I left that one in on purpose after editing out a few accidental single entendres. :)

A very good writerly friend once told me "There are no new stories. Love. Quest. Revenge. Variations thereof. Pick one. "

I personally agree with this concept. The themes are old as hominds and emotion, it's the rest of the stage that changes.

When you say you can't find hte story, what precisely do you mean? Your erudite characters just find themselves together? Is "story" something different from "plot"? I rarely worry about a theme, but I can always find a reason for a character to get from point A to point B, the most melodramatic reason possible, hopefully. I can create an entire back story just from seeing two people glaring at each in the supermarket. Two or three, actually, ranging from "How dare he buy that brand of cat food again, he knows it gives little Froo-Froo gas" to "I know she's been fooling around with my brother, I just know it."

The people in my head are ever so much more interesting than the real ones.

Quickie in, quickie out, because Nic needs the big computer.

But the combination of narrating in first person and then jumping out to the distance of describing "the hand" and "the narrator

See, that worked for me, because the response it evoked was completely visceral; just the opposite of words-on-a-page, because the author wasn't in my way. it was just the girls. Your emotional whoa-baby may definitely vary on these.

Victor, marked. Will go look when I can actually sit down and read without being snorted on.

Is "story" something different from "plot"?

For me? Always and forever. Plot is mechanics and I honestly don't care about it; it's simply nuts and bolts in the story for me. But again, massive differences in mileage to be expected.

Back when I can. Damn damn.

Bookmarked, Victor. Can we review for you, if you get to vet it? And yay! I hope this goes into print--20 years along, it's being taught as representative of the era--the Catcher in the Rye of the early 21st century.

connie, I can do snippets of conversation. I have a very good one-page story that I've always thought of as complete. But other things, I feel ought to lead somewhere, not just end, unresolved, like bits of conversation overheard in passing.

For my (now dead) novel I had a destination in mind, an outline cast in stone of an ending, and no clear way to get there. Writing it was exhilarating, exhausting, frustrating. The characters would hare off down blind alleys and false trails and I'd have to backtrack. Or sometimes they'd find a wonderful side trip with details I'd never expected or imagined. I "plotted" nothing except certain points that had to happen, somewhere between "Once upon a time" and "thereafter."

I want that ride again. I want a destination, and the fear that I won't discover that again has begun to give way to certainty.

Or sometimes they'd find a wonderful side trip with details I'd never expected or imagined.

I am plot's bitch, always have been, but I've got the knack of dialogue, too, praise be. I generally have a roadmap, but sometimes things happen I never expect. I was writing along one day in long hand (praise be for the laptop and the Palm Pilot, it'll probably keep my wrists whole a decade longer), and everything was flowing beautifully. There was a scene where two friends were saying goodbye towards the end of the story, and the one woman's husband puts his arm around her and says "Don't worry, So-and-So will be back soon. She'll come as often as she can." "I know," says the woman. "After all, she's going to die here."

I literally put down the pen and blinked at the page. I was in the middle of a very long series of stories, and I hadn't thought of how it would all end, far in these people's futures. But the woman was something of a visionary, given to these glimpses into the future, and I wasn't going to argue with her. And, yes, many stories later, the other woman, on a visit with her friend, did have one last adventure and died in her friend's arms.

I usually start with a situation, a what-if. The protagonist and a few other characters evolve from that. I don't have an organized plotting process (except in my work-in-process, wherein I ripped off Mansfield Park but changed the ending)--if I think about the characters and the what-if enough, the scenes will come.

Dialogue is my greatest strength, evocative sensory details my weakness. I don't spend much time dwelling on word choice or details of craft in general, but my writing group tells me I have a distinctive style.

For now, I have a superfluity of ideas. I have four more ideas for romances after this one--two more Regency-era, one contemporary but with a time traveller for a hero, and one purely contemporary. I also have a fantasy epic that I don't expect to know enough about to start writing for another few years yet.

I get glimpses of scenes. Usually middle-of-the-story scenes involving the characters hanging around my head at the time. Those are the basis for my interrogations while I'm torturing the characters (Who is that? You said this was about a girl - what's he doing over there? Oh, now you're saying it's about the money. Why's that?) trying to work out a plot. My notebooks fill up with outline variations and research notes. At some point, I find the hook, that essential question buried in the story that makes it important to me, that makes me need to write it to try to work out an answer.

Questions like "How do you stop being lonely?"

I'm not good at abstraction. I'm a complete philistine when it comes to poetry, that's why I've never tried to crit any that's been posted here. But these abstract questions are what tie me, viscerally, to the story I write.

Gah. I'm going to have to post something if I keep trying to sound like I know what I'm talking about. I'd better shut up...

I'd rather you post than shut. Maybe after the second job goes by the wayside?

I have nothing significant to add, but I think the work here is superb and I adore this thread.

Maybe after the second job goes by the wayside?

It'll have to be. I'll need posting space on a webpage or a list of volunteers or something. I've got something in progress that I'd like crits on, but posting it in the thread wouldn't work.

We'll see, come next week. I haven't even touched my taxes yet.