I have had a perfectly good story in my mind for a while and i have stared to type it up and its coming along great apart from one thing..... Part of the story is baised on true events so i have real people and names in my mind but not being one to use real names i feel the need to change them but no matter what names i use i never seem to be happy with the choices. I know this is extremly silly but nothing fits right!!!! lol.
Has anyone else ever had a silly thought or reason not to be able to finish a story?
Other than a lack of time or inclination, I cannot say that there's been any particular reason why I've not finished a story. Sometimes I can't stop tweaking a story until I'm absolutely happy with it, but I usually set myself a deadline for that, and then amend it after posting if it's really necessary.
As for picking names for characters, I just use those that I like. C.
Why can't you use the real names? There must be a million people with the same names. Unless your friends will read it here and be upset.
I have many an unfinished story on my laptop...I sometimes just feel that I'm not ready to finish it yet(I'm missing something..being a subplot..unfinished character or I'm not sure if I know where I want the story to go)...I go back and review them after a bit and finish some of them...Sometimes I just have a great bit of dialogue in my head that doesn't fit in with anything I have written yet and I save it...It's not silly unless you are happy with the quality of the story (even the names)
All my stories that are not finished are not finished because of silly reasons. small hiccups along the way that made them fade away.. gather dust and well seem less available to write on...
I still add some words to them at times when I'm writing on other things and the stories pop up in my head... after all my stories don't leave my head untill they are done.
Seems I will have many of them following me all my life.
For some reason, I'll be gung-ho on writing a story. Hours later, I have no desire to write anything. It's weird. For names, I make a mental note of pretty ones I've read or heard in a movie and use them later.
I would use the first letter of the real persons name.
♥ Listen, touch, and look around in the air and on the ground. If you watch all nature's things, you might just see a fairy's wings. ♥
I don't even use names for the majority of my stories (I know I only have two posted here, but there are others lurking around the fringes of my consciousness). I learned from one of my English teachers (about a million years ago) that if you use names, it gives the person their own identity/personality. If you leave it 'the man' or 'the woman' the reader is better able to place themselves in that position.
Just my thoughts...
Ling
I agree completely. When I start a story, it almost never ends where I expect it to. It takes on a life of it's own, traveling down the road the charactors take it. I suspect that it is because the charactors mature in unexpected ways and their reactions to whatever happens depend more on who they have become then who Id thought they would be. Some of my stories are quite long, the sex being secondary at times to the story. This makes writing then a long process and I have maybe a dozen in process at any one time. Some of those are just bits and pieces that will be incorporated ino other stories. Some are near complete works that are waiting for inspiration to complete. Lastly names. For me names are critical. A poorly named charactor can just destroy the mood. I take great care in picking them. Unfortunatly, the effect is probably totally on my own mind so I can't help anyone there.
