Hello everyone, happy Saturday!
Hope everyone is doing well, I’ve spent most of the week outside of work considering what I want to do next.
I don’t know about you guys, but I often find myself looking backwards when I consider how to move forward. So, I’ve thought a lot about why I couldn’t get A Cry from Silence off the ground and why I had to inevitably come to the conclusion it was not feasible for me to get it done alongside everything else.
There were some easy answers to this. I was stressed from work, there was added stress from the wedding, and a few other personal factors that pushed me further than I could handle with a writing deadline, but I feel like that answer is unsatisfactory.
At the end of the day, I must concede I could have written A Cry from Silence in the time allotted, but there was something stopping me every time I sat down to write out the plot. I think there are likely a couple reasons for this. Easiest answer is I lacked focus and needed to spend some more time getting my notes in order before writing.
That is definitely a part of the puzzle, but I feel like it may be due in part to the “newness” of the idea. For some context, most of the story ideas I put down on my ideas list are stories that have been in the dream stages for at least a year or two before starting up the blog, with my oldest idea dating back to my senior year in high school. On the other hand, A Cry from Silence started falling into place shortly before I uploaded the initial concept. Due to this, I believe I have yet to fully explore the concept so there are pieces missing that need more time to process.
Yet this again felt like only a part of the answer. I do not believe I truly had the answer until I came upon this final realization. The story, at this time, does not end in a way that sat right with me. This is not to say it was a bad ending. In fact, I think it’s a great ending in a lot of ways, but it made me realize how dark a story I was writing. I don’t believe I’ve written much on my writing philosophy, but I feel like this story’s ending goes against it.
If you’ll indulge me for a minute, I’ll quickly lay it out.
To put it briefly and in its simplest terms, I believe all writers should leave something for their readers to take away from the act of reading their work. As a writer, you put everything you can into your work, but the reader doesn’t owe you anything. It’s a privilege to have your work read by strangers, and you should offer them something in return for all the trouble. The easiest thing a writer can give is a happy ending for all the characters the reader has come to know and love, but regardless, it has to be something worthwhile. You cannot leave the reader with nothing for their trouble, as it is incredibly selfish to ask for everything and give nothing in return. So, if I’m going to write a story that cannot necessarily end happily, it has to be something of equal or greater value than the time and effort it takes to read the story. A Cry from Silence currently lacks that something.
So for now, I’m going to focus on stories I know provide that necessary something, like TFT and the Historical Fiction Idea. I’ll continue to work on A Cry from Silence behind the scenes in the hopes that it will be ready for next Halloween, but I won’t publish it here unless I know for certain it gives the reader something to take with them after it’s over.
For now, though, I wish you all a great weekend and hope to have some more to share next week!