Sometimes you need to shove the gearstick in reverse (bite sized method)

I’ve stumbled into quite a prolific phase of writing at the moment. Story ideas are coming to me and I’m getting them down on the page and I’m sending them out to journals with little to no incubation period at any stage in the process.

Though I’ll acknowledge such productivity is rare. It’s nice for now.

The more interesting observation I’ve pulled out of this, mind you, is how the new stories “feel” when I’ve finished them.
I suppose it’s the close proximity of one completed story to the next that’s allowing me to see it. But I’ve observed that my opinion of a brand new story tends to go one of two ways:

“This is the best story I’ve ever written.”

or

“This is shit.”

I don’t trust either instinct. But I approach them in different ways.

The Best Story I’ve Ever Written

When I encounter this first reaction to a story, I make a concerted effort to put on the shelf. Outside of a stern line edit, I don’t let myself admire the work too much. Instead I give it time. Not looking at it, doing my best to place as much distance between the mindset I was in when I wrote the story and the mindset of a reader coming to it fresh.

I do this because I think my delusions of this new story being fantastic are a product of my thoughts still being tangled up in all the themes I was shooting for when I sat down to write the thing. Because I’m so close to the story, my mind fills in all the unsaid bits with the perfect thematic links that informed the story.

Does that make sense?

A reader doesn’t have access to those thoughts, therefore are less equipped to fill in the gaps with such precision, therefore the end result is likely less satisfying to them.
Plus, there’s a heavy dash of ego present as well.

This is Shit

I’m not always this critical about my work and I suppose I omitted a middle ground reaction where I sense a story isn’t quite right, but can be remedied with some editing tweaks here and there, but that’s not I’m concerned with today.

Today I want to dig into the stories which simply aren’t living up to expectations.

I had a vision, I mapped it out, but somewhere in the execution?

It didn’t come to life.

As mentioned above, some imperfect stories can be improved with tweaks and editing, but this type of story is a different breed. No amount of editing can resurrect a poorly actualised premise that is dead upon arrival.

Rather than revisit certain sections and look for improvements, I’ve learned these stories need a hard reverse.

Forget all that time you spent labouring away writing down your well thought-through ideas.

You know it doesn’t work.

Shove that gearstick into the bottom right position, look over your shoulder and hear the engine groan.

If you have to go all the way back to the beginning, so be it. But in most cases, while you’re reversing, you’ll see it. The left turn you should have taken or the important detail that flew out your window without you noticing at some point along the line.

Once you get there your modus operandi is simple: Start driving forward as if no other version of this story ever existed.

I suppose this approach is adjacent to the “Kill your Darlings” adage, though it’s applied on a structural scale. I used it just last week and it allowed me to capture that intangible “feel” that I was reaching for when I originally came up with the idea for a story that came out half baked first time around.

In short, sometimes a story suffers from symptoms you’ll never be able to identify, so rather than breaking your mind attempting to play doctor on it, all you need to go back to the place before it got sick and start moving again.

Okay that’s probably one metaphor too many, but you get my point. None of this is to say such a method can turn a “bad” story into a “perfect” story any more than “the best story I’ve ever written” is as perfect as it seems to me upon completion, but it does give your sickly story a second chance to align with your vision (and taste) as an author.

Which is the only reliable measure of quality in this field (in my opinion).

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