Story grows over time?

ZannaPerry · Sep 11, 2007

This may be a question way out there in left field, but it also could be mean something and be totally realistic. Since I've been writing my current WIP since I was a junior in high school (I'm a sophomore in college now) my story/plot/confict/climax have completely changed except for my main characters. And I've realized that over time, my story has really grown up as I have as a writer. It's more mature, realistic, emotional because I've dealt with harder life situations since my junior year, and that's playing out in the progress of my story, and changing it from a completely different story, to another with the original characters. I'm actually real proud how far I've come since I am the world's biggest slow-poke when it comes to writing.

So, has this happened to anyone before?

TheIT · Sep 11, 2007

Oh, yeah. My four fantasy novel WIPs all stemmed from the same attempt at a short story.

Wolvel · Sep 11, 2007

Yes it has considering my wip started back in 86 as a graphic novel and has grown into the monster in my head.

My characters are also the same as before, just with a lot more depth to them now.

mscelina · Sep 11, 2007

wrote the first draft of Asphodel when I was sixteen--had it accepted for publication at age 38.

Granted, took a good...oh....20 year break from it but still. It happens. The book that is published now bears little resemblance to the original draft--a couple of characters, maybe.

ZannaPerry · Sep 11, 2007

Wolvel said:
My characters are also the same as before, just with a lot more depth to them now.

Yeah, that's how it is for me too. I can actually draw a picture of my characters now, and how they are so clear because of how much they've grown. It's awesome.

Azraelsbane · Sep 11, 2007

One of my MCs in my current novel was my first imaginary friend. He's been around since I was three... Yeah, talk about story growth. LoL.

OverTheHills&FarAway · Sep 11, 2007

Yep.

Started as the most ridiculous and immature thing ever, an escape from my angsty teenage life, and now, three hundred drafts later, it's a smart, subtle, rich novel that--if I ever get around to finishing!--might actually prove I know what I'm talking about.

Until then, though....

Shane Fitzsimmons · Sep 11, 2007

Stories definitely evolve over time. That's sort of the shitty thing about getting published, if there is such a thing. You'll take a look at that book 10 years later and just slap yourself in the forehead shouting "What was I thinking?"

HopelessDreamer · Sep 11, 2007

Yeah - I started writing my only finished mss when I was 14. I only got about 15 pages into it and picked it back up when I was 16, finished the first draft, and forgot about it again until I was 17 when I finally typed it out. At 18 I tried to get it published for the first time before realizing how naive it was spent the next year changing it to fit the ideas that I hold now. So now at 19, I'm finally happy with it and trying to REALLY get it published. When I look at my first draft, I can't believe it's even the same novel. It's horribly written, the dialogue is really mechanical... Ugh, there's just so much wrong with it! But I love looking at the final draft and seeing how much I've progressed.

Of course, five years from now I'll probably look at it and think it's horrible, but for now I'm happy with it!

BigRed · Sep 11, 2007

Totally agree. I think stories evolve with the author. Not just as we age, but with the amount of real world experience we go through. Even if I leave a story for just a few months and come back to it, which has happened more times than I like to think about, I will often update parts of it to reflect the me I am now, not the me I was then...umm, if you see what I mean.

britlitfantw · Sep 11, 2007

The WIP I have out with critters right now started as thinly disguised fan fic. It now contains elemental magic, characters I am proud to call my own, and a world from my own head. My writing, too, has evolved. It's a neverending process.

JimmyB27 · Sep 12, 2007

Oh yeah, mine started out as a straight off the production line D&D rip off. Now it's all mine

Prawn · Sep 12, 2007

Are you sure you are not writing a memoir?

jannawrites · Sep 12, 2007

The mere concept of my novel has grown over the last few years. I had a fuzzy sort of thought about what I wanted to write, and would attempt to begin it, but it didn't fully develop until six months or so ago. Now my characters are exactly who they're meant to be; this is the story I'm supposed to tell.

You need an extra poke to get goin', SuzyB? :poke:

Good luck!

PeeDee · Sep 12, 2007

I would hope, and imagine, that this has happened to everyone who writes, because if you and your story aren't growin', then you're in some serious trouble.

I had an iffy period, six years or so ago (I remember it pretty distinctly) where I was accelerating by leaps and bounds and getting stronger and better as a writer, literally every day or so. The problem was, every time I Got Better, the story I'd been working on fell apart, or wasn't interesting anymore. So there was a lot of wreckage and not a lot of writing...but at the end of it, I was a better and stronger writer who began stories that were better and stronger from the beginning.

Prawn · Sep 12, 2007

My suggestion would be to start a new novel that will hang together. The work you have done so far can be a source of inspiration for you. You can steal scenes from it even, but I would start over. Think about it this way. If you can write a thousand words a day (four pages), you write 90,000 words in three months. If you can write only one page a day (250 words), you can have a novel length rough draft in less than a year. To give you some perspective, this post is already one hundred words long. How hard was that? (Now I am adding more!) We all get better and stronger as writers the more we do it. I assure you that a book you write now will be better than a book you started writing in high school.

Good Luck!

PeeDee · Sep 12, 2007

I think Prawn's absolutely right.

preyer · Sep 12, 2007

sometimes the opposite is true: i can go back to stuff i've trunked and say, man, i wish i could write like that now. at least certain parts.

as you grow as a person, you grow as an artist. a lot of my favourite musicians have not much more than raw, in-your-face energy and a catchy hook to start with, and years later they actually make music worth gushing over.

i've always said life experience is nothing but good for writers, and writers should be experience whores. conversely, that's why i don't get into much from young writers, because they've usually got nothing to say beyond equating everything to high school levels of maturity. even depicting traumatic events or the like is still from the perspective of a young person lacking the introspection that makes it interesting. not always, of course.

but, no, i couldn't rewrite something from ten years ago and it be any worse than it was when i originally wrote it, lol. new experiences puts a different spin on perspectives, and, if nothing else, i'm a better self-editor and know more about the mechanics of it than i did.

PeeDee · Sep 12, 2007

preyer said:
sometimes the opposite is true: i can go back to stuff i've trunked and say, man, i wish i could write like that now. at least certain parts.

And that is equally true. I've gone back to stories and thought I wrote fast and easily then, without worry or self-doubt. And it's not half-bad. Man-o-man, what happened.

But at the end of the day, none of those stories have been worth dusting off and sending out. So I just keep going with the way I write now.

Story grows over time?

ZannaPerry

^ Just Me & a Sharpie

TheIT

Infuriatingly Theoretical

Wolvel

Write the Damn Book!

mscelina

Teh doommobile, drivin' rite by you

ZannaPerry

^ Just Me & a Sharpie

Azraelsbane

Agony is defeat

OverTheHills&FarAway

McNifico

Shane Fitzsimmons

HopelessDreamer

BigRed

Write to live; live to write!

britlitfantw

JimmyB27

Hoopy frood

Prawn

Writing is finite,revising infinite

jannawrites

no, really

PeeDee

Where's my tea, please...?

Prawn

Writing is finite,revising infinite

PeeDee

Where's my tea, please...?

preyer

excessively spartan

PeeDee

Where's my tea, please...?