In today’s Journal
* Topic: Appreciate and Be Loyal to Your Creative Subconscious
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Topic: Appreciate and Be Loyal to Your Creative Subconscious
Maybe one of the worst things about the myths of writing is that they cause otherwise perfectly good storytellers to make tons of mistakes.
Chief among those mistakes is placing too much importance on any one reader’s opinion. Especially when the writer then changes the content of a story because of that opinion.
I’m not talking about wrong-word usages or other typos here. I’m not talking about missing periods at the end of sentences.
I’m talking about a reader stating an opinion about a story (or part of a story) and the writer taking it to heart and changing the content of the story. Especially when the writer has several sources of input on the same story and changes it each time to suit every opinion.
Don’t do that. Some readers will ‘get’ your story (or that part of it) and some won’t. And if you keep changing it the story will still have your name on it but it will no longer be your story. And it will no longer be your characters’ story, the story they told you.
And that is what matters.
Every time you change the content of your story, you’re teaching your own creative subconscious that you don’t trust it. That’s the worst possible thing you could do.
By way of direct example of this weird phenomenon, please read “On Murdering 22,000 Darlings” in “Of Interest” very carefully, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph. It is an excellent primer on what not to do.
Read it with the thought in the back of your mind that maybe this is what happens when you do not understand what I wrote in yesterday’s Journal:
Writing is Just Writing. Stories are Just Stories. What one reader (or editor or agent) likes another reader (or editor or agent) won’t, and (even) your opinion of your work as the author is still only one opinion.
Seriously, folks. Just write the story, publish it, and let the readers decide. How hard is that?
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
See “Making Better Magic Systems, Lesson 6” at https://mystorydoctor.com/making-better-magic-systems-lesson-6/.
See “On Murdering 22,000 Darlings” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/on-murdering-22000-darlings/.
See “Give A Writer Enough Trope And They’ll Hang Themselves” at https://killzoneblog.com/2021/05/give-a-writer-enough-tropeand-theyll-hang-themselves.html. I found it difficult to get past the title. Wouldn’t it have been easy to write “Give WriterS” (plural)?
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………………… 410 words
Writing of Wes Crowley (novel, tentative title)
Day 1…… 3089 words. Total words to date…… 3089
Day 2…… 3871 words. Total words to date…… 6960
Day 3…… 5202 words. Total words to date…… 12162
Day 4…… 2900 words. Total words to date…… 15062
Day 5…… 2530 words. Total words to date…… 17592
Day 6…… 3543 words. Total words to date…… 21135
Day 7…… 3563 words. Total words to date…… 24698
Day 8…… 3961 words. Total words to date…… 28665
Day 9…… 3880 words. Total words to date…… 32545
Total fiction words for May……… 54201
Total fiction words for the year………… 425480
Total nonfiction words for May… 13580
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 98440
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 523920
Calendar Year 2021 Novels to Date…………………… 8
Calendar Year 2021 Novellas to Date……………… 1
Calendar Year 2021 Short Stories to Date… 3
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 61
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 8
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 217
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31
Disclaimer: In this blog, I provide advice on writing fiction. I advocate a technique called Writing Into the Dark. To be crystal clear, WITD is not “the only way” to write, nor will I ever say it is. However, as I am the only writer who advocates WITD both publicly and regularly, I will continue to do so, among myriad other topics.