Home…And then I looked at my word processor screen and realized to my horror that I had already written all of this before! A repeat! It’s a story/character/theme/technique/whatever that I’ve written before!
Oh Christ. I’m a hack. All I’m ever going to write is the same dripping crapsicles I have written before and I might as well commit ritual seppiku with my laptop. (Don’t think it can be done? Me either but I bet there’s someone on youtube who’s tried.)
So here’s my reality check.
I’m not the first one to do this. I won’t be the last, either. Writing is a thing of development. Everyday we’re developing better habits, better skills, and better methods. But that isn’t the only thing we’re always developing. We’re developing characters and ideas and settings and all of those other things that make up the stories we create.
Go ahead, look back into the history of say, Phillip Marlowe. He didn’t spring fully formed from the pen of Chandler as he appeared in The Big Sleep. Actually, Marlowe had appeared in a number of short stories with a few other names before he hit his stride in the first novel. Some of that was editorial decisions, but I think a lot of it was Chandler trying to feel out the character before he devoted a whole book to the guy. I’m glad he did. The level of character knowledge and detail Chandler had on Marlowe made him feel real. (That will explain my crush on the boyscout, you understand. It’s the quality of the character design, not because I’m a gooey woman.)
Am I saying you should write the same thing over and over? No, obviously that’s bad writing, or at least, dull writing. What I’m saying is don’t be afraid to practice a scene before you implement it. I’m saying try the same setting a few times to see what characters really ought to live there. I’m saying let your heroine go through a short story or two to be sure you really want her to be a punk rock werewolf hunter before you start writing the whole novel. Maybe in writing her, you’ll discover she’s more exciting as a tax accountant. (Okay, I dare someone to write a tax accountant/werewolf hunter.)
The greats have done it, you’ll do it anyway, might as well pretend like you were planning to do it all along.
[For more on recycling, try this!]
fears, writing
September 9th, 2009 at 7:02 am
You have a crush on Phillip Marlowe? You are now my favorite person of the day.
Do you have any of the old radio shows?
September 9th, 2009 at 7:04 am
This is actually part of my (erm, forthcoming) Why You Should Write An Outline post.
Outline actually gives you practice without having to, y’know, do the whole damn thing over and over again.
– c.
September 9th, 2009 at 7:08 am
Bad writing is still writing you wouldn’t have done if you didn’t sit down and do it. Even if nobody else ever sees it, even if it embarrasses you and you quickly kill it with fire, it gets the creative juices flowing, and you can ride that wave into something better.
That’s my $0.02 anyway.
September 9th, 2009 at 7:09 am
What woman with good sense doesn’t get a little tingle reading him? I’m not a Sam Spade fan, I won’t lie. Great mysteries, but what a jerk. Marlowe’s a good guy on top of being a hard ass and a smart man.
I have a bunch of the Adventures of Marlowe, I daresay that’s the voice I hear when I read. That voice probably has something to do with the crush.
September 9th, 2009 at 7:11 am
Well, you know I obsessively outline. Still, there are things about a character or a scene, little details I can’t see until I actually put it into practice. Outlining helps save you some time, but I’m not sure that it saves you the occasional need to do that ‘zero draft’ write up.
September 9th, 2009 at 7:15 am
True. We all need permission to suck, as Mur Lafferty says.
I’ll tell you a secret. Sometimes I take characters out on practice runs. I take them out on a date or drop them into a nonsensical fight or put them on the bus going somewhere. Stuff that’ll never help the story they’re going to be in directly but it helps me.
September 9th, 2009 at 7:48 am
I read a compendium of Arthur C. Clarke short stories, and found two sets of stories that were rehashes. Same basic plot, same basic twists, same basic characters. They were published about 20 years apart.
I think sometimes you just come up with a good idea for a story, an idea so great that you’ve already had it once before.
I like the idea of taking characters on practice runs. Some people that I thought would be fascinating turn out to be rather dull once you actually start to put them through their paces.
September 21st, 2009 at 9:37 am
Hi!, First time visitor, like your stuff.
Wanted to say that as a game master (a lot of which is like writing, right?) this is an issue I used to struggle with ALL the time. Not only doing stuff I’ve done before but, God Forbid, doing stuff that someone ELSE has done before. It took me a while to realize it, but the final conclusion I came to is that I am not some God among men. Everything that has ever been written has already been done in some form or another. Every character has been done, every plot has been written, every setting has been used. Some moreso than others granted, but I will never write anything that will even remotely be able to be called original, that’s not a hacked up version of the works of ten other authors (who have probably done it better). So if I’m doomed to copy someone, why NOT copy myself? Why worry about who has written before us at all? If we want to write about two star-crossed lovers from feuding families, or re-write the story we wrote last week with a new name and face, why the hell not? It’s not like it’s any less original than anything else we could ever write. All we can do is do the best we can with the tools we have, and if someone enjoys it, it doesn’t make a difference how many thousands of times it’s been done before.
September 21st, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Matt-
I’m thrilled you stopped by.
You know, what I find really funny is that good writing is exactly the same as good game design whether your doing it professionally or for your table.
That said, the real trick with recycling a part of your work, either a character, storyline, scene or event, is that whatever audience your writing for can’t recognize it as a repeat. If it’s at the gaming table that can mean being derivative without looking derivative, or it can mean stealing jewels from earlier games that weren’t explored to your liking. (Man, that character the players talked too had a much deeper and more rich background than they ever discovered. I gotta use that shit again elsewhere.) Actually, I could probably write a whole post just on the subject of recycling without getting caught. Hmmm….