What If I Just Don’t Care

There is a story I’ve been writing for over a week now. I think the premise is really novel and I’m excited about it, but man, writing it out took forever. I kept finding other things to do, things to read or movies to watch. I would sit back down with the story and correct some parts but rarely did I add anything new. Something about it just wasn’t working and for awhile I thought it was work stress. Luckily I figured out what was wrong last night. I just didn’t give a fuck about the characters.

There are times when I am writing a short story that I really want to make it as economical as possible. I feel that when it comes to blog reading, people have other things to read or do, so I lean towards short and sweet. Now if I have a massive idea like BDSM Beach, I am more than happy to take my sweet time. On the day to day postings though, I really try to keep it short enough that you can read, absorb, and carry with you without having to sacrifice your lunch hour.

The trick though, is to make the characters interesting enough that you actually give a rat’s ass what happens to them, even for two pages. You would think I would know that by now but here I went and spent a week writing about characters who were as identifiable as a Lincoln log. I was too caught up in the neat idea to notice that the neat idea was happening to people I didn’t give a rat’s ass about. That’s the downside of story economy, when you’re cutting out the bits that help get you in the story. Cut those out, and you really don’t have a story at all.