March 29, 2012
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A Short Question
For any writers out there(and that means all you bloggers!), have you ever begun to write a story with one idea in mind, and ended up writing something coimpletely diferent and perhaps way better? This is the current experience I’m having writing where I am in Chapter 5 of my book. I set out with an idea of what the characters would be like, and how they would react in situations and all of that, but as I write them out sometimes what feels natural for a character goes from being a one-line thing into a whole new realm of possiblities for future chapters.
This happened to me this afternoon in my book, The Light Warriors. The main protagonist, Eve, reacts a certain way to adults that are around her. She’s strong, yet through her writings she is humble at the same time. This afternoon her character made it back to one of the towns after having vanquished the towns foe(Astos for those of you familiar with Final Fantasy 1), and I had planned out how the adults would react to her, but all of a sudden it just occured to me how the children would react to her and the other Light Warriors. This forced me to have Eve write about her thoughts on the children of the town. This forces me to consider how she’ll react to other children in other towns during the rest of the story. This, in turn, forces me consider how she will think about these kids and thoughts about having children of her own one day.
Do you see how that went. This morning I had one idea for Eve and the other Light Warriors in mind. By this afternoon that one domino had fallen and now a whole slew of other dominos are falling into place for later chapter ideas. How exciting!!
One last thing related to this book: Eve is going to learn how to play the Lute. Anyone on here know how to play a Lute or know of a quality site where I can learn some of the ins and outs of how to play it. I kinda need to research this before I have her start learning in a few more chapters. Thanks.
Comments (16)
I could definitely see how that would happen.
And it does sound exciting! 
Yay!
As for the lute, never had even heard of it until you mentioned it, lol. However, and this may not be a real quality site, but I did find a link… I thought I’d share.
http://www.ehow.com/how_2318017_play-lute.html
And I’ll rec, so other people can come who may know more about that.
I think people in the medieval times played lutes.
First I have no idea what Lute means so I guess I can’t help you with that
and changing my mind over what I write, well that happens everyday on my blog D: it’s the only thing I write though.
You think anyone in the music or drama college at OSU knows? I actually did this play long time ago (I wasn’t a theater major) and we had a teacher come in and taught us this dance step from Elizabethian England. I’m sure someone there at the music college knows how to play the lute (or knows someone else who does).
Rabbit trails are why it’s hard for me to finish a piece. Happens all the time, and I’m tempted to over-develop the characters. Changing your destination with a character draft is fine, but remember the reader wants to imagine some things fire themselves.
@Megabyyte - @BenelliMan - I’m replying to both of you at once since I would just say to Megan what Benelli said. Yeah Lutes are more from the middle ages or so. But my book is a fantasy book so it fits. Thanks for the rec.
@xXxlovelylollipop - Sometimes tangents can make the best writing of all! I like seeing a person’s mind wander during their writings…it kinda helps me get some insight into the author.
@ClashoftheTaiten - Now THAT is a possibility. If I can’t find something online then maybe emailing someone at Ohio State would work.
@AgainstTheWind1 - The only thing is the way I’m writing is like an ongoing journal. I’m telling the entire story through journal entries. So now that I can put in an entry or two entirely about her thoughts in relation to the children being affected, it’s just a really cool chance to develop this character further. And as I mentioned to lollipop, I like tangents for the most part. I don’t like tangents when they turn into entire books(see Wheel of Time).
Oh, I see. That’s a format that’s perfectly suited for this stuff then. That changes much.
And, to answer the primary question, yes. it happens to me all the time. “Down, In Mexico” is on hold purely for that fact, lol. Ugh.
Sorry, I don’t know anything about Lutes.
But recently I had an idea for poem and when I wrote it and finished, it was completely different from my original idea and I think, much better.
I think your book is going to be great.
@Crying_In_Color - Thank you so much for that.
I don’t participate in long writing projects so I tend to stay focused when writing. So I don’t change as I am writing.
@TheTheologiansCafe - So does that mean you stick to things like short stories?
@Shadowrunner81 - I don’t write short stories either.