The Life Cycle of Fiction

Dear Wal,

I'm beginning to see patterns in my writing and the writing of my friends, and I have devised this cycle in order to describe what I keep seeing over and over again. Including symptoms and treatment.

Infancy
At this point your story is just a little idea in the back of your mind, nagging at your thoughts occasionally and demanding attention but in the form of more fleshing out and other ideas added to it, not writing stuff down on paper just yet. Life goes on as normal, the fever hasn't yet set in, and the idea will either grow or die depending on how you treat it and raise it into the next stage.

Annoying Toddler
Congratulations, your idea has officially survived into childhood. It's still not quite fully formed into something resembling a story, but it's ten times more naggy that before. You may find yourself wandering through the day thinking of nothing else but this idea of yours, or frantically keeping yourself so busy that you can drown out its screaming in the back of your head. Be warned, if you write your story at this stage it is guaranteed to fail, your plot my hold out for the first few pages but after that it'll go to all hell and you won't even recognize it as that little idea you raised from the depths of your imagination. Symptoms: Fatigue, spaced-out-ness Treatment: Brainstorm. Brainstorm on everything. Don't just let it swirl around in your head or avoid it for days on end, get it down somehow in some form that will satisfy that naggy toddler so you can go on living your life. Oh, and shouting LEAVE ME ALONE, DAMNIT! I HAVE THINGS TO DO! over and over in your head never works.

Cranky Teenager
This is the most dangerous and unpredictable stage. You may or may not start writing, and if you start writing your story may or may not be made of awesome. Your story could become a straight A student or a juvenile deliquescent depending on its mood and whimsy and how much attention you pay to it. Worry over it and rush it and it may turn against you and consume your soul, but neglect it and leave it there to rot at the back of your head instead of giving it an important place in your frontal lobe may send you spirally into despair for no apparent reason, until you remember that dusty old plot you never wrote and realize that it's slowly been eating away at you. At this point, it might still be saved; but leave it for too long and it may just run away to freedom in the emptiness of your memory. Then again, if you feel that you've been giving it just enough attention and treating it like an adult it may still do any one of these things. There's no way to tell. Symptoms: Mood swings; ranging from total despair to plucky and happy, tendency to be solitary, even higher degree of spaced-out-ness. Treatment: Roll with it, baby. There isn't anything you can do but follow your story down the dark paths it thinks it needs to walk and then rescue it when it starts to collapse in on itself in tangles of plot and random characters running amuk.

Stable Adult
This is the shortest, most blissful stage of your story's life. Everything's working itself out, your story is settling in, the writing is going smoothly and with only minor hickups along the way. Be warned. You can be lulled into a start of false security. You have no idea of what is yet to come. Symptoms: Bliss, awesome writing spazzes, happiness, satisfaction Treatment: Enjoy it while you can.

Mid-life Crisis
Your plot is kicking itself around in bloody circles and screaming in pain. You thought teenage-hood was bad, this is worse. There aren't even any good spats of writing to give you hope, all you can see in your future is a bleak sea of despair. Your characters have lost focus, they don't know who they are anymore. They wander aimlessly, trying to find somewhere they belong in your plot, but your plot is too busy mutilating itself to help them out of their conundrum. You may lay your story down for weeks in fear of screwing it up even more badly than it already is, or you may force yourself through it and end up with a load of crap that doesn't make any sense at all and that requires so much revision you may as well start over. Woe is you. Symptoms: Despair, fear, confusion, loss of confidence, helplessness Treatment: Don't ride it out. Don't roll with it. Your story has advanced to far for that, it now has a will of its own and it will take over and ruin everything you had going while it was young and fresh. Force it into shape. If you have a plan, force it to comply. If you don't, go over and over it again and again until you get it right. Don't abandon it. Don't give up. You shall survive!

Old Age
You've made it. You've taken all your story's abuse and self mutilation and turned it into awesome that you can barely even wrap you head around. Your characters have found their ending, and your plot has healed and straightened itself out. This may be because you're just so tired of each other your story finally just gives up and steps into line, or because it has found a satisfaction and greater purpose in life and fulfilled it. Alternately, if you didn't make it through the midlife crisis it will become a rotted shell in your mind; a place of death and despair. You'll never even want to look at it again, so you just leave it for the day when you might be able to pick it up and finish it. Symptoms: Occasional lows, nostalgia, strange attraction to rocking chairs on porches Treatment: Finish the story, give it the room it needs to work it's little problems out, and close with a smile. Oh, and avoid those rocking chairs.

Ancient Decay
Remember all those times when you could've just set your story aside and forgotten about it or left it to swirl in your head for ages and ages? This stage is what happens when you give in to those temptations. You have characters screaming to be let out, fantastic plot lines that are now only tatters pieced together from fragments of memory and maybe even a page or two somewhere, if only you could find it. Symptoms: Zombie-like behavior, extreme mood swings, OCD Treatment: Find a way to let it go, and if you can't (which is much more common than the former) then take as much time as you need to work out it's little tangles and huge blank spaces, but get the bits you have down or else they will drive you completely bonkers.

/endrant