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Author Topic: What's the hardest thing you've ever had to write, and why?  (Read 3068 times)

honey

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What's the hardest thing you've ever had to write, and why?
« on: January 06, 2009, 08:53:58 PM »
Lol my question is exactly what it says in the subject line. What is the hardest thing you've ever had to write, and why?

I ask because I just finished the most difficult chapter I've ever written. Actually it was a scene spread out over two chapters, and it was the final big ending of the whole book. I was so excited when I finally got to the end because it's something I'd seen in my head since almost the first day I got the idea. I'd had a blast writing this story, and then I literally had two chapters left of the entire novel to write and I sat down to write them and ...

a big fat nothing!

It was the worst case of writers block I'd ever had, but more than that, it was just a style of writing that is a little out of my norm and not easy for me to write. I'm not exactly an action writer, and this final "battle" if you will killed me. But more than just blocking out the action, and having to describe a somewhat elaborate setting, I had several major plot points all tying in together because it was the end of the story. Everything had to come together all at the same time and when I sat down to write it it was just overwhelming.

So, it was literally the most difficult scene I've ever had to plug my way through and I literally took it one line at a time. One freaking scene took me an entire month, and now I just hope it all came together the way it was supposed to.

But I've learned something about myself, because it was so completely hard, and I just wanted to scream and quit, and rip all my hair out, and until now I've never really experienced that with my writing. Sure I've lost interest and dropped stories, but that wasn't the same thing. I didn't quit those because they were too hard for me and it wasn't that I didn't know how to make it all work. This was so much more frustrating than that because I love the story and wanted desperately to finish it, I just didn't know how. But I didn't give up and now I'm so relieved that I did it, that I can't even describe how good it feels to be done.

SO... enough rambling about me, I want to hear your thoughts. Have you ever had to write something that was just flat out too hard for you? Did you get it done? How did you do it? And how did you feel afterwards?
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If Ryan looked at me the wrong way, I lost it. If Ryan looked at me the right way, I lost it. And whenever he tried to kiss me, something usually blew up. Someone ought to teach him a little control.

Carter-Orange

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Re: What's the hardest thing you've ever had to write, and why?
« Reply #1 on: January 07, 2009, 05:45:53 AM »
Good question!

The hardest thing I've written was a rape/violent scene in my story 'Never Gone'.  I'm quite new to writing and all my other writing had been just romance, nothing too challenging, so to turn Steph's lovely husband Richard into a monster was hard.  I did think up loads more to write but just couldn't bring myself to write it, maybe I'll gain the courage to write that kind of thing in my next story.
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honey

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Re: What's the hardest thing you've ever had to write, and why?
« Reply #2 on: January 07, 2009, 11:47:29 AM »
Ooh, yeah, that is hard. I'm sure it's always difficult to have to write sensitive subjects like that.
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If Ryan looked at me the wrong way, I lost it. If Ryan looked at me the right way, I lost it. And whenever he tried to kiss me, something usually blew up. Someone ought to teach him a little control.

mare

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Re: What's the hardest thing you've ever had to write, and why?
« Reply #3 on: January 07, 2009, 12:32:31 PM »
This is a good question.

For me, it was Season's of Change which is the second book of the Mel's series. It was the most personal of all of the stuff I had written since many of the stories in there were taken from my real family life. Probably the hardest chapter to write was the birthday chapter because it was so real and so me that I had a hard time tranferring it into fiction. I must have rewritten that chapter about ten times before finally posting it and still can't read it without bawling my eyes out lol

Good form of therapy though. :P
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Writing is something you do alone. Its a profession for introverts who want to tell you a story but don't want to make eye contact while doing it. ~ John Green

honey

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Re: What's the hardest thing you've ever had to write, and why?
« Reply #4 on: January 07, 2009, 12:37:13 PM »
aww! *hugs Mare*   I've never gotten quite that personal. I know there is a lot of me and my struggles in Welcome To My Heart, but I really only ever glazed over what it's really like. Kudos to you for doing that. That is something that would be really difficult for me too.
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If Ryan looked at me the wrong way, I lost it. If Ryan looked at me the right way, I lost it. And whenever he tried to kiss me, something usually blew up. Someone ought to teach him a little control.

mare

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Re: What's the hardest thing you've ever had to write, and why?
« Reply #5 on: January 07, 2009, 12:49:04 PM »
^ it was hard. I am not one to ever really let people know much about my life but when I started writing Mel's it just kind of happened. Although Mel's is probably the least personal out of the three. Season's was bascially opening up my journal and sharing everything with the world even though no one knew it, until now I guess lol
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Writing is something you do alone. Its a profession for introverts who want to tell you a story but don't want to make eye contact while doing it. ~ John Green

Kentuckychickrk

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Re: What's the hardest thing you've ever had to write, and why?
« Reply #6 on: January 07, 2009, 10:17:04 PM »
Wow... that's a tough one.

I think probably the hardest thing I've ever had to write (as related to fics) would have to be Chapters 15 & 16 in For the Rest of My Life -- because it was the first time that I really allowed you, as the reader, to see the extremely vulnerable side of Grace.  The first time I allowed her not to be so strong.  And knowing all that she'd been through and all that the news meant she'd be going through... it was tough.  I still can't read it without bawling my eyes out.

http://www.absolutechaos.net/viewstory.php?sid=9113&chapter=15

The other would be the Chapter in Someone's Miracle when the daughter is brought back into the room after her organs have been removed.  I hadn't really planned that chapter, but as I started thinking about what that would mean for the family... to recieve a body now void of everything that was once their child... it needed to be included...

http://www.absolutechaos.net/viewstory.php?sid=9135&textsize=0&chapter=8
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Nijntje

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Re: What's the hardest thing you've ever had to write, and why?
« Reply #7 on: January 09, 2009, 01:12:50 PM »
That's gotta be the 'chapel'-Chapter in Prevailing Fate. You know, the one with the symbolism with the candle. Why? Several reasons. One, I don't have a religious bone in my body. Second, I wanted to show you what Nick was going through while Brian was in the chapel, without it becoming too cheesy. So I guess I rewrote the whole thing several things.
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RokofAges75

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Re: What's the hardest thing you've ever had to write, and why?
« Reply #8 on: January 09, 2009, 04:39:29 PM »
This question is hard LOL.  I was trying to think of an answer other than the first thing that popped into my head, which of course was the choppage in Broken.  I agonized over Chapter 106 of that for at least a week - a week of opening it up in basically every spare moment of writing time I had and staring at the screen and finding ways to waste a bunch of time and ending up with maybe a sentence written at the end of it all.  I did that for several days in a row and finally got to the place where I could write more in one sitting, but it really was hard for me.

The other part I thought of later is from By My Side, and it's when Claire's dad has a heart attack.  It's not a big part of the story at all, but I remember that scene when she gets the phone call from her mom in the middle of the night being really hard to write from an emotional standpoint.  My biggest fear in life is the illness/death of someone I love, and I've experienced that nightmarish call - thankfully, not the worst case sceneario - twice.  I was studying abroad in Scotland when I wrote that part, and I think that made it worse... I was out of the country for two months, the longest I'd ever gone without seeing my family, and it made me uneasy to write that part and worry about my own dad or my grandpa or something happening to anyone in my family while I was so far away.
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MellzBellz

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Re: What's the hardest thing you've ever had to write, and why?
« Reply #9 on: January 10, 2009, 10:39:56 PM »
I can definitely see how the leg amputation was tough for you to write Julie. I can only imagine... The toughest thing I think that I have ever written was pretty recently in A Little Taste of Sin where Alyssa loses the baby. It's become such a cliche in fan fics that I thought it would be relatively simple to write, but it really was very hard and emotionally draining. Not so much her actually losing the baby, but all the aftermath that followed through the end of the story. There were so many confusing emotions I wanted to cover and I wanted her to realistically greive, but also I didn't want to shroud the whole story with depression either.There were times writing it I really wanted to slap her. Then trying to figure out Nick's role and how much paitence he should have with her... It was very rough, a lot rougher than I anticipated. I think that is one cliche that I probably won't tackle again LOL
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RokofAges75

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Re: What's the hardest thing you've ever had to write, and why?
« Reply #10 on: January 11, 2009, 12:17:10 AM »
Anything with babies dying (including miscarriages, abortions, etc.) is really sad to write.  I can imagine how tough that was emotionally. :(
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kindagetmego

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Re: What's the hardest thing you've ever had to write, and why?
« Reply #11 on: March 08, 2009, 01:35:45 AM »
One of the most difficult things I've ever tried to write still eludes me. I started writing a serious fanfic that involved the female main character suffering a miscarriage part-way through the story. It was to be a major turning point for the story/conflict. Several months later, I ended up having a real-life miscarriage that scarily echoed the storyline I had planned. Needless to say, since the two main characters in the story were to split up after the loss, I quickly abandoned the story. Call me superstitious, but I was done. It's been over eight years since my loss and I've only in the past six months or so wanted to get back into the story again. Maybe someday I'll be able to do the story justice.
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Jacquie

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Re: What's the hardest thing you've ever had to write, and why?
« Reply #12 on: March 15, 2009, 05:53:57 PM »
There have been two times I had a hard time writing a particular scene/chapter.  One is in my BSB story "Crimson" (posted under "April".  I think I've said before I swear I don't have multiple personalities.  LOL).  I really wasn't sure where I was going with it and then it was the only thing that made sense with that chapter dealing with Crimson's father.  I cried while writing it and had to walk away from the computer for about two weeks before I could continue with it, it affected me that much.

My other one is in an NSYNC fic called "In Another Life." There is character of "Granny" and I based her on my two grandmothers, both of whom I was extremely close to.  At the time, they were still alive and after losing them both in a 7 month period in the past two years, it's hard to go back and edit the story because I see so much of what I miss in my grandmothers, I just start crying.
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