According to novelist John Irving, an inspired writer does not have the luxury of deciding on a story; the story chooses the writer. "I've always felt my subject chooses me. Even if I don't like the subject, don't like what I'm writing about."
He offers his most recent novel, Until I Find You, as a perfect example. "This novel, I didn't like writing. It was painful." But as Irving has said before, you don't put a story aside just because it makes you feel uncomfortable -- a writer does not get to choose his obsessions. A story seeks out a writer, gets under his skin and insists on being written. "The subject chooses you."
Irving admits that the writer is not off the hook. Novels don't write themselves. "I choose the tone, the names, the language, the structure -- but not the subject or the story. The story chooses the writer; the writer chooses the structure."
Learn more about Irving at the link below.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Irving
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Comments: 16
The stories just 'come' to you, and it's your choice to listen to them or not.
I usually listen. Even if it's just jotting the premise or plot into a journal for later.
I think this also goes along with the idea of characters writing themselves. I'm often heard saying, I didn't want him to do that, he just did it! And people think I'm nuts.
Congrats to you, Eric, for having your 2004 NaNovel being considered by an agent!
Cynthia, my NaNovel had a instance of the character doing what she wanted, rather than what I had plotted her to do. I have to admit, her brazen move actually was better than what I had intended her to do.
It's those times that the characters are so alive that they act on their own that you know you are really connected to the novel and characters.
Congratulations to fellow National Novel Writing Month Winners. Jennifer, I must add that although one of my NaNo-novels is with an agent, it was only after putting it on the shelf for a year and then spending a year revising it!
The soul of a story comes in that quick first draft. But writing is rewriting, as they say.
I learned early that my characters were not willing to let me plan their lives for them. I develop characters and start with a story idea, but don't waste time planning too much.
I share Mr. Irving's experience of having a painful story come to me and demand that I write it. That one came as a dream about someone I didn't know. When I couldn't get her off my mind, I wrote her. More recently, I passed a man in the drug store who impressed me enough that I developed him into a character and am working on his story now.
My daughter laughed at me the night she came in and I told her she wouldn't believe what Nicole (the main character in my WIP) had done that night. She couldn't understand how 'my' character could do anything I didn't know she was going to do. I think it might be something that only writers can understand?
Thanks or writing this and publishing it to Writing Tips.