[GAH! Stupid blog decided not to publish this last night]
i asked a good friend (one with a long track record of writing real things) to look over a story i wrote. His candor was refreshing, his complements rewarding, but what i really appreciated was his utterly and completely true comment that what i had written wasn't so much an actual story as a series of loosely bound skits around a common theme.
i couldn't argue. It was. Then again, that's generally what most of the stuff i come up with is.
Ultimately, the problem i have is that while i'm rather good at coming up with opening lines for things, and can string hair brained plot lines together to beat all, i absolutely suck at coming up with endings. Granted, that makes me eminently qualified to do things like write episodes of popular TV series or yet another continuing story of some space soap opera, ultimately it means that i'm not really capable of creating a proper "story". One that, to paraphrase one of my favorite authors "Starts at the beginning, works its way through the middle, and stops when it gets to the end."
Perhaps what i need to do is work backwards like i'm writing some detective story. Start with the Butler being taken away in chains and work your way in reverse until there's a body on the ground. Not quite sure how that works with comedy SciFi, but hey, that's the challenge, isn't it?
i wonder if i should work with JIM to figure out a good ending for next years NaNoWriMo?
