What was the hardest thing you wrote?

Nateskate · Oct 23, 2007

Some people find their stories write themselves. Others will make a story their life's work.

My question isn't so much confind to a book, but when you're writing fiction, you are going to face something you've never tried before.

For some, they can write a great fantasy, but can't do a battle scene. Others find romance harder.

1) What part of your novel gave you/is giving you fits. (i.e battles, chase scenes,

2) How many times did you feel completely out of water to the point you felt you couldn't make something work?

3) Who overcame? After a time of wrestling with something you thought would never work, it finally fell into place.

4) Who deleted a part of their novel because though you tried, you couldn't make it work?

MidnightMuse · Oct 23, 2007

I absolutely cannot write sex. Just can't do it. Thankfully I don't write any story where a sex scene is needed - to add one would simply be fluff or filler - so I don't have to face it.

I've struggled in the past to write a convincing fight scene, then learned a few tricks after much struggling and finally managed it. And it took me some time to get extreme emotional outbursts down so they don't read as just goofy.

What I learned in both cases was Less Is More. Use the fewest words possible, and use the right words wisely, and you can convey more emotion, more drama, in a few sentences than five pages of prose can squeak out.

Nakhlasmoke · Oct 23, 2007

The hardest thing I ever wrote was when I had a character snap a baby's neck.

I had to walk away from my WiP for a bit.

I guess that's not really what you're asking though.

I have trouble with sex scenes, I don't want to end up writing trite details of physical actions. Fight scenes for the same reason.

At the moment I'm having a huge problem writing a religious person, just to get inside his head and really understand his faith. What keeps him going even when he thinks his god has abandoned him? That's hard for me.

I've deleted stuff because it was crap, but not because it was difficult.

PeeDee · Oct 23, 2007

The hardest part of my current book was the first two chapters. Because my story's set in Rome, I spent the first two chapters floundering and panicking, going "I don't know enough about Rome! The other people writing books like this have major degrees in history! I have no business doing this!"

I stuck with my characters and read more (I had always read about Rome, I just hadn't consciously applied it) and the story found its feet and has been away ever since.

joyce · Oct 23, 2007

The hardest thing I ever wrote would have to be my first query letter. I think I've developed query letter phobia from that experience. I feel I can write a whole novel and have very little problem doing it.....it's the dang query letter that sends me into a panic. With my second novel I wrote the query letter as soon as I started writing just to get it out of the way. I hate them.

sneakers145 · Oct 23, 2007

The hardest thing was getting into the mind of a serial killer. ICK!! I got into his head and wrote all of the scenes from his POV all at once, then inserted them into their appropriate places in the novel. ::shudder::

The other hardest scenes were a rape scene, and the scene where the rape victim tells what happened (2 weeks later).

Just Me 2021 · Oct 23, 2007

The hardest things for me to write are scenes with multiple characters. I do everything I can to avoid getting too many people in a room at the same time.

Wraith · Oct 23, 2007

Interesting question. As I recently complained here, I'm terrible at love scenes (not sex, I don't even go there). Some I get through, giving them an interesting direction/conversation etc, but the actual suggestion of love gives me a hard time. Although I keep trying and I think I'm getting better. Not like I have any choice, the damn thing is essential to the plot

Otherwise, every now and then I'll have a point where I don't know what do next (I only have a loose outline), or what's ahead doesn't seem interesting enough atm. Then I have to make it interesting and force myself to keep writing. I also don't write interaction very well - I'm not good at suggesting long-term human relationships as they gradually evolve and change (the short intense ones are ok), but that's a thing I'm trying to improve and it's too interesting and important to give up on.

Hardest scene, but in a different way, was when a secondary character caused (indirectly) the murder of his brother. I was excited about writing the decapitation scene, but it got too intense and when I reached it my own brother came to mind,. which was scary. I had to cut the death scene off early and came back the next day to write it properly. It's still the most intense, flowing scene I've written to this day. But that's not what you meant, sorry for rambling.

Nateskate · Oct 23, 2007

Nakhlasmoke said:
At the moment I'm having a huge problem writing a religious person, just to get inside his head and really understand his faith. What keeps him going even when he thinks his god has abandoned him? That's hard for me.

I've deleted stuff because it was crap, but not because it was difficult.

I think with the religious person, it's very much like when someone holds onto a marriage when it's difficult. There was something somewhere, and even in the darker times, they're hoping it's still there and they'll find their way through.

And besides, there are so many people through history that have what you call a "Dark night of the soul", where everything went wrong, including in the Bible- like Joseph, Daniel, David and Job" for instance, there is that hope that "This is that".

I think to make it work, there has to have been a point where their faith was not simply something mommy and daddy handed down, some kind of social religion they accepted without question until it was tested. Those are the kinds most likely to walk away. But others who've actually had deep experiences that survived in the past, may now face something totally out of the blue, or a prolonged trial or series of trials, and wonder if God abandoned them. But that's the point, they also wonder if God didn't abandon them and if God is only testing them?

Hope that helps.

sunna · Oct 23, 2007

My synopsis: took me a month to get the damned thing to the point where it was halfway coherent, and it still needs work.

Getting backstory in without ruining the flow. Ack!

CaroGirl · Oct 23, 2007

The most difficult thing is the novel I'm writing now. I've set myself some real challenges in this one and I'm struggling with how to work it all out. I'm enjoying it, though, and I will work it out.

Nateskate · Oct 23, 2007

Lol- I'm seeing a trend in the Romance dept. I guess this should say something for those who are romance writers. And I understand this, trying not to sound cliche or like you're writing Erotic novels (if you're not). To keep it real and interesting.

The other one, "Battles"- if you have a sci-fi or fantasy, I think one problem is the battle dialogue, not making it sound like the battle of the smurfs.

Nateskate · Oct 23, 2007

sneakers145 said:
The hardest thing was getting into the mind of a serial killer. ICK!! I got into his head and wrote all of the scenes from his POV all at once, then inserted them into their appropriate places in the novel. ::shudder::

The other hardest scenes were a rape scene, and the scene where the rape victim tells what happened (2 weeks later).

That's something I'd have a terrible time doing. People who write from a Serial Killer POV would be traumatic for me. It's kind of like "I don't want to even let those thoughts in my head."

Shadow_Ferret · Oct 23, 2007

I can't think of anything within my genre that came hard to me.

Writing outside my genre is hard. I gave up on mainstream or literary because I discovered that I just don't know anything about real life. I've lived in a fantasy world of my own making since high school.

Azure Skye · Oct 23, 2007

joyce said:
The hardest thing I ever wrote would have to be my first query letter. I think I've developed query letter phobia from that experience. I feel I can write a whole novel and have very little problem doing it.....it's the dang query letter that sends me into a panic. With my second novel I wrote the query letter as soon as I started writing just to get it out of the way. I hate them.

Dangit. Beat me to it.

Yea, Query letter = painful.

BruceJ · Oct 23, 2007

Bargaining

I'm a terrible bargainer. Car salesmen set off fireworks when I step onto their lot--must be written all over me. So, I deliberately wrote a scene in an open market with a woman (a 'legendary' bargainer) locked into mercantile combat with a fresh produce vendor (equally astute, but with a weakness) just to see if I could do it in a fictitious venue. It was hard, but I ended up really enjoying it. Yeah, it's a keeper.

Zelenka · Oct 23, 2007

Sex scenes -I just don't do those any more. I had a scene in another unpublished / unpublishable book where one of my MCs came home, there was a sex scene that actually was kind of necessary and had a lot of like character stuff going on, then he had to wake up next to his wife and find out she'd been murdered (by a supernatural type thing). That was really hard, getting that close to the characters then ripping it all up.

I have trouble with fight scenes, especially those involving magic. Actually most times describing magic gives me trouble because no matter how cool it would look as an effect on a film, it sounds lame when I write it.

Historical stuff too, because I get that thing where I just think I'm not clever enough to do it and there are other experts out there who could do it more justice than I could. But I love my historical stories, so...

Elodie-Caroline · Oct 23, 2007

Most definitely the query letter!
The part of my story that was the hardest to write, was where the baddie finally gets baited, captured and then gets what's coming to him. I had to rewrite it as I wasn't happy with it.
On the rewrite, one of my beta-readers told me, that it was so intense, that it took her a while to get back into the love story.

On another WIP of mine, I wrote the ending before the middle, but whilst writing the rest of the story, I had to change the ending. I couldn't kill off my girl to teach her man a lesson about life, she didn't deserve it, so I made her live and let him suffer... for a while anyway. I like h.e.a

Elodie

Ravenlocks · Oct 23, 2007

Third acts are hard for me. I worry that when I'm wrapping everything up I'll mess up the whole story. And scenes that focus on more than two or three characters are tough for me. Even my crowd scenes don't focus on the crowd, only the minimum number of important people. And any big vital scene, no matter what it is, makes me nervous.

Speaking of deleting stuff, I'm at the second draft/revision stage of my current WIP, and I just spent about four weeks trying to make two chapters work (granted, some of the time I was out of town). This past weekend I concluded I simply couldn't do it, so I deleted the chapters, and lo and behold, the story works awesomely without them. My subconscious knew all along and wouldn't let me move forward until those chapters bit the dust. I just took the important info from them and put it in someplace else.

Ravenlocks · Oct 23, 2007

JessRamage said:
Historical stuff too, because I get that thing where I just think I'm not clever enough to do it and there are other experts out there who could do it more justice than I could. But I love my historical stories, so...

That's why I mostly write fantasy set in imaginary worlds. That way nobody can tell me I got my history wrong. Unless I make a big mistake in continuity.

NicoleMD · Oct 23, 2007

The last three or so chapters always gives me fits. At least they are right now. You feel like you're so close, yet so far away. All the threads you've laid down you have to pick up and juggle and tie into somewhat neat little knots, and make it intersting to boot. Argh!!!

[/public therapy session]

Nicole

TrickyFiction · Oct 23, 2007

Nateskate said:
What part of your novel gave you/is giving you fits. (i.e battles, chase scenes,

I usually have trouble slowing things down. So, I think pacing is going to be my big challenge. At least I know what I'm looking for though, eh? I fear the "rewrite" stage, but I can't answer the rest of your questions because I haven't gotten there yet.

Zelenka · Oct 23, 2007

Ravenlocks said:
That's why I mostly write fantasy set in imaginary worlds. That way nobody can tell me I got my history wrong. Unless I make a big mistake in continuity.

Same here.

blacbird · Oct 23, 2007

The check to my divorce lawyer.

caw

JLCwrites · Oct 23, 2007

My current WIP.
I flew through my first one, but the one I am working on now is moving at a snail's pace. (I think it is because I am compelled to edit as I write.) But it is an awesome idea with really great potential, so I am not going to give up on it. But I will spend some time banging my head against the wall while trying to get through it.
:Headbang:

What was the hardest thing you wrote?

Midnight Reading

yes

Where's my tea, please...?

I'm really shy...

practical experience, FTW

The demon in your inkwell.

Living the dream

Court Jester

Huh?

Me and my Muse

Going home!

How novel.

How novel.

Onomatopotamus

Who?

Going home!