Forum: Author Hangout

Stuck...

Bob Banger 🚫

So I started writing a story from a small idea for a scene.

Guy gets unexpectedly rich while living in a poor area. Decides to stay and flaunt money.

I thought I would be done in less than 10,000 words. However, as the words flowed out, characters took on a life of their own and guided the progress.

However, I seemed to have bitten off more than I can chew. Too many things are happening and too many characters introduced themselves, and it's getting wild.

Has that happened to you?

Honestly, I have no idea how to rein things in.

What's the most likely process that would allow me to return to an orderly story? What's your process? Please share.

Replies: LucyAnneThorn mrherewriting Michael Loucks Bob Banger

LucyAnneThorn 🚫

@Bob Banger

Just go the George R. R. Martin way and kill them all.

Joking, of course. But seriously, those characters are just badly camouflaged plot bunnies. And you know how it is with bunnies. You turn your head for a minute and they breed. Stuff them into cages, I mean separate drafts, and cut away whatever doesn't help your story's progression muvh. Story arc, conflict, resolution, strong last scene. That's what you want to write towards in a short, and there's no shame or loss in not using every good idea and intriguing character right away.

Coming back to my first suggestion: you can of course also have them or the main character move away instead of outright killing them, and wham, you have an implicit conclusion to a lot of loose threads. It's not uncommon that people go away for school, jobs, relationships or just because of midlife crisis. Even a temporary move could provide that closure and still leave room for all these threads to evolve into independent stories.

mrherewriting 🚫
Updated:

@Bob Banger

Whatever these extra characters initial purposes were, bring them to their conclusions.

You can be as wild as like with your writing, but at some point discipline will have to take over to bring everything together.

After that, if you want to keep them around as part of the scenery, do it, but don't revisit their stories, otherwise you'll never finish.

Michael Loucks 🚫

@Bob Banger

People drift in and out of our lives all the time. Allow them to drift out. You don't need to resolve their arcs directly (we often don't know what became of people who drifted out of our orbits). You can always provide closure through other means (news, other friends reporting briefly what happened, and so on).

You only need to close your main arc…the rest should support it.

Replies: Grey Wolf

Grey Wolf 🚫

@Michael Loucks

I'll second that. I (and Michael Loucks, certainly!) have a lot of characters, but some come in and go out, and even with main characters who are focused on maintaining friendships and keeping in touch, there are formerly main characters who are gone, or just barely get an update.

Of course, sometimes a character vanishes for a long time, then returns, bigger than ever. It happens! But that's real life, too. My best friend today was 'an acquaintance', 'best friend', 'missing in action', 'an acquaintance', and 'best friend' over time.

On the other hand, I'll also say that, depending on the story you're writing, you can just write out characters who aren't doing what you need them to do. I consciously deemphasized or entirely eliminated characters along the way, because they weren't going to help the story.

Bob Banger 🚫

@Bob Banger

Thank you all for the advice.

I organized the story with an outline that included the extra stuff. I'm working on limiting myself to this outline that leads to a good conclusion.

Hopefully I can stick to it and not have to discipline some of my more abnoxious characters with death or something similarly drastic.

Hopefully I have enough discipline to follow the new plan.

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Forum: Author Hangout

Stuck...

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