What am I doing Wrong?

I read a post on writing S Lice of Life pieces but I want to know why I feel this sort of block when I write... I have the characters, I should characterize more, But I think the problem is the Day in the Life' part. How do I write a day in the life of? Argh I can do that sorta... But then I feel afraid I will rush into the story o it will be tooo slow.

As you can see I am clearly confused and totally need some guidance.

Maybe you should ask yourself why you're writing this story first? It doesn't seem like you're enthusiastic about your current project, or just the format.

Is the Slice of Life format more appealing to you than a more plot-orientated format? Is this going to be a novel, or a short story collection?

Short stoy, and I am very excited about it but, I feel lost somewhere... Maybe because it is an Iyashikei?

I've got an Ensemble Cast of characters that I came up with for a TEOTWAWKI plot but I'm having so many issues with the actual TEOTWAWKI side of it, I'm seriously considering turning it into a large-scale Slice of Life revolving around the characters and their interactions and the stuff they get up to as part of living in pretty much here-and-now New Zealand.

One family is polyamorous another family is Christian Polygamist and there's a family living the Eco-lifestyle and an otherwise "normal" farming family whose only distinguishing features involve a young daughter who's come to the realisation that she prefers women and an older son who dies early into the story, leaving a wife and young child behind.

If I made it a Slice of Life, it'd certainly subvert/avert a number of tropes that may have been played straight if The Shit Hit The Fan.

I've been trying to do the same. I have vague ideas of the characters, but I just can't ever seem to figure out if any of what I'm writing for them is in-character. Otherwise, I can only come up with cheap one-liners that any hack could get syndicated in a newspaper. And I want more than that.

And when I just start writing whatever comes to mind, it's either lol monkeycheese random that sounds like a 13-year-old girl trying to write an Invader Zim fanfic, wholesale plagiarism, sex, or all of the above.

edited 24th Dec '12 11:24:56 AM by Twentington

Slice of Life seems hardest when you can't turn off your inner critic. You begin by writing a normal morning for the character and, depending on how critical you are, you begin to think it sounds boring sometime in the afternoon. You begin to worry that the reader is going to hate it, which makes you hate it, but the problem is not actually with you the author.

The problem is with the viewpoint character. You'd think that in a Slice of Life story the viewpoint character would be the subject of the story, but it is always told from an outside perspective. Therefore the viewpoint character is whoever is following around the subject of your story. While I don't recommend going back and trying to rewrite what you have, try to tell the rest of the story from the perspective of a rival looking for secrets for example. In the afternoon, most characters begin doing work that a rival might consider worth stealing, so describe details such a character might be interested in. Finding details relevant to the interests of the viewpoint character will get you through most slices of life, and once you have finished writing you can let out your inner critic to deal with anything that is too technical, or too poorly researched. That is what an inner critic is for, after all.

edited 24th Dec '12 8:37:21 PM by AnimeGIF