October 29th, 2020

Anonymous asked:Speaking of writing, I've asked you before about a story I've had in my head for almost 15 years. So now the problem is, every time I try to write it, I stop around the same part. I was watching a videoclips and had an idea for a fan fiction of my own story, inspired by Medusa's story. I just had this crazy idea of writing that instead. I feel like, since I've tried to write this story so many times before, I need some sort of break from it, and this might give me what I'm looking for. +
+ If I always get stuck around the same part, maybe that isn't working. Of course, I could just change that part. But what if rewriting the whole story, still with the same main characters, is what I'm missing? What if I could finish it this time, for a change? What if that's the push that I'm needing, and it'll actually become much better than the original? I can always, after all, write the original later if I want!
PS. I'm actually thinking of giving it a good, happy ending, when the original had a really bad one and was full of angst. I'll forever be in love with the idea of the original story, but with what's going in the world and my own state of mind, I just need to feel excited for this story again and an happy ending seems fitting. We need happy, hopeful things!
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This is a tricky question because there are a number of things you need to consider.

1. Are you simply AFRAID of finishing. Totally valid. Finishing is scary. Is your fear what’s stopping you from getting this done?? If it’s fear then you have to practice facing your fear, listening to it, and then thanking it for it’s contribution meant to keep you safe, but you have a story to write and you’re going to keep going. But because you keep stopping in the same place, chances are it’s not actually your fear, but something to do with the story. so.
2. Is there something wrong with the story in that particular spot that your subconscious refuses to budge on and has you just sitting down and refusing to move forward on? That’s my guess. When I get a writer’s block, it’s usually a sign to me that I went off track in the story and I have to go back and find out where the swerve happened, then get it back on track. The block doesn’t usually hit until I’m a fair way down that wrong track, so the problem is usually pages, even chapters before the block. You COULD read over what you’ve written and see if and where you went off track and start over from there.
3. Is the problem actually that your story is MISSING something? As a whole? What if your current story just doesn’t have the WEIGHT to carry you through all the way to the end and you just run out of gas. If this is the problem, then your idea of using Medusa’s story to add complexity and a frisson might just be what you need.

Okay, so story time, because I had a similar experience. My first nanowrimo novel (15 years ago! yipes!) was a meandering epic science fiction about a generational colony spaceship with very constrained social rules inspired, oddly, by a commercial for colonial furniture. I always think, “what if that... but in space!” about everything. So the concept was vaguely how a colonialist society like the British empire but not might translate into space. I had three sisters, something called “stasis madness” which made the original colonists turn on the empire that was trying to steal the first known habitable planet from the rest of humanity, and a bit of Gaia theory, because you see, the colonists switched their *soul* allegiance to the new planet. ANYWAY, I did finish that first draft and I wrote a sequel which I didn’t finish, but when I went back to revise that first draft, I just couldn’t get through it. It was too large, too unwieldy.  Maybe I just wasn’t up to the task, I don’t know. 
BUT about five years later, after I’d moved on to a different series in a different genre (urban fantasy), I started watching The 100, and really was jonesing for the science fiction fix again. And there was an intersection with my original Gaia theory story. See they’re both set in a nearish future, before humanity has found the key to traveling the great distances of space. So, I decided to do a Bellarke fic of my own story, but I’d make it a PREQUEL. So as it developed, that colonial empire turned out to be the deciding factor in the destruction of the earth, leaving humanity behind in a solar system without the ability to find a habitable planet. It became a post apocalypse story like The 100. And I gave our heroes a little weird ship that was biomechanically engineered with slime/sludge life form found in the Kuiper asteroid belt. BOOM. My story came together. Something about the more intimate setting of a space freighter, the race to save the ship, and the fanfic romance combined with the setting of my previous book made it all happen.
I still actually have the original story waiting to be revised. Now it turns out that the colonial empire sent out A DOZEN colony ships with new damaging technology, and it was the mass launching that poisoned the earth. They killed the earth and then tried to steal with accessible planets. Mythos (the original story) is ONE of the planets they landed on. Each colony ship will have developed it’s own culture based on the guiding colonial beliefs, so when they land on their planets, they will all have completely different stories.
So taking that original, stalled story, and considering a new direction, has set me off on enough stories probably to last me for decades. Well. Look at that.
All in all, I say go ahead. Try the medusa angle. Maybe that’s what this story needs to move forward. And if it turns into something completely different, that’s okay. You’ll learn from writing the new story and may be able to go back to the old one afterwards and fix what was wrong with it.
Good luck and happy writing.