![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Mantra for today:
Mar. 4th, 2012 02:57 pmHere's the fact I have to remind myself of more than anything else while I'm writing:
Only I can write THIS story.
I have a terrible time remembering this and staying confident that there's something new, something worth writing (and reading) in what I have to say. I get all tangled up with this when I'm reading fics that I really like, because I'm always looking for: 1) anything too close to something I have written, am writing, or would like to write, and 2) anything so good that it's easy to immediately respond to it by saying, "Oh, I could never have written that."
This tendency to worry that "it's already been done" and that further "it's already been done better than I can do it" applies to story elements, plot points, settings, themes, writing style, and even words (that is, basically it applies to everything). Believe it or not, I obsess to the point of remembering distinctive individual words, and worrying that if I use some unusual word that another writer has used, that everyone who reads my story will recognize this and will think, "Ah, but so-and-so used that word first."
I have to remember that MY story is coming from a place that no one else has access to, namely, the inside of MY head. If I can look around what's in my head with open eyes, and be true to what I see there, then I will write something that could only have come from me; no complicated machinations are required for this, just that I am open and honest. The resulting story will will be different from everybody else's, in ways only I could have made it different. It will need thought and work and no doubt considerable angsting over it to be made coherent enough to show to the world, but it will be something only I could have written, even if (as all fanfic does) it shares characters and words and story elements with lots of other stories.
Others have written--and will continue to write--about the Pensieve, about hospital bedside vigils, about strange alternate universes, about original characters (whom readers may hate), and God knows lots of people write dance scenes and drinking scenes, but...only I can write about them my way. I do have something to say that hasn't quite been said before. And that, in the end, is enough of a reason to keep saying it.
Only I can write THIS story.
I have a terrible time remembering this and staying confident that there's something new, something worth writing (and reading) in what I have to say. I get all tangled up with this when I'm reading fics that I really like, because I'm always looking for: 1) anything too close to something I have written, am writing, or would like to write, and 2) anything so good that it's easy to immediately respond to it by saying, "Oh, I could never have written that."
This tendency to worry that "it's already been done" and that further "it's already been done better than I can do it" applies to story elements, plot points, settings, themes, writing style, and even words (that is, basically it applies to everything). Believe it or not, I obsess to the point of remembering distinctive individual words, and worrying that if I use some unusual word that another writer has used, that everyone who reads my story will recognize this and will think, "Ah, but so-and-so used that word first."
I have to remember that MY story is coming from a place that no one else has access to, namely, the inside of MY head. If I can look around what's in my head with open eyes, and be true to what I see there, then I will write something that could only have come from me; no complicated machinations are required for this, just that I am open and honest. The resulting story will will be different from everybody else's, in ways only I could have made it different. It will need thought and work and no doubt considerable angsting over it to be made coherent enough to show to the world, but it will be something only I could have written, even if (as all fanfic does) it shares characters and words and story elements with lots of other stories.
Others have written--and will continue to write--about the Pensieve, about hospital bedside vigils, about strange alternate universes, about original characters (whom readers may hate), and God knows lots of people write dance scenes and drinking scenes, but...only I can write about them my way. I do have something to say that hasn't quite been said before. And that, in the end, is enough of a reason to keep saying it.