This was a strange one.
It was an abandoned story start with the title appearing hand in hand with the opening scene - Kevin Klaag looks in the mirror one day...and he's someone else. And it had happened before.
But then, as I've often done in the past (for a bunch of reasons listed below), I quit the story and moved on to another story start (which I probably also abandoned - for a bunch of reasons listed below ;).
So with this #60DayChallenge (writing 30 stories in Oct/Nov - and I just finished #27, so am on track to complete the challenge in a few days), I found the Klaag file on my computer and pounded out the rest of the tale.
It did not go the direction I'd first imagined at all!
Sometimes I'll make plot notes at the end of the story start to remind myself what I was thinking and how my future self should finish the story. Well, those plot notes on this one were pretty useless once the story took off. It became a weird, and oddly told, psychological horror piece. Let me know if you want to read it. (Adult themes and words.)
So why did I abandon stories in the past? Here are some random thoughts, not sure if any are the real reason or if some kind of combination took place in my brain.
- I didn't know how to write a story past the opening scene (character in a setting with a problem). Oh, I knew about basic plot structure, but didn't know how to move the story forward by creating tension until the climax and resolution. I'm better at that now, but far from an expert. At least I can power through a story and get something on paper. Whether it's a good story is another matter.
- I was afraid of finishing it. Of course, I'd finished stories before but then I'd send them off to a market and they'd get rejected. Or I'd self publish and someone would pooh pooh it. I hated rejected (still do) and feared the process of receiving negative feedback via reviews. This kind of fear is debilitating for a lot of writers, I think. I'm still not cured, but this short story challenge has helped me learn to just write for me and not worry about what others think of my stories. And I never read reviews anymore.
- Some say people quit writing because of a fear of success. I've heard that phrase off and on for a long time but have no idea what it means. So it may or may not apply to me since I'm clueless as to what fear of success implies.
- I'm sure there are other reasons which I may add here later as they occur to me. If you want to follow my story challenge progress, click here. Until next time, thanks for reading.
