So this could all just be a consequence of not doing my development right and I just need to interrogate my inner writing spirit until I return into alignment with her… but…
Do y’all ever have pesky, annoying scenes that you just have to write in order to iron out a plot point even though you hate it, or at least really, really don’t enjoy it?
I know a story we create is all up to us, but sometimes plots evolve in this semi-conscious way that is connected to you but not entirely decided by you, if that makes sense. Sometimes it feels like plots are discovered rather than invented, at least for me. And sometimes those discoveries kick major ass and I’m bouncing out of my seat with anticipation waiting to get to the end… and other times I feel like a cranky child being forced to do chores on a Saturday morning, moping about and wasting as much time as possible in hopes that my parents’ willpower would give out before my responsibilities came knocking.
I’m dealing with one of those kinds of scenes right now. I just really kinda don’t enjoy it. It’s not that I hate it in a way that means i need to radically shake up my story, it’s just one of those bridge scenes from A to B that needs doing and I just kinda don’t wanna.
How do y’all deal with these kinds of scenes? And more importantly, how can you deal with them without it coming off as being phoned in to readers…?
And most importantly, is this an actual real problem that real writers have, or am i just torturing myself???
Depending on what kind of writer you are (do you (try) to plan everything ahead or do you have at best a rough plan and see where the path leads you), it can be helpful to play these scenes through in your head, in different situations (like, after reading in bed or somewhere else comfortable, while taking a shower etc)
And not just think about how you’ll write them down, but how they’d play out in universe, and then how you’d write it down, maybe even (depending on your story’s tone) with all these bits and bobs that on a dvd would be a commentary track.
I can’t speak for everybody, but this is a problem I have had. I do find I have this problem more with IF writing than novel writing, especially with code heavy sections or the nth variation of a single scene.
Sometimes, I can just brute force my way through the scene, but a lot of times, I just have to write some filler prose and come back to them later. I know that’s not super helpful, but you might try asking in the writer’s support thread for more practical advice.
I definitely agree with you in that I experience this fairly often and I would just force myself into writing those scenes anyway. The method that works for me most is keeping it consistent, even if that means writing less words than usual, or just taking a much longer time to write that set daily amount of words. As long as I write something, I’m basically chipping off that hard shell of the scene that I find boring but necessary to include in the story. Especially if I’ve thought up of different options to connect scenes A and B, yet still decide that that one boring scene is the best, most natural way to go about it, then I know I’d have to do it eventually.
My mind is usually busy about picking the right vocabulary and setting the rhythm of the whole sentence, but to get myself through writing a scene I don’t enjoy, I would find myself letting that all go in order to even start writing. Usually those scenes would end up being better than I initially thought, and only the technical details like grammar and vocabulary would need to be tidied up - which is much easier to edit than when a scene just doesn’t feel right in an intuitive, creative sense but you can’t quite place why.
I hope this will help at least a little bit, but again it depends on your style of writing, your methods and routines.
Yes. OH hell yes I do. They are a pain, like eating barbed wire, and takes so much longer than any other scene. But they need to be there. When I write them, I am convinced that they deeply such and if I had a choice I would cut them out completely. And yet, in the end, some of these scenes have been what players have enjoyed the most, so my struggle and swearing and conviction that they were shit didn’t impact player enjoyment.
