5 Frustrating Things About Writing

I'm having one of those days where I try to write and the right words just don't come.  Maybe I've got too many writing projects going at once? (I'm working on a novel and a short story at the same time, and I've got my weekly blog post on top of that!)  Anyway, because regular topics just aren't working for me today, here's a post about five frustrating things about writing. 

Plot Bunnies

"Plot bunny" is a term used among writers to mean an idea that distracts you from the thing you're currently writing.  For instance, you're writing medieval fantasy when you get what seems like a really good idea for a story set in 20th century America.  It's really tempting to drop the story you're currently working on and start one based on the new idea.  Don't do it.  Write down the idea and forget about it for now.  If you hop from story to story following plot bunnies, you'll never finish anything. (I need to follow this advice better myself.  I have started countless stories based on plot bunnies, and hardly any of them got beyond five pages.)

Forgetting Details In Your Own Story

 

 I thought this one just happened to me, but I've heard from a few other people who say the same thing.  You're writing along, and you have to invent a name for a minor character, or the name of a town, or something like that.  You put it in and promptly forget all about it.  When the minor character comes up again three chapters later, you can't remember his name.  So you have to search painstakingly through the first part of your book to find him.  I can only think of two ways to avoid this problem...have a perfect memory or make lists of all the details you might possibly have to remember later.

Plots That Don't Work

You've left your character pining away in a tower from which there is no escape, and now you have no idea how to get him out.  The only option seems to be supernatural aid (or a giant eagle, if you're Tolkien).  And supernatural aid (and eagles) seem unsatisfying, at least to me. You want the characters to be able to solve their own problems without the writer dragging in outside help. 

 I think whoever wrote Brigadoon had this problem.  They left poor Tommy Albright stranded in the modern day with no way to get back to Brigadoon.  The conclusion, where Tommy goes back to the spot where Brigadoon used to be and finds it still there, feels like cheating on the writers' part.  The only explanation for why Brigadoon is still there is "if you love someone deeply enough, anything is possible".  Cute, maybe, but it still feels like a deus ex machina to me.  (This is not to say that I dislike Brigadoon.  On the contrary, it's one of my favorite old movies.)

 Characters That Don't Do What You Want

You know exactly what you want your character to do, but he won't do it.  Instead of being a bold outlaw, he's a wishy-washy outlaw with scruples.  (This example is from a character that appeared in a novel I wrote a few years ago.  He was the main character, and the story didn't work well with him being wishy-washy and scrupulous.)  Anne in Anne of Avonlea complains about the same thing when she's writing her short story, "Averil's Atonement." I have no idea why this happens.  I've heard people saying it's all in the writer's mind.  Maybe it is, and if so, I wish I could figure out what to do about it!  

Distraction

Distracted writing isn't dangerous like distracted driving...but it's still frustrating!  There are an indefinite number of ways to get distracted while you're trying to write.  People in the room, music, the Internet, to-do lists, and just ordinary daydreaming are only a few of the things that make it so difficult to concentrate on the project at hand.  It's impossible to completely eliminate distraction, but you can definitely avoid it.  For me, the best place to work and avoid distractions is a quiet room (with no music, not even instrumental).  I often write my stories longhand on paper, because the computer distracts me too!

Do you relate to any of these frustrating things?  Or have others to add?  I'd love to hear them!

 

 

Fan Fiction: Pros and Cons

I've always had mixed feelings about fan fiction.  Is it worth reading?  Is it even a legitimate genre of writing?   So I thought I'd explore a few pros and cons of fan fiction (both for readers and for writers) in this post.

Starting with the cons:

• Because fan fiction is inherently derived from someone else's work, the authors are using ideas that are not their own.  Instead of coming up with characters and plots from scratch, they're using someone else's work as a springboard.  This can cause problems.  There's the obvious plagiarism issue: is the fan fiction author just ripping off somebody else's story?  Writers can get into dubiously moral and even illegal territory with fan fiction, especially if they're trying to get it published.
• There is a lot of low-quality fan fiction out there.  A LOT of it.  Many people who attempt writing fan fiction know nothing about writing but want to invent further adventures for their favorite characters.  So the fan fiction they come up with is poorly written.  I'm sure this gives them writing practice, but it makes it frustrating to read fan fiction because there's so much poorly-done fan fiction to wade through. (To be fair, there are a lot of original books out there that are also very poorly written.  But it seems to be harder to separate the bad from the good in fan fiction than it is in in original fiction.  Maybe that's partially due to the fact that far fewer people have read the fan fiction than the original works, so there aren't many people to ask whether a particular work of fan fiction is good or not.)
• A lot of fan fiction is highly innappropriate.   What is it with people wanting to take good stories and rewrite them with added sexual content?  That seems like a good idea? Really?  It frustrates me to find what seems like an interesting spinoff on Pride and Prejudice, only to find the author has given Mr. Darcy a backstory that's indistinguishable from Mr. Wickham's.

So there are the cons.  (I'm sure there are more...please comment below with any thoughts.)
Now how about a few pros?

•  Famous ancient writers did it.  Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet was inspired by a poem by Arthur Brooke called "The Tragical Historye of Romeus and Juliet."  Virgil's Aeneid is based on Homer's Iliad and The Odyssey.  It seems to me that most of the Robin Hood stories are fan fiction as well, since they're based off the old Robin Hood ballads or off each other.  Come to think of it, Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe is fan fiction.  These are books people are required to read in school!
• Fan fiction satisfies a great longing in its authors.  Have you ever finished a book and been really sad that it was the last one in the series?  I have.  When I was six, I started writing a sequel to C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia because I couldn't stand that there weren't any more Narnia books.  (Actually, it wasn't technically a sequel since it happened between Prince Caspian and The Dawn Treader.  I believe they call that a paraquel.)  
• Fan fiction is also a good way to practice general writing skills.  Some people that might not otherwise have started writing fiction began with fan fiction.  I think that's a good thing!
• Well-done fan fiction can be a lot of fun to read.  I read a sequel to Frances Hodgson Burnett's A Little Princess called Wishing For Tomorrow.  It continues the story of the girls who are in the school after Sara leaves in a really satisfying way.  

In summary:  It seems to me that fan fiction is a double-edged sword.  It can be done well; if it's based on classics or other old sources where stealing intellectual property is not an issue, gives credit to the original work where credit is due, and has good content and good writing style, I think it's a worthy addition to the world's literature.  If it's done badly...it deserves to be flung into the depths of Mount Doom. :P

What do you think about fan fiction?  I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

(Full disclosure: I am at this time writing fan fiction myself.  I'm writing a novel based on Pride and Prejudice set in Colorado in the 1870's.  Whether this will ever become a worthy addition to the world's literature remains to be seen.)