Being a writer means making decisions about what you want to say and how you want to say it. That said, I love that personal growth and insight can come from absolutely anywhere. That is, if you’re open to it. This time, it came from a song. Actually, it came from the whole album. It’s a delicious auditory treat combining the dreamy delirium of Lewis Carroll and the bitter, tragic inevitability of Leo Tolstoy. But there’s a line in one particular song that goes, “Sometimes the one you want is not the one you need.” How very true of life, and of writing.
As I looked over my manuscript last week, tweaking and re-perfecting, I came across a paragraph that didn’t feel quite…right. But I couldn’t put my finger on why it didn’t work. So I tried to edit around it, seeing if perhaps the sentences that came before it didn’t lead in very well, or if the ones after it didn’t flow forward. No, that wasn’t it. So, deep breath, I deleted that paragraph, intending to re-write it. Oh, God, why did I do that? Quick, hit the “undo” button! Oh. Wait. That fixed the problem I was having with the flow. Simply deleting that little paragraph was all it needed, and now my story flowed a little better. But writing is about creating, not deleting, isn’t it? No.
The hard part is when you find your character, or yourself, stuck in the story. Where does he/she go from here? I spent months stuck on a specific path for my character. It had to end that way. It just had to. But every time I tried to write the story forward, it felt robotic, as if my characters were my little toy soldiers moving stiffly forward to my marching orders, not real people trying to make their own decisions and live their lives. Because I saw all the pieces of the puzzle, I made the assumptions for my characters that they would see them as well. But what good is a story if the characters already know what’s going to happen? So for months, I stared at the same paragraphs over and over again until I had the words memorized. But I had no inspiration to move forward. What would they say? What would they do? Why can’t I get this out? What’s wrong here? I had what I wanted, so why couldn’t I write it? The problem with clinging too tightly to a single idea is that you close yourself off to other ones. As a writer, and sometimes as a human being, that can be disastrous.
Because art imitates life, and vice versa, my epiphanies are most often born of real life situations. Take a recent one in which I found my commitment to my significant other could have been greatly challenged. It came close. I recently met a guy where I work who, like me, is new to the company. We met on our way out the door, and he told me that he, too, was having a hard time learning these labrynthine hallways. We shared a laugh, and a look. He has astonishing green eyes, and for a moment I lost my brain. Said traitorous organ instantly spun a fantasy of going to coffee with this guy, of doing…other things with him. He asked for my number. Uh oh. I almost gave it to him, too. But then he asked me if I was single, and I remembered that I was actually deeply in love with a wonderful man with whom I’ve shared many beautiful years. Whew! Okay, so not actually that close. In fact, it’s a pretty boring story. But in my mind, it wasn’t.
If I were writing what would happen to those two people, she would have lied and given her number to the new guy. She would have cheated on her significant other. She would have enjoyed the intrigue, and she would have reveled in the new and the shiny. It would have been hot and exciting. She would have left her significant other; she would have gambled everything they’d built together on the possibility that she’d be so lucky a second time. But eventually, as it always does, the shine would wear off and she would realize that this new guy was not as good as she originally thought, and she would realize her mistake too late. There would be a big breakup scene, and a “please take me back” scene after that, and it would all blow up in her face. It’s classic, but compelling. And as a fictional character, it makes perfect sense to write it that way because we as readers love to watch train wrecks. (No offense to Ms. Karenina.)
Living a train wreck, on the other hand, is not as fun. If Tolstoy can teach us anything, it’s that the shine wears off much faster than we ever thought possible. Frankly, if I were going to borrow anything from Anna Karenina, it would be from her wardrobe, not her playbook. So I made a different decision for myself than I would have for a character. The decisions I make for myself have to serve to benefit me in some way. The decisions I make for my characters have to benefit the story, not necessarily my characters. Just because a character is a good person doesn’t mean they’ll get a happy ending. Take the queen herself, J. K. Rowling, and her ending for Fred and George Weasley. They weren’t the main characters, of course, but they were near and dear to many readers, and they didn’t deserve to be separated so cruelly. But it served the emotion of the story, didn’t it?
So the meaning of the lyrics comes full circle: “Sometimes the one you want is not the one you need.” It would have been nice if my original ending had worked out, certainly easier, but it would have been a terrible book. So the question becomes, darlings, when should you ax your darlings? The answer is simple: when they no longer serve your story. Only you can decide what that story will be, but you do have to make the decision.
May the page-turners be with you.
(Many, many thanks to Marianas Trench for the inspiration. Love you guys.)
Thalia Huntley 