No wrong story to tell

[megwrites]

wisdomeagle once said, "There is no wrong way to tell a story, there is no wrong story to tell", and I've kind of lived by that credo. Because it's easy to psych yourself out as a writer into believing that your story is just wrong, wrong, wrong. Or that it should measure up to someone else's stories.

But occasionally, there are stories that while they aren't wrong, aren't the right fit at the moment. They're stories for later or leftover stories or whatnot. And sometimes you don't discover that fact for the first 50 pages. You take the bad with the good, I suppose.

I finally got to 15,000 words on the new draft of what I'm working on only to realize that I'm still telling the wrong story. The right story was apparently buried somewhere in there, 15k deep. Which would be nice if not for the week and a half I spent hammering out the wrong first draft.

On the upside? I now know that this is not only the right story, but a good one. And it comes with a pretty good first line. One I actually like. So, there's that.

If anyone ever tells you that writing is easy, simple, or straightforward, you have my permission to punch them in the teeth. Hard.

Because honestly? The act of reaching out into the ether of language and abstract thought and pulling out a solid story is something akin to such miracles as bringing a person back to life on the operating table and when a giant metal airplane carrying lots of people actually gets off the ground despite gravity's protestations to the contrary.

I have a hard time articulating why it is that I know that writing, history, and the arts are as important as science and math, but it's something I know like I know my name. I know that all the math and science in the world won't complete the human package, that art is more than just a superfluous skin we put over things. Science and math may be our skeletons, but our flesh is made of art. It is art.

But after watching the last bit of a program on Neanderthals this morning, I have to say that I think that what art (in all it's myriad forms) boils down to is giving human beings an inborn simulator. Something we can run simulations on so that we can experience something without having to make it happen, so that we can visualize that which we cannot realize. In a way, it gives us vision. It allows us to see the building before we build it, allows us to hear the song before we sing it.

That's what I think science fiction and fantasy do at their best. They let us simulate things that haven't happened yet or won't happen, in order to let us preview something vital. Science fiction lets us wrap our head around consequences, large and small, of all the many futures and realities we might find ourselves in. They let us answer our own questions about what is human, what does human mean?

And like the temple in Greece said: gnothi seauton. Know thyself. And answer the question of what are we and what does that mean by being able to experience both the deeply human and the deeply nonhuman. And the more we know ourselves, the better our existences become.

Comments

[lilacfield.livejournal.com]

The act of reaching out into the ether of language and abstract thought and pulling out a solid story is something akin to such miracles as bringing a person back to life on the operating table and when a giant metal airplane carrying lots of people actually gets off the ground despite gravity's protestations to the contrary.

Very often, ideas, even sentences, that sound good inside my head would sound banal or even nonsensical when seen on the laptop screen. It could be one of the instances of pulling out the wrong story. While I know that we supposedly must produce drivel before we can write a satisfying story, I hope for less amount of drivel and more good stories.

[fiction-theory.livejournal.com]

I hope for less amount of drivel and more good stories.

A very decided AMEN to that. I hope for less drivel as well. If it makes you feel better, even the pros still put out drivel as well as masterpieces.

[scififanatic.livejournal.com]

The act of reaching out into the ether of language and abstract thought and pulling out a solid story is something akin to such miracles as bringing a person back to life on the operating table...

Yes! I definitely feel like writing is like raising the dead.

Also, I love what you said about science being the skeleton and skin being art.

[fiction-theory.livejournal.com]

Yes! I definitely feel like writing is like raising the dead.

I figure that writers are basically necromancers. And the hours some of us keep? We also might be vampires. Wouldn't that be an odd combination.

I'm glad you liked what I said. It's good to know that even if I never get a novel published, my words do sometimes delight people, even if they're just words on a blog.