Back when I sucked at writing (much more than I do today), I was, what I’d call, story willful. I wrote with willful intent to put story to paper. And the stories flowed. (The writing was awful, but the stories were solid.)
In trying to coerce better writing from my fingers, I’ve transitioned into technically willful. I focus on sentence structure, transitions, phrasing, cadence, etc. at the expense of story. In fact, without my story willfulness, my writing has become hollow, shallow even.
Having penned fifty-thousand words or so in the last six months, and specifically these last few thousand words writing scenes, I realize that the one key component missing from each mini-story is story willfulness. It’s as if I began to ignore the seriousness of each story’s purpose. Now, the story might have nothing to do with being serious, but that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t write without serious intent, that is, story willfulness.
With each scene, thus far, a thought came to mind and I spilled the words, an ad hoc seat-o-the-pants type story. Well, for me, such things often come across as silly or empty-headed. I’m no comedy—Sunday paper casual-reading—writer, but that’s what each reads like (to me). Reader’s Digest bits. That would be okay, I suppose, were that my goal.
But it’s not.
Do you write willfully? Or whimsically? Wistfully? Woefully?
(See, it’s that kinda thing that’s good in a blog but not in my work.)
