I'm Boring Myself!
how to give your story zing

That which is static and repetitive is boring. That which is dynamic and random is confusing. In between lies art.  —John A. Locke (1899-1961)

I'm writing a story. It has a great premise and interesting characters, but damn it's so dull. I keep adding these unimportant details. I've forgotten how to make a story sing...if I ever knew. Ugh. Any commiseration or advice would be appreciated. It's lame to ask this question, but how do you make a story interesting? (god that sounds stupid). If I don't know, I don't know. Anyone else having the same problems?    —Amanda Earl

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From Shona Hamilton
I agree with Keziah about the difficulty with getting the fine balance of planning and writing. If I don't get started on the actual writing I get bored, but if I start without enough preparation the story just doesn't work. Is it possible to get someone to sort of "proof" read your story so far and tell you if they can see what's "missing" from it? Sometimes it needs someone to read it with a fresh pair of eyes, they can often state what seems obvious. A character who is to dull to be real, or an action that should have happened but didn't. I have found this a real bonus in the past to help me out when things get too dull to be bothered finishing.

From William Dean
- Start later in the story. You can feel that you have to give readers all the backstory of the characters so they'll empathize or understand the impact of the action, but all that detailed information can kill a story. So start in the middle of an action, expose the characters through what they are DOING, not what they're thinking or saying. Sometimes, you need to begin after you've finished writing the story, start at the end of your story and write the next thing that happens. Then you already know more about your characters. You can explain (or not) about "things" in little ways.

- Leave whatever mystery about your characters there can be. It's okay not to explain everything, many readers prefer to "wonder."

- Focus more intently. Write a scene in which the unexpected happens and develop your story from that, build the tale from the "gut" up so to speak, get the emotions and reactions on paper, then if you feel it's needed, add little telling details (but not too many). And try to show characters reactions in unusual ways, not the clichés. Is someone nervous? Don't have them picking imaginary specks off their clothing (cliché). Instead have them do something that's the opposite to what we imagine nervous people do. Have them do what usually 'calms" them, but have that something fail. Now you've got the reader interested in why and what's causing the nervousness.

- Get your characters out of their normal routine. Sexual tension is highlighted, for example, when the characters or "intended" couple are both out of their elements, experimenting and trying to find common ground so they can "connect."

- Get silly with it. Play around. Think about what's the character's "plan" may be and then have it all blow up in their face and let them 'solve" the problem.

From Lisabet Sarai 
I want to second William's suggestion of starting in the middle of the action. That has helped me out of a narrative quagmire more than once. Just because you know that the order in which events occurred doesn't mean you have to relate them to the reader that way. First A, then B, then C is logical, but can definitely lead to boredom.

Instead, begin the story at a climactic point, then backtrack as necessary to show how the characters got to this point. Then move forward to a resolution.

Another related point: don't tell the reader everything you know! You may understand that your character is behaving a certain way because of some past experiences. You don't necessarily have to share those experiences with the reader. In fact, you probably should not, unless the past directly impacts the events in the present story. The backstory that you know, but keep to yourself, will still help you make your character realistic and full-bodied, even if the reader doesn't know the details of the character's motivation.

As far as abandoning an idea halfway through, when it seems to be losing its spark this happens to me all the time. Sometimes it's just frustrating. Occasionally, though, I've come to the conclusion that my muse is right. My initial enthusiasm for a story was misplaced. It's not really as original as I thought at first, or the characters truly are ordinary and boring and not worth my time.

So, put it aside, and don't feel guilty. Perhaps inspiration will strike some time in the future. Perhaps you'll see a new twist. Perhaps you'll be working on an entirely different tale and discover that this one is a scene or segment of it.

Put it away. Just don't throw it away!

And go work on something else!

From Morgan Hawke
What's boring you - in your fiction?
- The Actions?
- The dialogue?
- The Descriptions?

If it's the Actions - then you don't have enough. Do you have your plot outlined? Do you know where your story is going to end up? Make thing go terribly wrong - right there in the middle. A story should always be a mad scramble to fix things - that never seems to go quite right.

If it's the Dialogue - then you need more Snark, more Sarcasm, and more Humor. Hit the mall and sit in the food court to listen to the teen-agers snipe at each other. Watch movies and TV for silly dialogue, like Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

If it's the Descriptions - Try sketching in JUST the action and dialogue to your story, and fill in the descriptive details, what things look like, and internal narration (how the characters feel about what's happening around them), AFTER.

Just remember, descriptives are for creating MOOD. Your descriptions should reflect the Emotion of the scene you are creating.

From Kathleen Bradean
I'll admit that I love detail too. I have to wean myself from it. The question I always ask myself is "What is the story about?" If a sentence doesn't answer that, it gets cut. If a detail doesn't answer that, it gets cut.

I also remember what Jim Grimsley said at the Saints and Sinners writers conference about forward motion. If a sentence doesn't move your story forward, get rid of it. Every word should be another step towards a conclusion.

If you're interested in the story, and it shows on paper, the story will sing, so find a way to keep your interest in the story.

If you're falling out of love with your stories part way through, can you backtrack to where you lost the faith? At what point did things go wrong? Can you fix it there and take a new path to the end?

Are you allowing yourself to get sidetracked by other stories as a way to avoid finishing? Because a finished story aches to be shown, be submitted, be critiqued. Not finishing is sort of a defensive gesture to avoid those next steps.

Get tough on yourself. Don't allow yourself to move on to another story until you wrap up the first. In the beginning, don't worry about writing crappy endings. The point is to make completion part of your writing habit. Once you're in that groove, work on improving the endings.

Try not to start a short story until you have some idea where it's going, and then take it there.

From Keziah Hill
Depending on what the story is about, you could try upping the stakes for the characters. Torture them a bit (either physically or emotionally). Make someone die. Make someone lose something treasured. Get the characters into action and out of the house (or where ever). You can tell I'm giving myself some advice here can't you?

I'm stuck on a story I posted a couple of weeks ago and got some useful critiques on. Now I'm a bit paralyzed. I think I need to go back to my original idea and play with it. But the temptation to just abandon it because it all seems too hard is a bad habit I'm determined to break. I want to write longer pieces but I find great difficulty in plotting and planning. I've read a lot, have great intentions and then somewhere a long the way lose faith with it. As I write this I think the problem is that I don't sit down and do enough preparation before I start writing. But in a way, if I don't start writing I can't get into the story or the characters .... And around the thoughts go.

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