Losing the plot

[louiselux]

Arrgh, my story!

I do not know what is happening next in it, and it's extremely vexing and frightening. I just have to keep on going through this difficult part and hope it comes out right. I just rewrote a huge chunk of it today and don't want to have to backtrack again. I have all these words and I just need to jiggle them around till they make sense. Possibly I should go and do my ironing and not worry about it anymore tonight. *takes a deep breath*

Recently, I was telling emungerethat I never thought about transitions in stories and that they seemed to happen easily. Predictably, transitions are now laughing in my face and refusing to cooperate. How many times can I have a character fall asleep and wake up as a way to move the story forward? So far it's happened about four times. Gahh. Transition-fu, I do not have it.

Comments

[scribblemoose]

God, I know that feeling. Twice now I've decided to get around it by making each chapter exactly a day long. I could fool myself it's Structure, but bollocks is it, I'm just crap at transiting and dealing with the passage of time. And then I wonder why I have three chapters to fill before x happens, because I can't skip a day (sez my own stupid rules).

ArGH!!!!

Time to go look at those screencaps again. ^_^

(ps *pokes* You coming to squeefest, babes?)

[thawrecka]

Transitions are a pain. I start reading things and studying how they did transitions so I can steal their ideas when I have to write something that has a lot of them.

[devikun.livejournal.com]

I'm fully struggling with this myself atm! And in such a small piece, it shouldn't be a problem but it is!

Usually I use thoughts to bridge gaps - the character is thinking something at the end of one section, and in the next is continuing the internal 'conversation' or sees something in current circumstances which link directly into the previous thought or action. But geh! Not this time! That approach is not working at all!

[wedjateye.livejournal.com]

I don't always write in chronological order. Sometimes I skip ahead and write the stuff I know how to write and then come back and fill in gaps. At worst I end up with disconnected bits and no idea how to link them. More usually I find once I have some firm anchor points the rest falls into place.

That's back when I had time and enough sleep to actualy write, so I'm talking hypothetically here...

[emungere.livejournal.com]

How many times can I have a character fall asleep and wake up as a way to move the story forward?

loll I thought you were doing it on purpose! I'm sorry for your transition woe. *pets*

[ajodasso.livejournal.com]

I hate it when that happens. The one I just recently finished, I ended up having to hack off the entire first scene and had a mild panic attack - thankfully, it all usually gets somewhere :)

[kispexi2.livejournal.com]

It depends entirely on the way you're writing, but sometimes I find a change of POV helps with transitions. You can skip the passage of time without skipping meaning - especially if the change to another POV is meaningful. But I'm sure you know that and possibly aren't as free and easy with POVs as I frequently am. :-)

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

Transitions! (Imagine me singing that dramatically, to the tune of "Tradition" from Fiddler on the Roof)

We hates them, we does. In my Remix story I can't believe I wrote:

"Plot point plot point," he said the next day.

ARGH.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

Transitions are a pain.

[toscas-kiss.livejournal.com]

I'm of the 'change POV' school too. I find alcohol also helps. :-)

[new-kate.livejournal.com]

Confession of utter shame:

When I was struggling with a mammoth story I didn't really want to write, I came up with this crazy scheme for non-transitions. All you need for this is two sentences - one kind of relevant but unnesessarily thoughtful, and the other one that makes No Sense at All. Looks like it could mean something, except it doesn't, it's just endlessly mysterious. It could be the lines characters say, could be descriptions of settings, could be just totally random, like an off-hand in-text epigraph. Plonk one in the beginning of the scene and the other one in the end, and voila! They stun the readers and completely distract them from the lack of transition!