Fiction, Inc.

I'm most comfortable writing non-fiction. I'm not sure if it is because I don’t have to fabricate a story so much as put the relevant facts into some sort of tale. Or if it's because it is easier to report a story rather than create one.

At any rate, I've been writing for years. I wrote "news" items for a monthly magazine called Landen Living as the reporter from Montgomery Hills. There was little news to relate, but I managed to fill my allotted space with birthday and anniversary wishes and sporting events and milestones from the constituency.

Then I wrote up business proposals and even a book on how to run a system that my partner and I created in college. Again, dry factual stuff. I warned my classmates that programs needed to have an operator's manual, but they neglected to create one. The nearly 50 page booklet explained each and every step of the program we were giving a Luddite on campus.

For over two years now, I've been writing history essays for Really Good Quotes. I find events for each date of the year and tell the story about the events I choose. I then find a few quotes to highlight the essay. All neat and tidy. Just the facts, ma'am, just the fact. I feel like Joe Friday would like my stuff.

Then I started writing this fiction nonsense. I have Cassie and a host of characters moving about an unformed landscape. Amazing. I have created my characters and given them space to move in. But that isn't the most astounding part.

You see, I'm lazy. I know I'm lazy. I'm perfectly content with being lazy. It is easier to name my file first and then write the story because of my file structure on my computer. Since my stories are related, I reread what I wrote the previous day before taking up the tale again today.

If I name the file immediately, I have less clicking to do. It saves steps. At least it is supposed to save steps. It would definitely save steps if I only named them with the date. But instead, I have both date and title of the day's story as my title for the file.

And there is the problem. I read yesterday's story and think that I know where the story is going today. So I name the story and save the file. Then I write the story. You might think, that as the author, I have total control over what is going to happen. I thought it worked that way. It does not work that way. At least, not for me.

I begin typing and all of a sudden I find that things are not going the way I had anticipated. Instead of this happening, that happens. I thought that my plan would evolve into this set of events and all of a sudden I find that the story has veered down a fork in the road and isn't leading in the direction I had assumed it would go.

Then, because I was saving time and energy, I find myself with a story title that has absolutely nothing to do with the story I've just written. Things didn't go in the direction I had assumed they would go. The story took on a life of its own and moved down a path I didn't even know existed. And now, I have to do a lot more clicking to get rid of the old no longer useful title and re-title the tale with something that has some minor relevance to whatever I've just written.

I don't know where these ideas come from. Perhaps I just don't have the right idea about what I'm writing. I don't have any long range plans. I had a plan long ago, but I've given up on that. I can't even plan what I'm typing in a page and a half let alone what I will be typing for the next several weeks or even a few days.

I've heard that you should have an outline when you write fiction. I don't know if that would work for me in any way because I really have no idea where this story is taking me. Cassie apparently has her own ideas. So do George, Ooljie, Kisho, Hiro, Doston, Zastrill, Sten, Frau, and even High Lord Thorton. Ralph had ideas, and I had plans for Ralph. Too bad now, buster. All bets are off.

My new plan is going to be to write the dang story first and then name it. I may have a few more clicks, but it will save me time and energy in the long run. I sure wish I knew what was going to happen to Cassie. I find that I like her a little more each day and I hope that things work out for her.