Hothouse Melancholia

[mobiusstripper]

I'm starting to give up on the idea that I will ever produce a long-form written work, i.e. a novel or even a full-length script. While I have always enjoyed long works that actually earn their length, one of my consistent reading (and film) petpeeves is when something is longer than it needs to be. There is beauty in brevity. The elegance of a spare, efficient work, where every word is carrying a portion of the work's weight and not a single one is redundant or expendable. So I've always been content to end something when it feels done, regardless of weather I initially intended for it to be longer. That attitude probably comes from me thinking of myself as a poet first and a prose author second. I make no secret of the fact that I approach writing a piece of prose fiction as writing a long, narrative poem. I consider all of my creative writing to be poetry first and foremost. Rhythm and consonance are just as important to me as plot structure in a work of fiction. In fact, rhythm is my main way of building structure. Rather than mapping out the whole story and then writing, I try to write like a river, shaping the story around the rocks and trees as I come to them.Oh, wow, that was pretentious. But, you know what? It's also the truth.

Anyway, I hit page 60 of my script last night, fired it off to my mentor, and then continued writing aimlessly, panicking in the back of my mind about how I was going to stretch it out for the additional 30 pages I need to make it a full-length play. My mentor wrote me back this morning and said, "Don't be upset with me, but I think you could just end it here. It feels done. It's a beautiful one act." I told her I also felt like it was past its due date, and she said, "Great. Let's plan a reading." Of course, there's still revisions I want to make, and there is also material I feel like I might want to add to flesh out the existing scenes. So, depending on whether we decide it would add anything valuable, I may still be able to pad out another 10-15 pages. But I apparently remain incapable of writing a full-length work. I will never be one of those authors who writes like morning glory, growing up every surface they can find at top speed and blooming everywhere, ending up with something they have to cut 100,000 words from on revision. I seem to be cut out to only cultivate hothouse orchids. Which is fine, I guess. Orchids are beautiful, intricate, weird, and hard to grow. Which describes my writing pretty aptly. I've just always wanted to also be able to write in that other prolific, wild way. And that just doesn't seem to be something I'm made for. So it goes.

Comments

[purglepurglepurgle]

> one of my consistent reading (and film) petpeeves is when something is longer than it needs to be.

Saaaaame. I'm always thinking "get to the point" or "well, that could've been shorter" (and I piss off my friends by saying as much when we watch things). I like that (stephen king iirc?) advice for storytelling, "get in late, get out early". I feel like a lot of media atm would benefit from going back to basics like that, with filmmakers taking note of how early directors had to work with technical limitations, going back to Hitchcock, that sort of thing. I don't watch much, partly because at least with a waffling writer, you can skim, but with a film you're stuck going at their pace. I don't mind more ponderous moody things if they're *good*, but it's a risk when you don't know the author...

I also MUCH prefer writing short stories! Some of it's down to how easily I get bored of a project; I have to use the energy while I have it, before I lose interest. So most works need to be things I can finish in an evening or two, or draft in full on a lunchbreak. I've got a bit better at sticking to things as I've got older, and through practice, but I still tend to find it's more productive to just work with my whims and be a bit erratic.

Though, I wouldn't give up on writing longer pieces if it ever is what you want to do. I've made myself write novel-length works out of sheer bloody-mindedness, so I know it's possible. :P I think a difficulty is that I like to fuss over prose, and with novels it's maybe more about pacing and structure and keeping up the energy-- but that can be a fun challenge in itself. I got a lot more comfy with it on one project after I told myself "you know what, people always complain when a TV show is 'episodic', but you tend to prefer the episodic episodes, so why not write an episodic novel?" I wound up with maybe max 3 chapters per arc and I'd show it to a friend after each one, and it was waaaaaay easier to write a novel's worth of words that way. It developed a structure kinda organically.

So these days I think I approach chapters more like writing individual short scenes that could go together in a variety of orders, and then patching them together after and changing details to fit, as I see what I end up with. Or at least there'll be *some* flexibility to the order. But yeah, as someone who defaults to writing pieces of about 2k words but has finished the odd novel-length project despite it really not coming naturally: it is possible. No idea how those people who write 500k works manage it, though; I'm always looking for the door by the 60k mark.

(I'm definitely NOT a poet, but I was also gonna say I don't think that precludes writing longer works, since there are poems like Endymion. Though I hate Keats. So maybe that's not the best example. :P)

[mobiusstripper]

>I think a difficulty is that I like to fuss over prose, and with novels it's maybe more about pacing and structure and keeping up the energy-- but that can be a fun challenge in itself.

Same deal. I have no idea how to pace. I should take up that challenge at some point, but I get very frustrated and tend to abandon works I originally set out as longer projects.