The Problem Has Been Located

Can you guess where?

   There are few challenges in a storyteller’s time practicing the Art of the written word more infuriating than trying to identify why a particular project just isn’t coalescing into something that they can feel confident and proud of having produced. The simplest answers to the question of ‘What’s gone wrong here’ are comforting, in their way. Writer’s Block? Well, there’s a dozen or more workarounds and solutions to that, so no worries. Story feels too unoriginal, or derivative? Well, focus on making exceptionally crafted characters, and a couple of twists on the old formula, and presto, you’re on your way to having an entertaining piece of fiction to offer to your readers! Huzzah! Feel like you’ve left something out? Re-scans and secondary editing processes, as well as working with an editor or workshopping with fellow creative folks can help by allowing a third party perspective identify where you might have gone wrong.

     But where does one turn when these simple answers don’t fit quite right? Often, we tend to turn to our own inclinations and move on, leaving the problem child of a story in the bin, relegated to the detritus and clutter of the backs of our minds, amid the other concepts or tales we gave up on as just another interesting idea that went horribly, horribly wrong when we tried to actually build it up. It’s a universal truth of Artists of the written word that this sort of thing just happens to us at least a couple of time before we’ve run our course in the realm.

     Some few of us do what I have been trying to do with this one particular challenge of a tale, and come back to revisit it again after a couple of years, to search the bones of what was constructed and see if there’s something salvageable. In most cases, yes, there is, and the dream weaver who is both talented and disciplined can perform the miracle of narrative alchemy to turn that lump of coal into gold. If you would doubt me, just recall that Clive Barker took seven total whacks at his “Hellbound Heart” before telling his literary agent that he was finished, the damned thing was as solid as he was going to be able to make it. Sir Terry Pratchett’s “Small Gods” went through three complete re-writes over the course of five years before he felt it was ready to be sent to his editor for a final pass-over and final tightening , and that man was himself a god, in my view. I’ve done it once successfully myself as well, having once taken a novel-length, 80k word novel from the realms of Amelia City, reading through it, recognizing that it was disjointed trash, and ripping it apart for spare parts. What resulted from that complete teardown was a solid 7k word short story featuring the monstrosity that was the primary threat in that tale, and that short tale works vastly better for the Amelia City style.

     Well, to tell the truth and shame the devil, there’s another project, a standalone story, that I have been bashing my head against a wall to figure out for close to seven years now. I’ve written three different versions of it, this latest one by hand with pen and paper, and just like the previous two iterations, after coming back to it as a reader and mulling it over, I’ve concluded that it is not what it needs to be, and in several big, unsustainable/unforgivable ways. I want to scream.

     But the thing is, ladies and gentlemen, I have found the perpetrator of this crime against artistic flow and creativity. The clever little bastard was hiding in plain sight all along; I just had to take a long hard look in a mirror to find him….

     In the first incarnation of this project, I became too nitty-gritty with each and every small event contributing to a larger overall world-spanning conflict that the tale was set within. It ended up causing me to puff out large sections of plot and almost ignore entirely the primary protagonist’s character development, substituting narrative import with a whole lot of ‘let’s just have lots of shit happening all over the place’. To try and justify some of these scenes and sequences, I constructed a pair of eccentric support characters to take care of several of these ‘side mission’ scenes and report back to my main character, who would respond with some dry commentary and observations, then move back on to her musings as a mid-level commander of the protagonistic forces in the story.

     But, again, there was too much going on, it all got sloppy, and eventually, I ended up terminating my development of the tale because it had gotten too disjointed. The only things that I was enjoying were these two ‘lieutenants’ of hers, and I didn’t see how she would come back into focus. So, I set the story aside.

     A few years later, I outlined a much smaller fraction of events within the confines of the larger war, and tried to focus on just a small number of operations involving this lead protagonist, and, well, it worked a little better, but she still felt too stiff, too militaristic, and I was trying to use a ‘hard’ magic system, which is not something I do very well with. My Tamalarian Tales series started with a hard magic system, but I ended up relying on soft systems as I became more familiar with my own created world and the stories set within it. I worked my way diligently through writing this new version of the story, hoping that, by reducing the primary protagonist’s role within the framework of the overarching war, I would make it more relatable, and thus, more manageable and enjoyable to write.

     I turned out to be wrong. The primary protagonist- still lacking much of a personality or development and growth, and not in a “oh, cool, she’s comfortable in her own skin and knows who she is” kind of way. It was more like, “Why would anyone care about this woman?” Her lieutenants/support characters were still fun to work with, but their roles had been scaled back just as much as hers, so they didn’t get much time ‘on screen’, as it were.

     This latest version, the handwritten one, saw me stop the handwriting after filling two full notebooks and about half of a third with my tiny, tightly spaced block lettering. Things had not improved for my main character, and I knew it. My antagonist force had no leader figure for me to focus on as a lever point of contrast, so I was once more bouncing around all over the place. It was maddening, and I set those notebooks down in my basement office, on the back of the shelves, to be finally given up on and forgotten, it seemed, for good.

     But a few days ago, feeling curious, I started to read through them, not as an author, but as a reader. Getting through about half of this latest version, I’ve finally figured out what the hell my problem is.

     Well, with this story; with EVERYTHING ELSE in my life, I’m still sort of clueless, heh heh…..

     The trouble, you see, is that I had been focused on the wrong character in every attempt I made at this tale. The scale of the war changed from draft to draft; the main character’s name, attitude, rank and powers changed from draft to draft. The exact nature of the enemy forces shifted a little from draft to draft. But do you know what didn’t change? What one element stayed enjoyable and well-crafted in every version of this story that I’ve been struggling to tell?

     Those lieutenant characters, her main allies. They have been a joy to write and follow through each draft. This is their story, not hers, and I’m a complete brainlet for not recognizing this sooner.

     It will probably be at least a year before that story gets written and readied for serialized publication either on Substack or through one of my video-sharing channels on either Rumble or Bitchute. Yes, I know, I’m banking on there still being a Substack or Bitchute or Rumble by the time I’m ready to present this project, but I have a few advantages going for me. For starters, I’m at least somewhat optimistic that one if not all three venues will still be in operation, though in what state, who can say? Lord knows that with Substack’s current obsession with video and streaming and goddamn INFLUENCERS, it may end up crashing and burning harder than the fucking Hindenberg, or turn into a ghost town like Centralia, the eternal fires banked under the ground of that haunted place, the remaining nearby folks unsure of when the whole thing will finally collapse into the maw of the earth. Secondly, even if I should have to move on to some other place, it isn’t like I haven’t migrated numerous times already over my time online. I mean, I used to have my own website once upon a time, thanks to Wordpress and a tech-savvy friend. Can you imagine? I can’t, not these days.

     And lastly, and perhaps the greatest advantage I have in this pursuit, is my firm knowledge of the following: it doesn’t matter one whit to me whether or not my readership is enormous, or only the small handful that I have right now, and have seemingly been able to sustain pretty much anywhere I go. I’m a niche kind of guy, and as long as I can find a spot to settle that niche, I will set down to work, and make the best of it.

     After all, nobody else is going to do it for me. The problem all along was me, folks. I’m ready to fix that.