One concept that’s been difficult for me to grasp in writing in singularity of purpose. People in my writer’s group are always pointing out that my characters are abandoning their goals or achieving their goals, or there’s too many goals and no central drive, all of which results in the killing of tension right and left. I guess my problem is I get bored of simple quests and want to move my characters in new directions, changing them as I change from day to day. While my method may be more true to life, life, by itself, doesn’t make a very good story. We like fiction because it allows us to filter through all the randomness of life and wrap our minds around concrete ideas, objectives, obstacles, and outcomes, though disguised as real life. The temptation for writers (at least for me) comes from being so well acquainted with our characters, we want to take them to new places, broaden their horizons, pull them out of their ruts and subject them to some of the randomness and meaninglessness we face. I always bight off more than I can chew with complex plots and motivations that usually don’t all get duly treated. Hence, my mission, is singularity.
While greater singularity may be what is required to help some of your writings; this made me a little sad. While I understand that focus, drive, etc, is required in most writing (and the hero’s journey will always be popular) I’m a fan of complexity, randomness and whatever the opposite of singularity is. However, singularity will almost definitely help you sell books.