my new new novel idea doesnt want to be a novel

jerrymouse · Jun 5, 2007

i am in the early stages of this novel but the more i work on it the more it wants to be something else, a play i think. i dont want to write a play at the moment. why cant it just be the novel i want it to be?

i am used to characters demanding to be someone other than i intended but not the whole bloody project.

i am close to shelving the thing and starting something else, something that will agree to be a novel.

anyone seen a simmilar thread before? anyone experienced a simmilar problem?

glassquill · Jun 5, 2007

jerrymouse said:
i am in the early stages of this novel but the more i work on it the more it wants to be something else, a play i think. i dont want to write a play at the moment. why cant it just be the novel i want it to be?

i am used to characters demanding to be someone other than i intended but not the whole bloody project.

i am close to shelving the thing and starting something else, something that will agree to be a novel.

anyone seen a simmilar thread before? anyone experienced a simmilar problem?

Why don't you think that this novel is turning out the way you want to? Can't say as I've heard of your situation before. Is your plot too complex, too simple? I'm sure there's a reason for it ending up this tangled.

Tia Nevitt · Jun 5, 2007

jerrymouse said:
i am in the early stages of this novel but the more i work on it the more it wants to be something else, a play i think. i dont want to write a play at the moment. why cant it just be the novel i want it to be?

Try starting over. I started my current WIP three times before I realized that it needed to be told in first-person. After I switched, I had no problems.

Stijn Hommes · Jun 5, 2007

I initially started my WIP as a screenplay for a short film until I noticed it required a lot more internalization than a screenplay could properly handle in my opinion and a lot more story than could fit a short film. Now it's going to become a novella, perhaps a novel.

You really have two options here. Either set aside your thoughts and write a play, or file away the idea and get back to it later when you do want to write a play.

justpat · Jun 5, 2007

Go ahead and write it as a play, then go back and fill it in to turn it into a novel. I've actually taken that approach before. I wrote a script first, knowing it will be a novel in the end. It was more like a very long outline, but it allowed me to get the story worked out and on paper. Then all I had to do was go back through it and put some meat on it. It actually worked out well.

CaroGirl · Jun 5, 2007

Who's in charge here?

KingRat · Jun 5, 2007

My advice would be to let it become a play if it wants to. I totally understand where you are coming. If you aren't ready to do a play just yet then set it aside and make another stab at a novel. But, if you are determined to make this thing into a novel just be careful you don't sacrifice a really good play for a somewhat good novel.

I'm not sure even I understand what I just said....

Jamesaritchie · Jun 5, 2007

Novel

I don't think writing wants to be anything. The writer is the one who wants, who makes the decisions, who's supposed to be in charge.

johnzakour · Jun 5, 2007

What James said....

Stick to the novel. I think you have a lot more options to sell a novel than you do a play. Unless of course you are an experienced (selling) playwright dabbling in writing a novel.

jerrymouse · Jun 5, 2007

i am reading all this.

its helping.

Julie Worth · Jun 5, 2007

jerrymouse said:
the more i work on it the more it wants to be something else

J. Robert Lennon wrote a short story about a novelist who goes crazy during the editing process and whittles her book down to a haiku.

Stew21 · Jun 5, 2007

write it. if what is coming to you is stage direction and dialogue, write it that way as notes and then use those to churn out your novel.

They are right, (the folks above) you're in charge, write what you have here and then make it your novel.

WordGypsy · Jun 5, 2007

"The book's the boss." I'm just along for the ride...

NicoleMD · Jun 5, 2007

Jamesaritchie said:
I don't think writing wants to be anything. The writer is the one who wants, who makes the decisions, who's supposed to be in charge.

Oh, on the contrary! Writing can have a mind of its own, if you let it. I prefer it that way. I'm just along for the ride, sitting at the keyboard because I sort of have to be there.

I was going to write my zombie novel during last national novel writing month, but my story had other plans for me. I wrote an outline, then lost it (I never lose anything) then I had nightmares days before NaNo was about to start. I took the hint.

Now it has become my Script Frenzy screenplay, and I think it is much happier this way. Not a single nightmare (yet.)

I'd suggest writing another novel in the mean time, and let the other story percolate until it's ready to speak to you, in whatever format it (or you, if you insist) wants.

Nicole

johnzakour · Jun 5, 2007

People, as wonderful as it is for a story to "take on a life of it's own" it's the writer who controls and guides that life.

Stories only exist in our minds. Without writers there are no stories. They don't think therefore they aren't... (Appologies to Descartes...)

You can make your story whatever you want it to be.

One day I was writing a horror movie when I got a call that Nickelodean people needing a quick Jimmy Neutron story for the comic book. I converted the horror movie in a Jimmy Neutron comic.

Shady Lane · Jun 5, 2007

johnzakour said:
People, as wonderful as it is for a story to "take on a life of it's own" it's the writer who controls and guides that life.

Stories only exist in our minds. Without writers there are no stories. They don't think therefore they aren't... (Appologies to Descartes...)

You can make your story whatever you want it to be.

One day I was writing a horror movie when I got a call that Nickelodean people needing a quick Jimmy Neutron story for the comic book. I converted the horror movie in a Jimmy Neutron comic.

....Socrates?

johnzakour · Jun 5, 2007

Shady Lane said:
....Socrates?

Actually I guess there's some dispute over who actually said, "I think therefore I am" first. (Whatever the case you can bet it wasn't uttered in English.)

Some credit it to St. Augustine (I believe). It's for better minds than myself to argue over.

It's been a long time since I took "Learning Theroy" in Grad School.

My point still stands we think the stories don't.

PeeDee · Jun 5, 2007

Shady Lane said:
....Socrates?

Beats me, but I always heard it was Descartes, m'self. As in, the famous joke, and the bartender asked if he wanted anymore, and Descartes said "I think not," and then disappeared.

A story doesn't WANT to be a novel, or a short story, or a play, or a haiku, or a dirty limerick. It's all you, baby.

Maybe you really DO, somewhere deep down, want to write a play.

Mostly, though, it's about angles. You're coming at the novel wrong and so, it's not working. The angle you're coming at would work, you think, as a play. Mostly, this means you just need to find the angle that lets you come at the story and turn it into a novel, a short story, a haiku, a dirty limerick. That's all.

The book is the boss, like Alfred Bester said. But you're the boss's mother.

Shady Lane · Jun 5, 2007

PeeDee said:
Beats me, but I always heard it was Descartes, m'self. As in, the famous joke, and the bartender asked if he wanted anymore, and Descartes said "I think not," and then disappeared.

That's really funny.

My only knowledge of philosophy is my 8th grade Humanities class, so take all my opinions on the matter with a grain of salt...

Back on topic, I absolutely agree with all these people who say that stories don't think. They don't.

I'm always skeptical of those things that say, "I just go where the characters take me" or "My character wouldn't let me do this" or whatever. I don't mean to sound like a heathen or anything...but they're just words. When it comes right down to it, they're words that you write. All of 'em.

Jamesaritchie · Jun 5, 2007

johnzakour said:
Actually I guess there's some dispute over who actually said, "I think therefore I am" first. (Whatever the case you can bet it wasn't uttered in English.)

Some credit it to St. Augustine (I believe). It's for better minds than myself to argue over.

It's been a long time since I took "Learning Theroy" in Grad School.

My point still stands we think the stories don't.

Never heard of a dispute over the matter. Descartes always received the credit in college philosophy classes. And he's certainly the only one to have it in writing. But, no, not English. [SIZE=-1]Cogito ergo sum or Je pense, donc je suis[/SIZE]

Jamesaritchie · Jun 5, 2007

NicoleMD said:
Oh, on the contrary! Writing can have a mind of its own, if you let it. I prefer it that way. I'm just along for the ride, sitting at the keyboard because I sort of have to be there.

I was going to write my zombie novel during last national novel writing month, but my story had other plans for me. I wrote an outline, then lost it (I never lose anything) then I had nightmares days before NaNo was about to start. I took the hint.

Now it has become my Script Frenzy screenplay, and I think it is much happier this way. Not a single nightmare (yet.)

I'd suggest writing another novel in the mean time, and let the other story percolate until it's ready to speak to you, in whatever format it (or you, if you insist) wants.

Nicole

Writing has no mind. Consciouslyor not, every decision is one you make.

NicoleMD · Jun 5, 2007

Jamesaritchie said:
Writing has no mind. Consciouslyor not, every decision is one you make.

But our minds are very complex things that we do not completely understand. Call it what you will: your muse, writer's intuition, prelibations, or a hyperactive subconscious. It speaks. I listen.

Nicole

johnzakour · Jun 5, 2007

NicoleMD said:
But our minds are very complex things that we do not completely understand. Call it what you will: your muse, writer's intuition, prelibations, or a hyperactive subconscious. It speaks. I listen.

Nicole

I agree it's a really cool process when a novel does "come alive". But that life is just unlocking or accessing a part of our brains.

PeeDee · Jun 5, 2007

Like I said: There are parts of your mind that are always working and thinking, all the time, and they are smarter and better than you are. When a novel comes alive, a character comes to life, it's just those parts of your mind telling you what to do.

And even that's more mythy-mountain than I care to go. Mostly, it's just logic. That's all it is. When a character does something unexpected, it's your brain working it out. THat's all.

That doesn't mean it's ain't still magical.

expatbrat · Jun 5, 2007

CaroGirl said:
Who's in charge here?

Jamesaritchie said:
I don't think writing wants to be anything. The writer is the one who wants, who makes the decisions, who's supposed to be in charge.

I'm with James and Caro. How in the heck can your writing become anything but what you want it to be?

Who wrote your post, you or some go-with-the-flow-subconscious-energy-source? And if it wasn’t you, who is reading this thread now? Your suggestion that you don’t write what gets written when you write leaves me wondering who posted your thread and I should be responding to. Strange…

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