It’s the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writers Support Group (IWSG) post! In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions.
This month’s question comes with a quote: "Although I have written a short story collection, the form found me and not the other way around. Don't write short stories, novels or poems. Just write your truth and your stories will mold into the shapes they need to be."
And the question: Have you ever written a piece that became a form, or even a genre, you hadn't planned on writing in? Or do you choose a form/genre in advance?
Strangely, a similar experience happened to me just recently with the short story I’ve been trying to revise off and on. It’s one of the most challenging that I’ve written because it deals with an alternate universe, which is a topic that gets into quantum theoretical complications and I am not a science expert. Science enthusiast of a sort, but no where near an expert. So I am now going on to my fourth rewrite of this short story. During my third I had discovered that the plot was calling for a longer form of fiction, at least novella size. However, I didn’t want to write this story as a novella, especially since I’m already working on a novella and didn’t want to be working on two simultaneously.
So I made a new outline for the story and rewrote it from a more simpler standpoint of the protagonist (who is not a scientist). To do this, I had to distance him more from the supporting character, a physicist. So, in order for the story to develop more simplistically for what I can handle in a short work, I had to shift the story to focus more on the protagonist’s relationship and encounter with the antagonist rather than with the supporting physicist character. In my specific situation this seems like it will help keep the story to the short fiction level like I want.
To elaborate on and respond to the above quote more, since I am a big lover of genre literature, I have to disagree with the quote’s suggestion to ignore genre or form. I have to know what I’m writing ahead of time, at least vaguely (e.g. Am I writing science fiction? Horror?). Besides, I normally write a story based on an idea I have recorded in my journal and the idea is usually already in the form of science fiction, fantasy or horror. So, when I start writing a fiction story I already have the idea for it and it’s usually already determined by a specified genre often due to the nature of the plot. Maybe that’s because my thoughts are science fiction and fantasy to begin with.
Do you already have your genre in mind when you begin to write (e.g. science fiction, romance)? What about your form of writing (e.g. novel, short story, poem)?
Today’s IWSG is brought to you by these super co-hosts: Susan Baury Rouchard, Nancy Gideon, Jennifer Lane, Jennifer Hawes, Chemist Ken, and Chrys Fey!! IWSG was founded by awesome
author Alex Cavanaugh, writer of the Cassa Series of novels!
Until next time . . .
I wouldn't be able to write a ton of science into a story either.
ReplyDeleteI always know what I am writing ahead of time.
I have to at least have a basic idea of what I'm writing ahead of time. The details come from exploration into the story for me.
DeleteI always know the genre the story belongs to before I even start writing. But not the length, which emerges as the story unfolds.
ReplyDeleteLength can be pretty hard to anticipate.
DeleteI agree--about knowing what you're writing first. Each genre has such unique rules/guidelines. You have to follow them (or know why you aren't) to succeed in that genre.
ReplyDeleteInteresting post.
Thanks Jacqui. Have you happened to have read anything by Mary Mackey? She writes, or did when I attended a fiction writing course of hers in college years ago, prehistoric fiction much of which seems to be on the more fact-based side. (I can't say for sure because I haven't read any of her work myself.)
Delete