In high school, I took a Writer’s Craft course in Grade Eleven. For each assignment, we had to submit massive amounts of pre-work, like detailed planning of plot points, character charts, at least three prior drafts, etc. The teacher maintained that one could not write a good story without doing all these things. Dutifully, because if there is one thing I am good at, it is following mindless rules, I did all her pre-work. A friend in the course did none. Said friend did better on every single assignment than me, even though that should have been impossible under the teacher’s rules.
So yes, high school is dumb.
But also, I jumped through all these hoops about How To Write A Story that felt unnatural to me and didn’t do well. I vowed not to do it again.
I mean, character sheets? That is not how I work. I usually only know as much about a character as is necessary and do not know things like what their favourite song was in high school, how many movies they watch a month, what colour socks they wear, unless it is somehow relevant. Planning out plot points? Here is how I write a story. I get an idea. Sometimes it is a large thought-out idea (the novella was the initial thought of comparing the International Brigades of the Spanish Civil War to the Muhajideen of the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, plus pregnancy, yeah, don’t ask, and trust me, it isn’t working out so well), sometimes it is a few words (I really love the words Happy Valley-Goose Bay, and later found some things that fit into a story that I could call that). Then I write some scenes, usually dialogue, in my head when I can’t sleep. Then maybe a week or two later, I sit down and write start to finish in a notebook over a few days/weeks/months depending on the length. How I write from start to finish having not planned much out, I do not know. It just happens.
Last week, I found out I didn’t place in a writing contest. So, I never place in writing contests, so I should at least be used to it. But for this writing contest, there were all these helpful How To Write A Story hoops to jump through and I jumped through them and now I’m annoyed because I clearly did not learn my lesson the high school time and did it all again for no reward. So, yes, Einstein (literally), Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, this is me.
It would be nice to win a contest though.