Filling the Blank Page · 3:53am May 6th, 2014
SilentBelle's Writing About Writing: Filling the Blank Page
I'd like to see a brief bit on how you turn ideas in your head to words on the page. I've been trying to figure that part out myself, but no real luck. The more examples I see, the more likely I feel I'll succeed in getting something down that people can throw rotten fruit at.
—Sir Rustbucket
Before I dig into this, I want to note that I am a person who has relatively few “awesome” ideas floating in my mind at any given time. I know there are some who claim to have hundreds of ideas and inspiring thoughts (too many to write and that bogs them down), but I am not one of those individuals.
As it turns out, writing is not an easy thing to do. Many an author-to-be sit before their laptop/desktop/pad of paper and have an idea in their head that they want to share with others. But somehow they just can't write something down that feels 'right'. After a few words, a sentence maybe, they scowl at it and delete it. They just can't start the story off and get it to where it needs to be in order to tell that story.
Now, is this a feeling that only plagues new writers? No, not at all. Though it is something that you can grow accustomed to facing through practice and effort. To be entirely honest, I still struggle with this every time I sit down and plan out a new chapter. Wait, did I just say plan?
Planning and Finding the Core
That's right. In order to overcome this hurdle in the first place I had to sit down and brainstorm dozens of ideas until I found something that I thought I could handle and that I liked well enough. Now, I'm not one for overly extensive planning. In fact, I'm one of the least plan-ahead type of authors I have seen. But even so, I still have to plan something.
Is there a scene you really want to see? A character interaction? A badass cinematic moment playing in your mind? A certain song you want a character to sing? A set of emotions you want some characters to feel for each other (love, hate, envy?)
I remember rewatching Season 2 Episode 1 (A great episode by the way) and seeing the CMC arguing in front of Discord's statue, and then that fissure appeared. Then I though to myself, Wait... what if Discord broke free, not because the CMC were being unharmonious, but rather because one of them has a penchant for causing chaos? Then I remembered The Stare Master and Sweetie's form of 'helping'. It then clicked in my mind. What if Sweetie has a connection with Discord? I knew I had to explore the idea. That, and I really wanted to see Sweetie learning magic and exploring it. That's what I wanted to see above all else.
So that just leaves us with a blank island of empty white pages surround this vivid idea or concept that's burning brightly in your mind. Those blank unquantifiable pages are very intimidating—cripplingly so. However, if you ever want to actually explore that scene/concept/emotion, you have to start writing. If you don't, all the ideas that you have will go nowhere. An idea unspoken or unwritten will amount to nothing outside your own head.
Writing Styles and Approaches
Everyone has different writing styles. Some people like to extensively plan out before they start. Others like to have a general idea where they're going and play it by ear. And some fall anywhere in between the extremes like a sweet(ie) bell(e) curve. And yet, amongst all these types of authors, I'd say a large portion of them struggle (including myself) to figure out how to start their writing.
My personal style is one of playing it mostly by ear. But when I am not writing I don't think an hour goes by where I don't think about my writing in some meaningful way. And during my breaks at work, I scribble down stray thoughts and plans that might never happen, or that have happened but will never make it into the story, because it's behind the scenes world-building.
I know I can't offer a cure-all for starting your story. My approach isn't necessarily going to work for everyone (or even most people). But I can share some personal experiences I struggled with in my own writing, and perhaps you will find my struggle applies to you. Perhaps not:
It's such a strange feeling. I find I have, on a number of occasions, written out the short blurb for how I want a story to go, and yet when I go to begin writing, the cool events are so distant, that after a thousand or so words, I'd get the feeling that the story was going nowhere. I eventually found a way to overcome this in my story: Scion of Chaos. I needed to introduce that thing that I really wanted to see above all else—Sweetie using magic and interacting with Discord. So I made a decision: Sweetie is going to use magic by then end of the first chapter. This was what I needed to get my story to the point where I wanted it. It set it up to explore at least one concept that I was really passionate about, right away.
If you are having trouble with starting that chapter, then maybe what you need to do is figure out an element that you really want to explore, and find a way to get there within that chapter (or in the case of a one-shot, in the first one or two-thousand words). In every chapter I write, there's at least one scene that I am really aiming to write, and having my characters explore the world up to that point is what drives my story forward.
Because I am certain there are many ways of dealing with this problem, I decided to ask a few other writers for their opinions on this subject.
Here's a bit that PoweredByTea had to say about it. (He has written a blog on the same subject. And I think it's entirely worth the read.)
I’ll never forget this advice given to me by the best English teacher I ever had [1]. Open with an explosion. It doesn’t have to be a literal explosion. It just has to be something that changes and disrupts the lives of your characters. To the right character, a wedding can be an explosion.
[1] He was stuffy and tiresome but underneath it all genuinely cared about teaching. This doomed him to teaching lessons that his students probably wouldn’t appreciate until he was long gone. I’m really glad I got a chance to thank him a few years later.
Explosions, metaphorical or not, stop you dilly-dallying around. I used to do this a lot. I’d start describing the characters having an average day fully intending to get to the interesting part later. Without knowing your explosion, you end up with lines like, “It was a beautiful day in Ponyville” as your first line.
This is some great advice that I personally had never really given too much thought. Although in retrospect, I have used this approach in a few stories. Specifically in Fallen Leaves I start the story with a figurative explosion. It was a great way to start. The one bit of warning I'll give with this approach is to make sure you make that explosion believable, it's a great place to start, but it has to make sense. Think of the factors leading up, and make sure to consider the fallout of such an explosion.
Here we have Laichonious' wizardly advice on crafting your story:
Refining a story is very similar to cutting gemstones. You start with a raw material, a mineral, an idea. Impurities are washed away as you brainstorm and make plans. Excess is eliminated as you narrow your scope and develop characters for your story. It starts to take shape and catch the light on its own as you write, make decisions and follow your characters. As the process continues, your cuts become more precise, and just as with a gemstone, you want to end up with the largest gem possible, but it must be cut to bring out its full brilliance. Even master jewelers will seek the opinions of their peers when cutting a stone, and ultimately their work is not for them alone, but for others to admire.
When starting that chapter, I think it is important to keep in mind that you have the ability to edit your words. You will make mistakes, and you will have to fix them. It's how we learn, and how we come to understand our story itself. It may take a long while to find an idea that really shines when planning and starting your story. Laich's approach is one of persistence—create, and then cut away what doesn't work, and allow the story to shine—while chasing a desire to see something beautiful so that it might be shared with others.
While I think my own approach is often a little different, I do take part in this gem-cutting in my own way. I can certainly see where he's coming from. And it is solid advice.
How about one more bit of advice from Retsamoreh. Let's see what he has to say:
Well, personally I'd suggest not going solo. Part of writing is knowing when you're doing something wrong and then fixing it, whether it be in regards to grammar, plot, characters, etc. More importantly, besides generic "Wow, I derped there lol!" typos, you're never going to really know if you're doing something wrong until it's likely too late. People with different perspectives are always good, which is why I recommend an editor even if you're a hundred percent sure you've weeded out the typos and grammatical derps in your story. A second pair of eyes is invaluable if you trust their judgment, and if you and your team know your stuff and work as a team, you're golden.
It's a bit hard to let people, even friends, look into the heart of your story, though. It's taking off your shirt to see the horrible sores up and down your back for all your trusted friends to see. Well, that, or you're so arrogant you think nobody should witness your genius special snowflake of a story being created. In either case, pick someone you know (Who hopefully isn't a 'Yes Man'. That will only hurt you in the end) and vent to them your woes/genius. Two minds are better than one.
Drive by advice brought to you by a tired and stressed Retsamoreh. Don't do drugs unless it's prescribed, kids
Ah yes. Very sound advice! And I've found it to be one of the hardest to follow as a writer. There's a certain love you have as an author for having a creation that is 'all mine'. It's your creation, and it's up to you to bring it to life and see it to completion. Now this is advice that I had ignored for about eight months when I started. I did edit my work based on comments of random passersby as I struggled through Scion of Chaos—by the way, I really am very grateful when I receive such comments. You guys are awesome—but all in all, I wanted my story to remain mine. They'd see it only after I made it as great as I could.
Well, sharing your rough draft with another, or even just sharing various ideas about your story isn't going to make the story any less 'yours'. That second set of eyes, or another set of opinions on how things should go can do a world of wonders for your story. Just make sure you get along with the people you are sharing your story with. Make sure that you both care about making the story better. If you are worried about sharing the story draft, I think you will find that while it will be uncomfortable at first (oh the hundreds of embarrassing errors), you will appreciate the improvement by the end. Just remember to make the suggested changes yourself. As the author, you have to be in charge of your story.
I hope that these short opinions on starting a chapter and starting a story are helpful to some potential new writers.
I wonder how you go about it. Are you like me and find it really hard to start—siting in front of a my laptop with a blank pages staring back at me for a good half hour, only to have to force myself to start writing regardless of how awful it makes me feel? Are you one who writes a ton of stuff, then looks down at it and sees a hopeless jumbled mess that you have to sort through to find those bright gems? Perhaps, you just need to write what you really want to see, and try to explore the rest of the blank pages from that scene and onward. Or maybe what you need is a second opinion on your story idea, or a different perspective.
Finding your own answer is the eternal struggle of the author. But one entirely worth facing and overcoming, time and time again.
Thanks for reading, and leave a comment for any particular topic you want explored for the next blog. I enjoy writing about writing.
~SilentBelle
This is good advice, though I'd be less restrictive and just say to just at least start with something relevant. There's a rule in writing that the most powerful parts of a sentence/paragraph/chapter/story are the beginning and the end, and the beginning in particular is a good place to set the tone of it.
The first sentence of Sharing the Night, for example, is "Twilight Sparkle's back itched." This... is not an explosion, even to Twilight. At best, it's an annoying fact of life, yet it gives the reader an immediate question to ask, the answer to which ties directly into the very core of the plot: Twilight growing wings and becoming an alicorn. There are a lot of things I would fix in my first chapter, but this sentence, I think, is one that I would keep in any iteration of the story.
I do the same thing quite often, really. I start sections and chapters with simple statements that are, while not in and of themselves particularly dramatic or moving, essentially guides to tell the reader what they should be thinking about.
Take these sentences from the beginning of several my chapters.
Normally, quoting ones own work could be seen as egotistic, but here's the thing: these sentences? There is absolutely nothing special about them. They are not poetry, they are just words as you might write anywhere else in your story. The only thing that makes them notable are their placement, and the fact that they're immediately relevant to the scene at hand.
There will be a point where the first sentence is the only sentence the reader will have read. At that point, that single sentence is everything they know about your story. It should be representative of it, don't you think? Make it count.
Some of these problems I recognize both when drawing and writing (yes I have tryed my hand at writing a story a few times
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I guess your background with roleplaying might color how you approach planning stories. In a RPG game it's usually impossible to do too extensive planning as either the game master or a player because it's almost impossible for any detailed plan to survive. So a good roleplayer needs to learn to play it by ear, making adjustments as they go.
I know it influences me. One of my approaches is to lay down the story as I would a RPG adventure; define what each character wants to do or achieve, what the antagonists desire, which resources are available to each, and let things play out.
Then there is the blank feeling as I can't find how exactly to write what needs to be written; I know which tone I'm aiming for, what needs to happen, how the characters will react, but I can't get it to paper (or file as it might be). When that happens I just put an easily visible mark to remind me to flesh it out later (I use a bunch of asterisks), write a plain description of what is happening with all the details I've already decided upon and any snippets I want to include, and proceed to the next part. This allows me to have more of the story ready to be fleshed out, which — in my specific case — makes it easier for me to stumble upon how I want to fill the missing parts, as I'm able to think about many incomplete parts at once when I find something inspiring.
That being said, I have to force myself to do this. If left to my own devices I have a tendency to aim for perfection, too high for me to ever achieve; a tendency to only go for the next part of a story when the previous one is as polished as it can be. It's the main reason I've only been able to post stories written to story prompts, with deadlines; they force me to actually finish things, to do the best I can in the time I'm allowed without attempting perfection. Without writing events and deadlines I most likely would never have posted even a single story.
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(And it took missing two such events I wanted to take for me to finally start doing what I'm telling above
2081824 I should mention that Tea goes on to say that an explosion doesn't have to be earth-shattering, just something that pulls a character out of their comfort zone and from their day-to-day life.
2081889 Oh, I didn't know that. I've done a bit of drawing, myself, and I'm just not that good at it. Any time I decided I wanted to get better at drawing, I did it for a few months and then stopped. While I really appreciate drawing, it doesn't have that 'something' that has me wanting to come back over and over again just for drawing's sake. It's finding that source of perpetual inspiration in an art that causes an artist of any medium to flourish, I think.
2082101 Yeah, RPGs have had a huge influence on my writing style. I mean the first stories I thought up (crappy as they were) were for role-playing games. You realize when DMing/GMing that a great deal of the enjoyment is to see what the characters will bring. They are going to surprise you time and time again. So it's best to play it by ear while having a pretty solidly built world to fall back onto when the characters start to utterly derail your plans. You have to save certain scenes and encounters for later, tweak them a bit so they fit the context of the situation, and keep on exploring the world through those characters.
Fortunately for others, it's entirely possible to approach story-writing by planning it all out as well. And in the end, it will make little difference so long as either style is done well enough.
2082152 Well now you know
but when you say that you have been drawing yourself and it dont turn out very good. That reminded me of a quote I have heard a few times "Everyone have a thousand bad drawings in them that they need to get out before they can start making the good once". And then a thought hit me, that quote kind of works for all creative stuff one can do.
2081824
You make a good point, so I amended my blog post a little.
2082152 2083521
For the record, I didn't mean to make it sound like Tea's advice was in any way wrong. I just wanted give my own view on it.
2083750
It's fine. It's just the more I think about it, the more I feel like you have the general case better covered.
I actually stopped writing for about a month now, but I'm going to get back into the swing of it. I started feeling massively depressed about everything I wrote, worrying about things I shouldn't, and just generally nit picking my story at every turn. I do find it really hard to start a chapter. However, this was some nice advice. Good blog. Also, the explosion bit was very helpful, though mine may be a literal explosion because of the story I'm writing lol.
2102139 Well, to me, I think the greatest element to writing is to enjoy doing it, both in the process of creating it, and after the fact. It's not something that just everyone will be able to do. To quote my earlier comment to Rameslack in regards to what drives us to continue writing and drawing:
2102155 I do enjoy writing, but I do feel like I suck at it and that usually gets me down, but I am giving it another go and writing for the enjoyment of it.
2102165 Glad to hear it.