A little while ago, I was on Undernet #femdom, where I am wont to be, and the question came up--why do we write stories? And since I do write femdom stories, from time to time, I answered: that I write stories because they come to me and almost develop a will of their own, and that will is to get out of my head and onto paper (or the screen, as the case may be). In short, I write for me. Other writers on the channel had similar views.
But after thinking about it for a while, it seems to me that this doesn't quite jibe with the way that I actually write stories. I'm wondering if others haven't experienced the same sort of thing. Viz...
When I write a story, it spends a lot of its time technically unwritten--that is, in my head. In fact, considering the length of time from that first inchoate spark to the final final stop, the story spends probably about 90 percent of that time in a completely non-cogent state, such that I couldn't even explain the story was about, if asked.
And what happens during all that time? Well, certainly much of that time is spent mentally stitching together pieces of story as they occur to me--and sometimes the pieces are very small, such as a particular glance or the sound of water dripping. Other things aren't as concrete, but are more how pieces will fit together, the relationships between them--it's hard to explain. It sounds dreary, but it's quite exciting putting these things in place.
But just as enjoyable, really, is thinking about how I'm going to present the story--the words, the turns of phrase, the breaks, all the quasi-technical things that go to make a story readable. And it comes to me that while I have the fantasy for me, the actual act of writing the story, and especially of posting it...I do that because I have this desire to communicate that passion to someone else. Even if that passion can be experienced only vicariously. Writing is such a social thing to do.
Going back to getting stories out of my head, it's more than that. It's that I want to put them into other people's heads. That's what I write stories for. Perhaps the story doesn't exist for that reason--although that seems like almost a philosophical question--but putting that into words, that's what it's all for.
So, those of you out there who write stories, whether you post them on the newsgroups or keep them for friends or just yourself, what are the reasons you set them down on paper or other applicable non-volatile storage? And just as interesting, how do you compose your stories? Do they come out all at once, or do you wait for things to drop into place, one by one?
Copyright (c) 1997 {hamlet}Ophelia