The evolution of a story

Hello once again!

So, I've been having some... unexpected issues with my newest story, and I thought it'd be interesting to jot down, so you can see how much a story can change over the course of a few weeks.

Let's start at the beginning, shall we? We're going back to my preteen years, when my cousin and I were bored out of our minds, knowing I liked to write stories, she asked me to tell her one. I don't know if you've ever tried to make up a story on the spot, but I hadn't, thinking fast I managed to come up with a simple, silly story about a new farmer having some issues with her sheep.

Fast forward almost a decade, and a self-published novel or two, and I started to think about that story again; a simple kid's story, filled with laughs and a little bit of whimsy. A welcome change of pace after the occasionally intense themes of the A Spy's Memory trilogy. What if I revisited that story, polished it up, and made a series of kids' farm stories? Probably for beginner readers.

Cue the research, cue the overthinking. 

Five pages or so in, I can already see this is not a beginning reader's story, but maybe it's a middle-grade story. A little bit of digging, and a query to my digital writing group later, I discover that I am in fact, writing literary fiction, not a kids' story at all. Time for an existential crisis!

I had exactly two options: scrap basically everything I had already, (only five pages) and rethink how to write the entire story, or change genera. Could a kids' book become a book for adults? Was the simple story I had invented as a preteen somehow be complex enough to entertain adults? 

A few days of thinking later, I continued to write my book, now with the knowledge that I was writing literary fiction, but it would still be a light, silly read... right? 

I'm only a chapter into the story as of writing this post, but I can say that there are a few slightly deeper themes than I had planned... I guess that's what I get for thinking I knew what was best for my story! 

The lessons I've learned through this? Pantsing is hard and confusing! Never become so focused on what you want for your story that you lose sight of what is best. And keep a loose grip on the details, with the faith that everything will somehow work out in the end. It's no secret that I'm a Christian, so I can only hope that God has a better plan for my story than I could have possibly imagined all those years ago.

Have a great day, and keep writing!