The reason don't like writing fiction is that I have so many story ideas that are all alive in my head. And by "alive" I mean they're all active, jumping about from the end to the beginning then back to the middle, and twisting and altering and changing themselves all the time.
But in writing the story out, I have to start at the beginning and continue to the end in a straight line, with no contradictions, and just basically suffocating, murdering the once-living idea in my head. It's so depressing to see the corpse being laid out one word at a time. How do you guys cope with that?
This reminds me to some extent of J.R.R. Tolkien, who worked on The Silmarillion from 1917 until his death in the '70s, and never got it to a point where he was satisfied. He kept rewriting, reworking, and generally meddling with it. The only reason The Lord of the Rings was published was because his publishers dropped a deadline on his head (and actually made one stick!).
I know what you mean about living ideas, and actually, it's one reason I like playing in the PPC ball-pond. Because the world is so huge, virtually every story you write is a vignette. It doesn't murder an idea, pin a character to the page - it just snapshots a moment, or a day, in their life. Then, next time you find a moment you'd like to pin down - or, if you prefer an alternate metaphor, a memory from their life that you'd like to catch on film - you write another one.
A lot of my more recent stories have consisted of this: taking snapshots of what the characters are doing, not filling in the gaps. Example: Origins is nine scenes spanning several decades. Perhaps an even better example: The End of the Beginning is what happens to my agents - and their children - in the next thirty years. The 'pins' I've stuck into Dafydd (to take a random example) consist of 1) leaves PPC, 2) has kids, 3) ... runs away into the multiverse with his wife.
Since the last Dafydd entry in EotB, I've brought him back to HQ twice (most recently for a party), have him dropping in on an upcoming mission, and even have him forming a trans-dimensional organisation of his own. In no way is his story murdered - it just keeps on growing. And because I've written the core of it - because I know who he is, and what experiences he's had (like, say, accidentally killing himself with a magic ring in the middle of the worst badfic around... that was kind of formative) - those past and future tales can be better shaped to fit him.
And I think that's kind of my view. By writing their stories down, I'm not killing my characters - I'm letting them grow. Unwritten characters are just ribbons of potentiality waving in the breeze - hard to grasp, and however pretty they are, they're never going to be anything other than ribbons. But pin one end down, and you can weave a braid - or a celtic knot - or a rope - or add wire and make a sculpture - or repaint it in different colours - or even, if you choose, cut it up.
And characters are the same way. Once you start setting their experiences in stone, they act like real people - they adapt to fit their circumstances, they change as a result of what's happened to them. They can have all the adventures you can think of if they stay in your head - but until you start fixing things in, they can never grow.
And yes, that applies to plots, too. Imagine you've got this character in your head, we'll call him Luke Skywalker. He lives on a desert planet with his aunt and uncle. One day you imagine him racing his skyhopper down Beggar's Canyon, another you picture him at Toschi Station with his friend Biggs. He can have all the adventures you can dream of on Tatooine.
But until you sit down and say, for certain, that he's followed his new droid to Ben Kenobi's hut, seen his guardians killed, and fled the planet with a smuggler and a wookie... he's never going to become a Jedi. And frankly, I'll take
Star Wars over the unlimited adventures of Luke in the desert any day.
hS