere near the finished form. Now I have a laptop and transcribing to it. In the process I'm adding more to it, expanding it and correcting the spelling and grammar.

Even as I wrote the first draft I was aware I was leaving out huge chunks but I kept writing it down, getting the story down.

Then I read it.

Now I'm doing the second draft I'm putting in the 'missing' scenes, expanding character and description and reordering certain scenes to make it fit. In the first draft, I was surprised that I introduced a character I hadn't thought of, and he played a greater part than I originally thought he would play before getting himself killed.

The main reason I'm so slow in writing it is because I have a full time job and I take so long going to and back that I'm usually really tired in the evenings to write. Then if I do overtime? No chance.

I just took a break and wrote a short story and am now getting back to it.

What I'm saying is, it does have, or need, to be perfect first time round. Just get the story down.

[Khardis]

What advice would you give to someone who's been writing a zombie story for nearly 10 years and is too deeply stuck in a perfectionist glitch to carry on past 34 pages?

Cap, just write through it, and remember you can always go back and edit. Ive written stories only to get to the end and realize that the beggining was strong and the end was strong but the body could have gone in differnt twists. As such I went back and edited it. Works every time. Just write through it.

[capncnut]

Since posting my dilemma I have to say that my 34 pages have now transformed into a much more promising 61 pages. This first draft is now flowing nicely but... (again) work commitments are getting in the way of my masterpiece. I took my initial 34 pages, re-touched it during a late night brainstorm session and it has now morphed into a totally different piece altogether. Still zombies, but just not as many as I envisaged. My dialogue tends to over-ramble a little but that can be tweaked later and I now have three or four different end trails ('end trails' geddit? oh neverm...). I'd say I'm a good halfway through and I'm hoping that my creative juices don't run dry with the mundane tedium that is work. Thanks for the advice guys! :)

[EvilFlyingCow]

I'm curious to know how your story is coming along. How many pages you got now?

[Eyebiter]

Read what you have written. Then get a small tape recorder and go for a walk in the country. Tell the story as if you were a survivor, remembering the tale years later. Once you have the basic framework established then go back and write it up.

[capncnut]

I'm curious to know how your story is coming along. How many pages you got now?

Slowly shaping up, but I'm getting there. It's pretty solid at the moment and I have to say it's the first time I've been satisfied with my storytelling so I'm not rushing it. Took a detour for a couple of weeks to tweak up a short story I am writing, which is an abstract horror piece. Very cryptic stuff. Thinking about posting it somewhere as it will be finished shortly.

[deadpunk]

Since posting my dilemma I have to say that my 34 pages have now transformed into a much more promising 61 pages. This first draft is now flowing nicely but... (again) work commitments are getting in the way of my masterpiece. I took my initial 34 pages, re-touched it during a late night brainstorm session and it has now morphed into a totally different piece altogether. Still zombies, but just not as many as I envisaged. My dialogue tends to over-ramble a little but that can be tweaked later and I now have three or four different end trails ('end trails' geddit? oh neverm...). I'd say I'm a good halfway through and I'm hoping that my creative juices don't run dry with the mundane tedium that is work. Thanks for the advice guys! :)

Add 3 years...can we get an update? ;)