Thursday, March 25, 2010

The Lost Story

Seven years ago I sat between my kids' beds and told them a very sweet story. A story that held the soft tha-thump, tha-thump of a beating heart ready to fall asleep.

That bedtime story became a play which won a developmental opportunity at a theatre. For anyone not familiar with new play development, that means I had a director, actors, theatre space, two dramaturgs, elementary student feedback, and theatre professionals feedback while I wrote and rewrote feverishly for a week, working the play on its feet. All expenses paid.

But when I was finished, I hated my play. It was...in a word...AWFUL.

Somewhere, in the middle of rewriting and advice and work and ideas, I lost my story.

Looking back now I can see multiple influences on my muck of a play, but the largest was a choice of my own. In my desire to perfect my play, I spent so much time listening to everyone else's feedback telling me how to do it I forgot to listen to my story. I twisted and turned it into something it was not and while, technically, it makes sense, the heart of the story is gone.

And here is a hard, honest truth: every writer loses one story. Maybe more.

They take in a comment, an idea, some advice...because conventional wisdom says that's what rewrites are about...and even though their instincts tell them not to listen, they ignore the warnings.

Don't think I'm not a rewrite person. I'm a ten-draft girl who works on computer and paper. I scribble and scrabble my ideas until I understand every choice each character makes. I read aloud and act out scenes. I try things on and take them off faster than clothes in a teen store dressing room.

I'm also a believer in holding the heart of your story close, because you are the one telling it.

I may never get my seven year old story back. I am extremely, rock in my stomach sad when I think about it.

But I still work on it. And when I do I go back to the beginning...because that's when it still had a beating heart.

What have you lost?

7 comments:

  1. Great post, this is something that I'm worried about with my story.

    I'm currently re-drafting an MG contemporary fantasy and had to laugh when you said you worked on PC and paper, read aloud and acted it out - at least I'm not the only one!

    I have two readers and they're both great, they get my work and look for different things. One is a grammar, syntax, continuity checker and the other - a story flow, and character evaluator.

    The thing is I tend to use pretty much all of their suggestions, and I'm wondering if I'm falling into the trap of taking any advice I get, I don't want to lose my story.

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  2. This is beyond true. I butchered my first novel trying to make it into a story it wasn't. Since then, I've learned to trust myself first, and a handful of other people second and third and fourth.

    Great post.

    Sorry about your play. :(

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  3. Great post, Deni. Too bad I can't seem to figure out what I wanted from my story in the first place. *sigh* I hear what you're saying though. Thank you!

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  4. Thank you for this reminder. I'm in the midst of revising my manuscript and I want to make sure I don't lose my story.

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  5. I'm still trying to figure out how to reply to each person individually!

    More to come in the next post about HOW to keep from losing your story...

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  6. As if I needed something more to worry about. I am in the throws of editing my first two novels, and I hope I never have to go through what you described. My wife is one of my best sounding boards for ideas, plot twists, etc. and I certainly hope it stays that way.

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  7. Ian-don't stress out about taking their suggestions...if you trust them as readers and yourself as the writer, and can see how their suggestions contribute to the story you'll be fine.

    Elena-I'm sorry about your first novel, too:( But I think it's one of those bumps everyone has to go through at some point.

    Casey-You'll find it...just keep listening.

    Mary-you've already got an awareness...enjoy the rewrites!

    Ben-don't stress about it:) Do you have other readers that you trust outside of family members? The tricky thing is: family members know you. So who reads your writing from the outside, as if they just picked up your work on a shelf in a bookstore?

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