What is the It of creative writing?

[polymath]

I think It is a combination of factors directly associated with style (mechanical), craft, and voice. Style: formal or informal depending on the characteristics of any given narrative. Craft: structural and aesthetic characteristics. Voice: there's the friction rub, intimate voice, neutral voice, or commenting voice; structural, aesthetic, and nuance characteristics.

In all, I believe there's a need for close narrative distance, ideally, closest to the time, place, events, complications, and viewpoint persons of a narrative setting, although closeness to a somewhat overt narrator who's not as close to the time, place, etc., as the viewpoint persons is almost as good. Anyway, voice for the sake of engaging readers in the ideal mystic-magic participation mystique spell.

I'm well-versed in style, understand craft well enough, and am working most diligently on voice's nuances and aesthetics.

What's your It albatross?

[bcomet]

Polymath, you send me to the dictionary more than anyone on this forum. Not because I am unfamiliar with the words so much as that you seem to have the most unique sense of their uses.

albatross |ˈalbəˌtrôs; -ˌträs|
noun ( pl. -trosses )
a very large oceanic bird related to the shearwaters, with long narrow wings. Albatrosses, some species of which have wingspans greater than 10 feet (3.3 m), are found mainly in the southern oceans, with three kinds in the North Pacific.
Laysan albatross
• Genera Diomedea and Phoebetria, family Diomedeidae: several species, including the sooty albatross ( P. fusca), Laysan albatross ( D. immutablis), and wandering albatross ( D. exulans),.
• a source of frustration or guilt; an encumbrance (in allusion to Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner): : an albatross of a marriage.
• Golf another term for double eagle .
ORIGIN late 17th cent.: alteration (influenced by Latin albus ‘white’ ) of 16th-cent. alcatras, applied to various seabirds including the frigate bird and pelican, from Spanish and Portuguese alcatraz, from Arabic al-ġaṭṭās ‘the diver.’

and

(abbreviated):

(figurative) something that hinders or handicaps; "she was an albatross around his neck"

Given that I am certain you are not talking about the bird... :-D ...

In all, I believe there's a need for close narrative distance, ideally, closest to the time, place, events, complications, and viewpoint persons of a narrative setting, although closeness to a somewhat overt narrator who's not as close to the time, place, etc., as the viewpoint persons is almost as good. Anyway, voice for the sake of engaging readers in the ideal mystic-magic participation mystique spell.

Yes. Yes.

Much like dreams and dream images that haunt. There is something that engages the soul. And, from there, it seeks to engage souls,others. Wake-up, wake-up, wake-up.

And, amidst a world stoned out, snoring, lost in hazes and shallow waters, the dream, like a sparkling diamond, is the jewel in the deep leading towards the light.

Illumination.

It is that simple and that abstruse.

[polymath]

bcomet, you pretty well get me, even if I do send you to the dictionary occasionally. Thanks.

One of my short-short fiction stories is a latest attempt of many to retell a recurring prescient childhood nightmare. A gem in the deeps is involved. Unfortunately, it's more prose poetry, and not enough of that, than narrative. Too much of the plot is in the figurative subtext and not enough on the literal surface. I'll work on it until they pry it from my cold, dead hands. Maybe then the nightmare will go away.

[Watcher55]

One of my short-short fiction stories is a latest attempt of many to retell a recurring prescient childhood nightmare. A gem in the deeps is involved. Unfortunately, it's more prose poetry, and not enough of that, than narrative. Too much of the plot is in the figurative subtext and not enough on the literal surface. I'll work on it until they pry it from my cold, dead hands. Maybe then the nightmare will go away.

You did it again – my albatross is hitting the proper proportion of plot and subtext. Naturally, I want the plot to be engaging and relevant, but I want the subtext to whisper behind the words. The problem is, sometimes I think the subtext is a little too subtle so I try to define it and 5k words turns into 10 then 20 and so on until the subtext takes the place of plot, then I spend a lot of time agonizing over every other word.

I also have a tendency to let stream of consciousness take over and it’s difficult for me to put sentences (sometimes whole paragraphs or chapters) in their proper place.

[polymath]

I like subtext almost as much as plot. But I want subtext to be a roiling boil on one level, a simmer on another, and, okay, a whisper in a whirlwind on another.

[sierramcconnell]

I know that I'm good at coming up with stories, I can come up with stories fully flesh out and ready to go in minutes. I'm an amazing storyteller.

But my frustration is that (and this is mostly for the religious folks out there) God has been stringing me along for far too long that I can do this, only to throw it back in my face time and time again that "now isn't the time, keep working on it, or maybe this book, or maybe that one..." and I'm sick, tired, and need a new job or disability and it would be nice if I could do this for a living.

So my frutration with creative writing isn't so much the writing itself. It's with the one person who could make it happen, not allowing it to happen. Because with writing, everything else just sorta...comes when I let it. I just haven't allowed myself to do any writing because I'm tired of working on something that will never come to pass.

[Guardian]

As I heard, I'm good in creating detailed, realistic and breathing worlds, unique characters and atmosphere and twisted plots. As some said, my creativity is mirrored in these details. Who knows. Maybe these people are right, maybe they're mistaken. But regardless from this, I'm not saying I'm good as there is no such thing as "good" in writing. You always must improve and adapt as different stories are requiring different approach, otherwise you'll become a "one-novel / one-world" miracle. But if the readers like the afore mentioned elements, those detailed things what I do, I'm just glad. At least it's worth the time of development.

It's (the flustration) with the one person who could make it happen, not allowing it to happen.

Now, that's a different story. Personally I also would fire some decision maker, especially when they're clearly inadequate for the job.

[polymath]

Without resistance to push and pull upon us, to push and pull against, life would be meaningless. That's what the entire literary opus is about, familiar strangers striving to surmount insuperable struggles within dramatic settings. Writing about problems and problem solving is It. Wish fulfillment, while a subset of the whole, isn't It all by itself.

They say help comes to aid those who help themselves solve problems and better themselves.

[Mike Dickson]

They say help comes to aid those who help themselves solve problems and better themselves.

The very theme I stumbled upon in my current WIP.
It, in it's many forms, brought a smile to my face as I struggled to find it.