On poetic licence and stuff like that...

[wiseheart]

I sent the first chapter of a planned story to someone who I know generally likes what I do to have a first opinion. They sent it back with a lot of what was clearly ment to be helpful suggestions. Only that they would have changed the whole direction of the plot, the characterizations, and the basic aim of the story.

In my reply, I thanked them for their effort and explained that while I appreciate the amount of work they put into making those suggestions, they are just not compatible with what I had in mind when I started. Unfortunately, I doubt that I'd be able to continue the story in the direction I've originally planned, either. It seems that I no longer believe in it.

Perhaps I get discouraged too easily. I've got this reaction earlier - people wanting to read a completely different story than the one I was actually writing - and it usually killed the story itself for years, if not permanently. I don't know why. It's not so that I'd start second-guessing my own concept; I'm not. And yet whenever such a reaction comes, especially when it comes from someone who seemed to like my writing, the story just dies on me.

Perhaps I should stop asking people's opinion altogether and just go on doing what feels right to me. OTOH, I'm not omniscient, and I need feedback to see if the things I had in mind actually gets over to the reader. I don't know. I'm just a bit depressed over the dead of another promising plotbunny - and one that was supposed to be the pilot of an entire series, at that. :(

Comments

[dr-doomsduck.livejournal.com]

Still, when people are trying to turn it inside out and upside down, even if it happens with the best intentions, it pretty much kills it for me.

Sorry, I am just trying to figure out what's happening here, because I cán be one of those nosy readers who suggest that hey, what if you did this and this! I try to be careful about it, because it's understandable that you want to write your story and not have someone else butt in, so usually, I only say those things when the writer asks for them or says that they have no idea where the story is going.

anyway, where does it go wrong? why does it kill the story? Is it because you somehow feel you lost control over it and why wouldn't it be your story anymore? I must've written hundreds of scientific reports by now, each of them checked, improved or sometimes deemed unfit enough to be rewritten completely. At the end of the day though, it's still me who's done all the work on it, it's still my research.

Obviously, if it ain't flowing, it ain't flowing, there's not much anyone can do at that point, I'm just curious where these feelings come from.

:( will be mourning the Director Jones story though.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

It was flowing, sort of, until it got hacked to pieces. I could glue it together again, but it's the same as with a broken vase: it might be knitted, but it will leak water anyway.

I wanted to iron out some bumps, not to completely revamp the story. I'll just leave it.