I can't accredit them (because some where propounded by several writers and most I've just forgotten) so here goes:

One of the theories writers have about fiction writing is that all the stories are floating in Jung's collective unconcious and we just reach up and pull one down. Some stories are so ripe for the telling, they bang on heads until someone starts typing. Brian Lumley (sp?), who writes horror, uses this as a premise in his Necromancer series.

Character driven writers often complain that they start to write one book only to have a marginal character take over and soon find that they have to shelf the original and go with the demanding character.

Some writers (and you can tell who they are because they tend to write from multiple perspectives. These folks are common among thriller writers) see the story unfold as if it were theater in the round and they are some spirit that floats through the scene, recording what they see as they pass through each actor.

Some fiction writers see life as the eternal story: three themes, 33 basic plots and 157 basic characters and so they retell R&J (which is already a retelling) or Beowulf or Medea. Some tidbit on the news or in the neighborhood reminds them of an ancient (or merely old) classic and they just update it a bit. Doesn't make it lazy or bad: West Side Story and Crybaby aren't any less amazing just because they are riffs on R&J. Okay, Crybaby stank. But I love John Waters!

Ken Follett, who used to write spy thrillers, has been spending the last twenty or so years writing period books in the style they would have had had they been written when. The cathedral (Pillars of the Earth) book required an epic (he has a more traditional epic about a castle that escapes me) or the depravity of the merchant class in Victorian England (Sons of Fortune)is a study in manners from the back side and you can't help casting "Night Over Water", it is such a propaganda piece like so many such thrillers from the late thirties designed to prepare America to go to war.

Other writers are trapped by an thought and keep rewriting it. Stephen King comes to mind. Dean Koontz is another (though not ALL his books involve a government experiment or discovery gone awry, though almost all have a heroic dog.) In my experience, this type of writer seems to be the most prolific. I think its sort of "no, maybe it would be clearer to everyone if I said it like this!" syndrome.

Now, the numbers. I had a English teacher in the long ago who quoted those numbers. If I am off, it is by one or two and not by degrees. Thirty three plots (character sees someone/thing, is drawn, encounters, things go well, things go bad, disengage, serendipity and reengage or disaster and you despair. Just for kicks, think of just how many books, plays and movies follow that thread.) Personally, I think the 157 characters allows for too much diversity, I don't think that there are that many.

Thank you, Perm3800, for this generously full comment. I'd be glad if one of the 157 characters percolated up through the collective Ucs. with energy sufficient to fuel my attempt at "telling a good story."

Welcome SusiefromBeantown!

Am happy to weigh in here, but disinclined to reinvent my own wheels, so am reprising my comments from a earlier discussion at TWG about "the muse." For what it's worth, verbatim:

Must preface this with an admission: I am as undisciplined as spilt milk when it comes to following practical advice for writers (I'm working on it). But if I've learned one thing it is that the "Muse" is a ruse... one we use to talk ourselves out of doing our work. The work of writing.

Out of curiosity I ran a very brief web search on "writing and the muse." The following is from a rather uninspiring site - allexperts.com. Uninspiring or not, there is considerable wisdom in this excerpt:

~~~

"If you wait for your muse to appear before you write, you will likely never complete your book. The best and most prolific writers have little to do with muses; instead they treat writing as a job, where you appear at the same time every day, do your work, then go home. They may not feel like doing it, but they do it anyway, because they have disciplined themselves to do it. In other words, they are professionals.

In order to see a book clear through to the end, you must have a deep, deep commitment to it. You must believe that what you have to say is important, that the world needs to hear it, and that only you can write it. Writing is lonely work, there is little or no support or encouragement when you get stuck; you have no one to depend upon but yourself to keep the motivation going. This is something that must be learned. How are you at motivating yourself? What motivates you - fame, money, glamour? Very few writers achieve those things.

If after all this you are still determined to write a book, you may have one thing going for you: perserverence. That is more important than anything else in helping you write. You must make a commitment to the book and to yourself: I will write this, and I will finish it.

The right subject in the hands of the right writer compels the book to be written. It will grab you and shake you and demand to be written. Perhaps you have not found your subject yet. While you are waiting, try to discipline yourself to write on a regular basis, and write short pieces, short stories or bits from your novel. Make sure you finish what you start, and stick with a schedule you make for yourself."

~~~

Well-written, highly useful books such as "War of Art" (Steven Pressfield) and "Art & Fear" (David Bayles and Ted Orland) make this case more eloquently and powerfully.

Best to cut bait with the Muse. She's no more than a cheap ho' who will waste your time and sap your strength.

- akabukowski

Thanks, Aka(bukowski), for your comment. Maybe I should change the "header" for this discussion, but I'm speaking most particularly about the muse of FICTION. I'm pretty good at the discipline part, and have written and completed four books (and very fortunate to have had them published). But all are non-fiction. It's the fiction part that's at issue. Maybe the topic should be, "What advice can you give to a nonfiction writer who longs to make the leap to fiction?"

If Rilke's statement has truth, I have no fiction to write at this time (and never have had) -- and I'm 68 already, so maybe writing fiction is just not in the cards for me. If what you say is the issue, I can make myself sit to the work -- no matter that it will not flow. No matter I have no good "made up" stories to tell. Or maybe what I can do is the opposite of what some folks do -- who pass off fiction as fact. Maybe I have to write what I know to be my truth, and pass it off as fiction. The line between truth and fiction is not a firm one in any event. Normal Mailer said: "Realism is a species of fantasy that’s much more integrated and hard-core than fantasy itself, but if you are ready to come to grips with the inevitable slipperiness of most available facts, you come to recognize that realism is not a direct approach to truth so much as it is the most concentrated form of fantasy."

SO maybe I can aim for writing what I know -- with all the freedom that fiction allows.

This I can try to do. Thank you for your stimulus to this clarity.

May I also suggest you try taking a creative writing class? I did that earlier this year and found it very stimulating and inspiring!

Only problem is, the class has ended, I'm newly back from vacation, and haven't written a word of fiction since I left!

-M

I always invite my muse to show up. I do that by sitting my butt in my chair and writing. If she shows, boffo; if not, I'll make the day without her. She doesn't know what she's missing.

Oddly though, I do know what she looks like. Stephen King's book "On Writing" inspired me to come up with a description and an image. If you get a chance, pick up a copy. It's a great, practical book on writing regardless of whether or not you like his books.

Jim

I'm going to ask a silly question to start off my answer: Are you a happy person?

Why do I ask? Happy people do not have a compelling urge to write fiction - at least not the kind of fiction driven by some inner fire. To have an inner conflagration, there must be something on fire.

One of my own problems with muses is that most of my inner fire comes from stories generated by sick and dysfunctional clients (I am a psychotherapist) and by a childhood that had unhappy elements among memories of outstanding achievements along with an adulthood that has been peaceful and surrounded by special people in my life. So, when I write fiction, it is usually not from some need to divest myself of my own demons.

Most of the best muse-driven writers were writing disguised autobiography - Plath, Kafka, Mailer, Miller, O'Neill, Hemingway, FitzGerald, Nin, Capote come to mind - while others wrote with skill but not driven by their inner demons. Some write their fantasies - Rice and Steele come to mind. Some write formulas - Spillane and Queen were the kings of police and detective procedurals.

Good writing doesn't have to be muse-driven. A good writer can write a good story. It is just that it won't look as if the writer gutted his arm with a tile knife to achieve it.

I have several "muses" One of them is named Whimsy. She is responsible for those tongue-in-cheek fables I write like the one I posted yesterday. It is a fiction disguised as a teaching tool and is blatantly stolen from the old Hanna-Barbera laugh factory that produced Yogi Bear, Rocky and Bullwinkle and is most closely linked to the wonderfully creative Fractured Fairy Tales.

Another muse, Terpsichore, gives rhythm, rhyme and lightness to my writing. She is based on a real person I knew many years ago - an early secret love whose wisdom far surpassed her age and actual experience on earth. She is the Loli from my Lollipops and unicorns sign off.

My final muse, Lucretia, named for the Borgia Queen, mistress of the poison pen letter that could kill the recipient, gives my writing the dark side, taken from the lives of my clients and some of the things I have seen and experienced living on the edge of danger most of my life.

So, yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Muse, but she isn't someone you can wait for. She or they are there, lounging or lurking within - if they exist. Someone who lived a simple and happy life (is there such a person - other than a simpleton) wouldn't have dark demons lurking within. Happy muses are not as likely to force their way to a surface that is placid because there are no monsters lurking beneath.

If you want to write, write what does come to you. My first 175 published writings were nonfiction. It was only after several years of being a columnist in a local newspaper that a nonfiction book pushed its way to the fore. It was written about the devastated life of my clients and the end result were a textbook written in the form of fables and a self-help book written in the POV of a fictional therapist as well as several clients whose voices took over the telling.

Short stories followed but the characters were based on the same real people. It was just the plotlines that changed. But, I was able to use their own voices for dialogue and narrative when a first person POV was best of the story. That was wholly muse-fed writing. I had no idea where the stories were going until I got to the end.

So, let me get back to the beginning. Write what comes to you. You can feed a muse but you can't fight one. They appear when they have something that needs to be said and not when you call them.

You can trick them into appearing sometimes. Sit down and write. Allow the writing to emerge. if there is a muse in the room, she will show up after you have written a line, a paragraph or a page. if she doesn't - stop writing but save the snippet. It is a key. Maybe you were just standing in front of the wrong door that morning.