INITIAL BLOG WRITTEN 9/18/2013
Characters have lives of their own, or when I tried to write a short flash today
You may noticed I posted two flashes today. I started about 8 in the morning and ended about 5. My goal was to write one flash based on a Breathless Press Sunday Flash picture of a man undressing. I thought I would have the character be in marriage counseling and he would strip as part of the therapy
You may have heard authors talk about characters going off on their own. Or started the story in the wrong spot and needed to start over. Seems strange, right? After all the stuff is all in the head. How could characters in your head do anything other than what you want them to do. And how can a story start in the wrong spot. Stories start where they start – right?
Well, I started the story way too early to have the guy strip during marriage counseling. The scene didn’t happen because the couple needed real counseling before sexual counseling could take place. I didn’t know that until the characters started their scene. So after three hours, I had a flash (Session One) which had nothing to do with the picture I was aiming for.
So I started over. Same characters, same situation, just a different point in their lives. Five hours later I had a pretty good short story pushing 3K words – not a flash suitable for posting on breathlessblog.com. But the strip scene was in it.
So I slashed out that scene and posted it as Session Nine.
I thought I would post both for your reading pleasure so you can compare how the same exact character in the same situation can have very different things happen.
Again, everyone, thanks for your ongoing support.
FOLLOWUP BLOG FOR 9/15/2018
So the Marriage Therapy story has finally come around as part of the on-going reprint of old stories. Look for Session One on 9/16/18 and Session Nine for 9/23/18.
I realized I never got around to publishing the original (nearly 3K) story from which I exhumed Session Nine. It has a little something special about our marriage counselor, so I though you might like to see that too. Look for the long version on my 2000 Word day – 9/30/18.
Again, thank you everyone for your ongoing support. Happy reading!