Sasha White's Blog - Posts Tagged "stephen-king-quote"

Any author will agree it’s all about the character, but not all will agree that we - the writers - are just the instrument that tells their story.

As someone who started her career writing short stories with no need for plotting, I’ve never really had a problem following the story where it needed to go. In fact, when I look back at everything I see clearly that the only times I really struggled with word counts, writing, or continuing a story are when my mind fights with that needs to go on the page.

My short story Meandros is the perfect example. I was writing to fill a call for vacation stories for an erotica anthology and I’d planned to write a sexy romp that took place in Greece. I started it with this couple on a plane on their way to Greece, and at the end of the first scene I wrote a sentence that changed it all.
After I wrote that sentence I stalled - literally for a week. That one sentence that just spilled out as I was writing took the story in a totally different direction. Not one I wanted, either. But it was so damn awesome. It was. Shocker, and it felt so right that I just wanted to run with it. But if I ran with it, then the story would no longer fit the call for submissions I was aiming it at.

I followed the story, and it turned out to be one of my favourite stories ever. It’s super short, and erotic, and so emotional. I wrote that story in 2004, and it’s gotten some great reviews, as well as awful ones, but I don’t care either way because that story taught me a very important lesson. Follow the story. You might not get the story you wanted, but it will flow, and it will be what it’s what its supposed to be.

A lesson I sometimes need to be reminded of, as I struggle with rewriting Drake’s Hunt. 😉