Cinderella with a Teddy Bear

On February 18, 2016, WriterGirl4Life wrote, I find that I’m always getting bored with my stories, putting them away, critiquing myself, or just getting bored with my plot. Can you help?

When one of my stories isn’t going well, I just don’t want to go near it, which is my version of getting bored. Working on the project feels like slogging through glue. It’s happened many times, and the reason varies:

∙ We’ve made our MC unsympathetic, a mistake I’ve committed than once and the latest instance is very recent. I think I’ve mentioned that I’ve started a new book in Ella’s world, and my main character, Daria (recognize that name?), is turned into an ogre in the first chapter, so this isn’t much of a spoiler alert. I’m only twenty-two pages in, but I started feeling gluey and eventually realized that likableness is the problem. Instead of responding with horror over her transformation, Daria minimizes the situation and instantly plans how to deal with it. I want her to be capable and self-confident, but these qualities mean the most when a character struggles. In this case, the consequences are that the reader doesn’t worry because Daria has the situation in hand and doesn’t care because Daria doesn’t seem to. The reader may think, I don’t understand this character. If someone turned me into an ogre, I’d want to jump out of my skin.

Once I figured that out, I went back to the beginning–contrary to the advice I give here–and fixed. Daria is now miserable, and I’m out of the glue. So one cause of boredom may be MC character trouble, and one reason for that may be unlikableness caused by a deficit in vulnerability.

∙ We’re not in our MC’s mind and heart enough, which is related to unlikableness. We’re telling our story more through action and dialogue and our MC’s inner life is missing. We’re bored because we can’t seem to connect with him. We may have our plot path worked out, but we don’t know why he goes down it.

I’d go to my notes to consider this. I might interview him in my notes and ask him what he feels and thinks about what’s going on in the story. We may dream up alternative answers for him, and we can decide from them what sort of person he is, or we’d like him to be. We may discover he’s not willing to do some of what’s being required of him. Based on our discoveries, we may adjust our plot or adjust him, which may involve rethinking earlier scenes, whether we revise on the spot or wait until the whole story is written. That done, we can work his thoughts and emotions into our narrative.

∙ We’ve solved the problem in our story without realizing. I did this in an early version of The Lost Kingdom of Bamarre. To be specific would be a major spoiler alert, so I have to speak in generalities. My MC has a mission, but she’s propelled to pursue it only because of a  need that’s deep-seated in her psyche. Accidentally, without realizing and in a tangential way, I solved the need, and the wind went out of my sails. I was trapped in glue until, finally, I saw what I’d done. Let’s take an example from the traditional “Cinderella,” not my version. In my opinion, the underlying problem, and the reason the story appears in some form in every culture, is that the MC feels unappreciated, a near universal source of unhappiness. Cinderella is great! Look at how helpful and capable she is. And kind. And plucky. But the only one who might appreciate her–her father–is never on the scene, and she gets no respect from her step-family. Well, suppose, a year before the balls, her fairy godmother shows up and gives her, say, a magical stuffed teddy bear that can talk. Every night at bedtime, Cinderella cuddles up with her toy and he admires her for all her accomplishments and her sterling qualities. Nothing really has changed; her step-family is still cruel. But she’s satisfied. Who cares about a prince when she has Teddy? We’re likely to stay bored or gluey until somebody wields a sharp instrument and slits that bear open from his cute black nose to his darling belly.

In this case, we may not know why we’re bored, but we can think about what our MC wants or needs most. Have we accidentally provided it? Have we been unable to tolerate her unhappiness so we helped her out just, we thought, a little bit?

∙ Houston, we have a plot problem. I never fail to have some of these, alas. You may remember how tangled up I got writing what eventually became Stolen Magic. In an earlier version, which I eventually revised out of existence, MC Elodie’s mother falls under a spell of greediness. She believes she’s King Midas and doesn’t mind when Elodie seems to turn to gold, because she’d rather, in her madness, have wealth than a living daughter. It was horrifying, and, forgive me!, I loved it. But I didn’t know how to end the spell without making everything okay or without giving Elodie an ally I didn’t want her to have, so the madness dragged on and on, and I sank in glue. I wish I’d figured this out and been able to use this plot twist, but I couldn’t.

We may not have to revise everything. If we’ve written ourselves into a corner, we can go back to the point where we got into trouble, or we can list ways to change what’s going on, and we can judge how we’re doing by our state of mind. Are we no longer bored? Are we eager to write again?

The point is, we’re not stuck with anything. The final state of our story is changeable until we say it’s done. If we save our old version, we can blow up any part. I love this freedom, which is a prime advantage of writing, in my opinion, over every other art form!

Here are three prompts:

∙ In this election season, here’s a political’ish plot idea. Your MC at fifteen is running to be the youngest member of the town council. She has the vote of her parents’ generation, who, basically, think she’s adorable, and that’s enough for them. The problem is the youth vote, because young people near her age but old enough to vote find her unlikable–you decide why. Write the story, being sure to include her thoughts and feelings.

∙ Give Cinderella the admiring teddy bear (or other stuffed animal), but make him creepy. Lead the reader to suspect him right away even while Cinderella is delighted with him. Soon, he adds to her many troubles. Write “Cinderella with a Teddy Bear.”

∙ Snow White has escaped to the dwarfs. The magic mirror breaks, and her evil stepmother goes on thinking she’s been restored to fairest-in-the-land status. Readers all over the universe are yawning. Give her a new problem–the hunter? a problem dwarf? the prince in danger? an approaching asteroid?–and write the story.

Have fun, and save what you write!

Flatly Bored

January 20, 2010, F said,  For me, what happens is, I do not want to skip ahead and write any other scene, and prefer to write in order, like the whole book in one go. I have difficulty in ‘feeling’ for my characters. If there is a scene I look forward to, I wait until I come to it. And all those scenes are the ones I am actually proud of when I read back. The others, I can definitely see that they need fixing up. Is there any tip you can give us which can help us to stay ‘in tune’ with our characters and plot, and not get bored? I really like my plot, but lack the motivation to write some (most) of the times, since my characters feel just the little bit too flat, and too listless.

I’m picking up three separate questions: writing in order, flat characters, and being bored.

Starting backwards, sometimes I get bored too.  My story can make me so sleepy that I have to do something else to keep my head from falling into the keyboard.  When I’m more awake I go back to work, until I have to stop again.  For me, the early stages of a book are especially torpor-inducing.  Often my drowsiness has no bearing on the quality of what I’m writing.  A particular chapter may be terrific, despite the fact that it’s putting me out.  So don’t assume that what you’re writing when you’re bored is boring.

If I didn’t sleep well the night before, or if the blood has left my brain to help digest my lunch, I get bored.  But even when I didn’t sleep enough and it’s right after lunch, I’m almost never bored if I’m revising, which leads me to suspect that there’s a worry component to the boredom.  I’m a confident reviser but not a confident first-draft writer.  When it’s revision time the hardest work is over.  Before then, though, I can still louse everything up.  You may be most confident about the scenes that appeal to you, not so much about the others.  I don’t know any better answer for boredom than to cope as well as we can.  I write a few sentences, walk to my office window, write a few more sentences, pour myself a cup of tea, write a little more, hope that the boredom will pass, which it often does as I push on.

Occasionally, my boredom indicates a story problem.  I’ve lost my way, and my characters are just wandering around.  Or I’m pursuing an idea that I love and I’m pushing the story where it doesn’t want to go.  I may blunder on this way, bored, for weeks before I realized what’s going on.  Often then I have to find a better path for my story, which I usually locate through notes.

Boredom can be connected to writer’s block, so it may be helpful to go back to my post on the subject, called “Playing with Blocks” on October 28, 2009 or to look at the chapter in Writing Magic called “Stuck!”

It is not a crime to abandon a story that is boring you.  You can come back to it if and when you have a new idea.  Or you may be able to move the parts that interest you to a different story you’re working on.  Or you can use these parts as the basis of an entirely new tale.  The only writing crime is not writing.

Moving on to the writing-in-order question:  I write in order too, although I admire writers who can hop around and sew everything together later.  I discussed the question with a writer friend who does leap from scene to scene out of sequence, and she suggested you try her method and see what happens.  It is possible that writing the scenes you’re eager for may help you discover what you need to do to tie them together, and you may become more interested in the in-between scenes.

If you stick with your method and mine, you might try slowing down the scenes you want to just get through, which may help with deepening your characters too.  Suppose, for example, that your main character, Marka, is a runner.  The scene that interests you most is the big race at the end of a summer of preparation.  You have it all planned out:  the perfect running shoes that go missing, the substitute shoes, the best friend running on Marka’s right, her enemy on the left, the leg cramp.

Maybe a few scenes interest you along the way:  an argument with the enemy, shopping for running shoes with the best friend, a practice run when a new boy in school runs too.  And that’s it.  You hurry through the rest.

This may be the root of the flat-character problem.  You may not know your characters well enough because you haven’t thrown them into a variety of situations.  Look at the boring scenes.  Maybe you can bring conflict into them too.  Suppose you need a scene with the running team and the coach, but you’re not interested in it.  Try thinking about some of the peripheral characters:  Coach Bumbry, the slowest runner on the team, the girl who’s fast but her crazy form is incomprehensible.  How does she move with her knees almost hitting her chin?  What’s up with Coach Bumbry?  Suppose she seems to care about every character on the team except your Marka.  How does Marka deal with being ignored?

Take the slowest runner.  Why is she on the team?  How does she relate to Marka?  Does Marka help her, stay away from her as if slowness might be catching, spy on her?

The girl with the weird form.  What might Marka do with her?

You may want to expand your story.  Maybe there’s some home conflict.  Marka’s mom might be convinced that the time Marka spends running is the reason she’s flunking English.  Marka’s dad may be irritable because he’s quitting smoking.  Marka’s older brother may be applying for college and sucking up every scintilla of parental attention.  Whatever.  How does Marka react to all this?

If you throw Marka into lots of situations, if you complicate the boring scenes, you’ll know more about her when the climax arrives.  Her actions are likely to be more layered; her thoughts will be surprising.  And you may enjoy the writing more, too.

Prompt:  Add three new scenes to one of your old stories or to a story you’re working on now.  Put your main character into an. unfamiliar setting.  Have him spend time with a minor character.  Make someone he trusts surprise him in an unpleasant way.  See what he does.  If you need to adjust the rest of your story to accommodate the new scenes (if you’re happy with them), go for it.  Have fun, and save what you write!