This is pretty much the position I keep finding myself in, though rather than the simplistic loss of one word – a single usable key that finishes off a thought properly – it is more… how did my wife put it, “I think you are trying to write for a university professor and sometimes that can hurt a brain. Sometimes it’s fun to just read a fast and punchy story.”
I think she may be onto something. Epic, that is always how I have seen stories and plots in my imaginative world: the universe is coming to an end, the human race is dying, a world will implode if a fish isn’t saved – okay maybe not that last one completely. But indeed, I have always sought to bring clashing forces together (physically and metaphorically) and I think that it may have alluded my mind into thinking about writing in a different way, an unfortunately all too serious way.
Take this for example. The following is an attempt to start a short story and to say it feels like I am trying too hard is an understatement:
“The cockpit was rickety, spartan and ancient. But it continued on like the steel trap of an ignorant mind. Rings scarred every console; testament to the countless cups of caff that had been balanced upon them through long periods time. A hand would hold them when hot, only to slip from them when the pilot passed out, leaving the caff cold.
A drumming echo infiltrated the corridors of the ship: a heavy, metallic heartbeat that kept the titan vessel alive and moving perpetually forward. And that it did, chugging along like a locomotive warn and tired by a thousand-years of track.”
So, I start with this and then where do I go? I’m forever stuck with a bar set so high that every sentence has to become some kind of attempted poetic prose (is that even possible?) From here, the transition to dialogue becomes hackneyed and cheap.
How does one go from, “-chugging along like a locomotive warn and tired by a thousand-years of track” to “Where are the cheesy puffs, Brian?” It’ this kind of ‘levelling’ that I’m having difficulty with. I’m out of practice, I know that, but I feel like I’m becoming my own worst enemy. I’m climbing mountains – and describing the epic journey – to cook eggs, and there is simply no need to get so… grandiose.
I’m not sure when this happened to me, when I became so obsessed with perfecting every sentence to the point they turn into… well I don’t know what they turn into, but whatever they are it’s too much and I need to scale back and simplify. I can do normal (well, I say normal but I do write in my own way), but I’ve become stuck in this place of trying to be too good, trying to prove something…
I’ve lost my ability to just write, create, imagine and get it out there. I’ve become a one-upper, but I’m trying to one-up myself and my previous sentence.
Well I say ‘have’ but I think I’m getting passed it a little. I re-wrote the above scene in a more approachable manner and although it’s formulaic (to me) I think it’s better. Here is a snippet:
“Quint shrugged and tossed the chunk of useless tech onto his bunk. Putting the cigarette out on a side table, he turned from the spartan quarters and left them behind. A corridor loomed ahead; one that split into a Y and led to the mess hall and the cockpit. He opted for the cockpit and set warn boots to the rickety catwalk below.
A drumming echo infiltrated the corridors of the ship: a heavy, metallic heartbeat that kept the titan vessel alive and moving forward. Quint had grown accustom to the droning sound – sometimes humming a made-up tune as he wandered the ship, looking for something to occupy his boredom. Of course there was always something to do, some menial task that required his attention else the vessel failed one of it’s countless equations and randomly sucked all of the oxygen out of the tin can tub.“
Let us see where this one takes me…
