A Never-Ending Story

I dashed off the first version of my story really quickly. Part of that may have been because I'd set an artificial goal for myself of penning four novellas this year. Lies and Love was written so seamlessly, in just four weeks. And it was a good story; it worked. I was feeling cocky.

When I "finished" this new story, I said to myself, "See? Piece of cake!" Then I looked at the word count. I hadn't even managed to hit 15,000 words. Still, I almost published it. It turned out that I had the bones of a good story, but not an actual story. The MC had purchased her boondoggle and set about renovating it, she had to find a job because her money was running out, and that's where she met her new love. That abruptly led to a misunderstanding that had her fleeing back home, and then her roof caught on fire. That's about it. THE END.

What?

And at the time, I thought that was fine.

So basically, the reader is just getting to know the characters and the book ends.

Self-respect barred me from publishing that tiny bowl of mush. Ultimately I turned a person who was only referenced in the story into a real-life character. Okay! There you go! Now I could add some twists and turns.

And boy, did I.

Now it's become the never-ending story. Yesterday I started tinkering with combining the first and second story versions, or more correctly, the beginnings of the first version with all my additions. Turns out I wrote more words in the "additions" than the entirety of Version One. I haven't looked at the word count because I'm still not done. I have a whole epilogue yet to write. But I have taken the story down a very winding path. I'm not sure if that's a good thing. Maybe there should be a happy medium, but I refuse to cut! I still have nightmares about cutting out big chunks of a novel, and that story is forever stained in my mind. I absolutely hate the final product, will never promote it, and can barely stomach including it on my book list. So, no, there will be no cutting of this story. Editing, sure, but I'm not deleting any of the back roads I went down. Happily, they're all leading back to the right place, so they're not just filler. 

And the thing is, I could still write more (before the epilogue). I could create more complications, which I've seemed to become rather addicted to doing. I dread even thinking about the story's possibilities, because I have no doubt I would come up with some. When a story is page after page of terror and suspense, it's a hard thing to switch off. Now I'm supposed to depict a happy, la de da ending? I almost want to add a twist to the very last sentence I write, like a foreshadowing of the villain returning. I have to resist that urge. That's not the genre I'm writing. 

This entire episode had led me to a better understanding of people who write 100,000-word (or longer) books. My forte is short. A big reason for that is, though I don't plan, once I discover the main focus of a story I stick with it, and all roads lead to it. This current one only meandered because it had to. But generally, I'm not an idea person. Those long-ass writers are, apparently, unless they're just needlessly dragging out a one-idea story with unnecessary words and overall bad structure. 

I've said before that every experience, bad or good, has at least one takeaway. Usually the bad experiences leave more lasting impressions. Writing this story has not been a good experience. It's been frustrating. It's even forced me to think about the plot when I'm not writing. (I rarely do that.) In a roundabout way, though, it showed me that I can come up with ideas, and that every story doesn't have to march headlong toward its ultimate conclusion.

Yesterday I was quite unhappy with my output (you can read that post if you want), and I was feeling defeated. Maybe all writers go through that. Today I feel more hopeful. 

I want to keep feeling that.