Writing Stories

[nightning]

IDK. That is not much of a challenge. I'd enjoy reading whatever I wrote for the nostalgia of it. Without challenge, there is no real therapy or growth, happening. Threapy does not mean comfortable--it is often the opposite.

Hmmm it looks like we have two very different view on what "therapeutic" means. Therapeutic to me means providing relief... which is different from your use of "therapy" as in fixing something...

The core therapeutic issue for me is social in nature. Writing stories for audiences is part of my self-socialization (as is organizing meet-ups, and going to dance lessons, volunteer work, and perhaps toastmasters or something along those lines).

I'm already decent and written communication of facts and theories, and even conscious emotion. The problem is, I have a hard time with bringing up emotions to the consciousness, and expressing "half-formed" concious ideas.

Stories are powerful reflections of the sub-concious, and communicating with an audience checks how "objectively" I have presented the content.

Well if your intent is to describe your convoluted thoughts to others, perhaps story writing is not the best place to start. I have a tendency to do the same... try to take on more than I'm ready for and ended up abandoning it all when instead, I should start small. Forget about writing a novel... focus first on getting one idea down on paper... a one pager. Write many of those... Congruency can come later.

Perhaps I am still too left brained to see this, but I don't believe it just self-introspection. I think when done well, stories tap into something transcendent.

It all depends on the story. Have you ever done this? Become absorbed into a novel and imagine yourself as one of the characters in the tale? What would you do in that situation? What does your actions reflect in you as a person? That sort of self-introspection. Of cause you can equally focus on the story as a broad theme... human nature in general etc.

 

[kuranes]

The thing about characters and setting and plot is that they can be hard to separate from each other. Here's some writing on the topic (though the writer mainly talks about fantasy, it should probably be helpful). In fact, I almost would recommend not separating them entirely from each other. I know all it's ever gotten me are orphaned characters without a place, but hey, you might be different.
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For another resource for inspiration, I recommend TVTropes. It's pretty much any and every setting, characterization, and plot device you've ever heard of, and a lot you haven't. Again, same with the personality types, it can be difficult to say "I want to write a story with a Battle Butler" (you'll see when you see the site), but it's an interesting website, nonetheless.

Good post/advice, which applies to my concerns as well as Ygolo's. Thanks. Interesting links.

 

[BlueScreen]

yeah. You're right about the forum not being necessarily this best place to find ideas regarding writing.

I hope you are wrong about Ti and writing however. I think Aurhtur Miller was a Ti Dom, as well as Mark Twain (both ISTPs though, I think). I think Hemingway was an ESTP.

Sratre was a scientist, and Scott Adams an engineer, so a wide range of writers with technical backgrounds too.

Mark Twain is generally considered to be an ENFP. I'd tend to agree as well, his style is too much about word flow and relations between them which is classic for the Ne Fi combination (Dr. Seuss, Shakespeare, Dickens, etc). It is almost poetic.

He often addresses the world in a senser style though. But that could be the learned and accepted writing style of the day.

 

[ygolo]

Hmmm it looks like we have two very different view on what "therapeutic" means. Therapeutic to me means providing relief... which is different from your use of "therapy" as in fixing something...

therapeutic - Definition from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary

1 : of or relating to the treatment of disease or disorders by remedial agents or methods <a therapeutic rather than a diagnostic specialty>
2 : providing or assisting in a cure : curative , medicinal <therapeutic diets> <a therapeutic investigation of government waste>

Utimately, what is therapeutic does provide relief. But the process may not be pleasent.

Think about yoga, which is theraputic in various contexts. Though you can feel great afterwards, the stretches themselves are meant to taken to the point of discomfort (though not pain).

My couselor was the one who stated that therapy is meant to get us ouy of our comfort zones.

Well if your intent is to describe your convoluted thoughts to others, perhaps story writing is not the best place to start. I have a tendency to do the same... try to take on more than I'm ready for and ended up abandoning it all when instead, I should start small. Forget about writing a novel... focus first on getting one idea down on paper... a one pager. Write many of those... Congruency can come later.

I am already an OK technical writer. Besides, relating thoughts that are clearly conscious is something that involves little emotion for me. To gain a richer, more subcouncious array of feelings, I need to resort to fiction--essentially dreams.

My counselor says whether I make it up or I remember a dream, it is still accessing the same place, and can be treated as a dream.

It all depends on the story. Have you ever done this? Become absorbed into a novel and imagine yourself as one of the characters in the tale? What would you do in that situation? What does your actions reflect in you as a person? That sort of self-introspection. Of cause you can equally focus on the story as a broad theme... human nature in general etc.

I can get absorbed as a character on the news, or a person relating events, even. It is not a particularly high bar for me. I think "good" stories are transcendent. They kind of resolve the dream from all possible subjective viewpoints.

Mark Twain is generally considered to be an ENFP. I'd tend to agree as well, his style is too much about word flow and relations between them which is classic for the Ne Fi combination (Dr. Seuss, Shakespeare, Dickens, etc). It is almost poetic.

He often addresses the world in a senser style though. But that could be the learned and accepted writing style of the day.

I wasn't completely sure of author typed, but I do believe there have been good Ti writers.

 

[Samurai Drifter]

OP: You seem to regard writing as a much more structured, planned activity than I do.

All I do when I write stories is think about a scene or situation I find interesting, and construct a story around it. I then do my best to convey the resulting imagined scenes in elegant and interesting language. The stories don't always have a theme or a predetermined goal. Writing is an activity that's really only limited by the rules of the language (and sometimes not even that, though I personally prefer to stick to proper grammar usage).

 

[Haphazard]

Okay, ygolo, I'm looking at this thread, and it doesn't look to me like the technical aspect of writing is very important to your aims.

You can't look at 'how to write' books. You've got to look at what you're trying to do, and how you're trying to do it. The way I write usually involves finding a concept I find interesting and want to explore, and planting it in brainsoil to see what, if anything, grows there. This means my writing process usually involves lots of false starts, lots of drafts, and lots of notes and lots of research. I'm going to be looking at some things about structure that experts say about fiction because I want it to be read and liked, but mostly while exploring I'll be trying to look for things that will make sense to be there and things that will be emotionally satisfying. So that's basically how it goes for me.

What you're doing is completely different, probably completely different from what most people answering this thread are doing. You're trying to develop your subtler emotions or whatever. You're not trying to entertain others, or teach a lesson, or anything, or if you are, it's secondary and much less important than the goal of developing your emotions. Right? If it's just about developing your 'dreams,' then you might want to do journaling instead of creative writing (not just about what you did that day), or just stream-of-consciousness without an end in mind. That way, when writing, you won't be so distracted by writing conventions and will get right to the root of your goal. Yes, there are a billion books on writing, a billion sites telling you how to develop characters or plot or setting or whatever. You really don't need that for what you're trying to do, it's just going to get in your way.

Fiction is not the same as 'dreams.' Dreams don't have to make sense -- in fact, most of the time, neither does reality. Fiction does. Fiction has to make both logical and emotional sense to draw in your readers. Because of this hyperreallistic consistency that needs to be put into it, it's probably not the best place to find those emotions that have been hidden from you.

Now, if I missed something crucial about your request for help, tell me, I'm sorry. But, from reading this thread, I think that stories are not the outlet you're looking for.

 

[ygolo]

Okay, ygolo, I'm looking at this thread, and it doesn't look to me like the technical aspect of writing is very important to your aims.

You can't look at 'how to write' books. You've got to look at what you're trying to do, and how you're trying to do it. The way I write usually involves finding a concept I find interesting and want to explore, and planting it in brainsoil to see what, if anything, grows there. This means my writing process usually involves lots of false starts, lots of drafts, and lots of notes and lots of research. I'm going to be looking at some things about structure that experts say about fiction because I want it to be read and liked, but mostly while exploring I'll be trying to look for things that will make sense to be there and things that will be emotionally satisfying. So that's basically how it goes for me.

Perhaps, I am being to reliant on others advise, but I believe myself good at seperating the good from the bad when it comes to this, and learning from other's mistakes is almost always a time-saver.

What I am trying to do is two-fold:
1) Get in touch with subtler emotions and the sub-conscious.
2) Communicate the themes clearly enough to an audience of "others" to see how close to THE subconcious I've gotten to.

It is my belief that what is deeply unconscious and subjective is in a way universal and objective. I want to tap into that aspect of the psyche.

What you're doing is completely different, probably completely different from what most people answering this thread are doing. You're trying to develop your subtler emotions or whatever. You're not trying to entertain others, or teach a lesson, or anything, or if you are, it's secondary and much less important than the goal of developing your emotions. Right? If it's just about developing your 'dreams,' then you might want to do journaling instead of creative writing (not just about what you did that day), or just stream-of-consciousness without an end in mind. That way, when writing, you won't be so distracted by writing conventions and will get right to the root of your goal. Yes, there are a billion books on writing, a billion sites telling you how to develop characters or plot or setting or whatever. You really don't need that for what you're trying to do, it's just going to get in your way.

Relating to an audience is important for me for reason 2) given above.

I already do journal quite a bit. This is meant for a more complex and challenging therapeutic reasons.

I am having trouble understanding the difficulty of simply making up a story. There is no need to ask for advice regarding this. I am one of these people who can make-up stories on the spot. So to me, I see no challenge in simply putting into writing what I am making up.

In kindergarden, I had to give a recital about some fable to the K through 8 auditorium. But I didn't know that I had to do this, so I was unprepared. They called my name to do the recital, and I was completely surprized. I went on stage an decided that instead of giving a recital, I would simply make up a story about a Gorilla and a Taxi xab driver. i have no idea if it was good or not, but I had little trouble comming op with a rather complex story with a moral even. Growing up, my little brother used to ask me for bed-time stories often. I had little trouble making them up as I went along.

Fiction is not the same as 'dreams.' Dreams don't have to make sense -- in fact, most of the time, neither does reality. Fiction does. Fiction has to make both logical and emotional sense to draw in your readers. Because of this hyperreallistic consistency that needs to be put into it, it's probably not the best place to find those emotions that have been hidden from you.

I thought it was the other way around. Dreams and reality do make sense. We don't necessarily know why they do, nor what sense they make, but they generally do make sense.

But I do think I understand what you mean. With dreams, the events are the events, you draw the sense from them if you can. While fiction needs to be coherent in its construction.

Then think about what I want to do as translating the cohesion inherent in dreams into a story that parallels it in a work of fiction that an audience can understand.

Now, if I missed something crucial about your request for help, tell me, I'm sorry. But, from reading this thread, I think that stories are not the outlet you're looking for.

Perhaps I can describe it as a 3 phase process (with plenty of overlap in phases):
1) Getting in touch with the sub-concious
2) Making logical and emotional sense of it
3) Relating that sense to an audiience

I am already good at 1), if I learn 3), then I can get validation of 2).

I see this as a parallel of engineering/science work:
1) Gather data from experiment based on analysis
2) Formulate hypotheses, analysis, new experiments, designs, and theory from the data
3) Relate what is learned to peers and laypeople

Phase 3) is important to validate phase 2).

 

[nightning]

I am already an OK technical writer. Besides, relating thoughts that are clearly conscious is something that involves little emotion for me. To gain a richer, more subcouncious array of feelings, I need to resort to fiction--essentially dreams.

My counselor says whether I make it up or I remember a dream, it is still accessing the same place, and can be treated as a dream.

Poetry... I think that'll suit your purpose far better than story writing. Stories can be written with very little emotional content. Poetry IS emotions... translated into words and imagery.

 

[ygolo]

Poetry... I think that'll suit your purpose far better than story writing. Stories can be written with very little emotional content. Poetry IS emotions... translated into words and imagery.

Yes. I'll be writing poetry as well.

But it is my belief that stories/naratives have a thematic element that is important for me. I'm not sure why writing stories is seen as such a poor decision.