[Write On!]


Can we break the rules?

by Enkeliina
Posted to Knowledge Exchange, Assumptions on Sun Dec 21, 2003 at 06:56:23 AM PST
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Writing, like most of the Arts, has rules made to be broken.  The genius is deciding which rules to break.  The reason must be of equal or greater value.  One unwritten rule being this:  "A story must be written from start to finish."  Is this so?  That is the question to consider.  

An unfortunate occurence in the creative process is to create the beginnings of a story, write it half way, and suddenly realize there seems to be no tangible ending.  What a crime!  A single incidence is a fluke.  A repeat of this is happenstance in a long life.  Another reoccurence is a tragedy of human habit-formed mental laziness -- apparently.


This problem has weighed heavily on many an author who has sweated and strained to squeeze the story into tangibility.  For those who have experience this trial, it most resembles a woman giving birth to an elephant.  Painful!  What solutions exist?

Being apologetically, but unrepentantly myself, I tend to accept certain traits I find within myself.  The only restriction I apply is to find the best of that trait and to expand on that particular portion.  This is directly related to the horrible habit of reading the last page of a story after reading only the first chapter of the book.

Cringe!

It is a horrible habit that clings like a burr to a long-haired wild dog.  But as previously stated it started a thought process on using the weakness as a strength.

Can a story be written backwards?

Perhaps not an original idea, since some languages are written, to the english view point, backwards (right to left).  Are some of us wired to work in direct opposition to the traditional English form?  It is an idea that has given me hope.

Trying formal structuring of plot and storyline proved ineffectual - for me.  Like those who, after telling their story, loose the ability to actually create it, plotting the story provided the same quick death.  Thus a paranoic tendency to secret the story before the actual writing of the story.  

Therefore a need is manifested.  

And a new/old solution presents itself.

Begin the story at its end.

Only time will prove its effectiveness.

Full discussion: http://www.write-on.org/story/2003/12/7/1990/94710