Write A Good Story and They Will Come

 Write A Good Story And They Will Come

 

In Austin, Texas, it gets hot in the summer. You can fry an egg on the pavement. You can cook a whole five-course meal. If you stand in one place too long, you start smoking. 

How do you get that heat in writing? Everything has to be working in your writing and that includes the oft maligned element, plot or story. 

Story isn’t easy. People realize it’s hard to use language well. hard to develop character, create an interesting setting, etc.. But story /plot doesn’t really get its due. It lives in the worst fictional neighborhood and isn’t invited to the fictional elements’ parties. Its job is undesirable. Too many writers think of it as an afterthought.

Story is, in fact, seriously undervalued, particularly in MFA programs (at least that was my experience when I got my MFA). A lot of writers who write beautifully fail miserably because they have no story to tell or what faint story they do have to tell isn’t told well. They expect readers to read their work because they write pretty sentences.

I’m here to tell you—pretty sentences aren’t enough ( even though I love good sentences). The truth is most readers will forgive some language issues if you can tell a good story but if you have no story, great language isn’t going to keep them reading. They get bored.

 

Ideally you write well AND tell a good story, but story is as important as writing well. And forget that crap about writing what you know. What you need to do is write about what you can imagine. You don’t have to know your story when you start a first draft but by the time you write THE END you should have a pretty good idea of the major moves in your plot. Discover in your first draft those major moves and what happens in between them isn't so hard to fill in when you write your second.

 

Good luck and Write well.

Write Better, Write Faster, With This One Hack

Write Better, Write Faster, With This One Hack

 

Here’s a hack to help you write faster and better in first draft. This maybe particularly helpful for discovery writers though outliners can use it too. The thing is when we start a chapter we are most vulnerable to doubting our ability to write the chapter. This may lead to procrastination, which can lead to all kinds of bad habits. Scrolling, raiding the fridge with abandon , too much coffee, watching bad streaming series, anything but writing.

 

 

So, to get you started. Don’t just discovery write the chapter. Discovery write a little summary of the chapter before you write the actual chapter.. 

 

Write a paragraph or two or three and maybe some dialogue in the tone of the chapter around the characters you think might be in the chapter and what they’re doing. Write whatever comes into your head. 

 

Revise as you write it. Try to get down what you want to happen in the chapter. Write some dialogue if it comes to you (it often does to me when I’m trying to write this). 

 

YOU CANNOT SPEND LONG ON THIS. 

Ten or fifteen minutes. No more. Do it right after you’ve finished the last chapter.

 

You’re really focusing on what happens in the chapter so this is mostly plot. However, if you’re going to bring in a new character you can add a bit of description of the character. 

 

Write any notes to yourself that might help. For example, “the character is angry in this chapter. Make sure you show the anger build as the chapter goes along.”

 

Remember, this is for your eyes only. You’re writing this to yourself. You and you.

 

You’ll be surprised how this helps you write a better and faster chapter.