Pearls, Nuggets and Excerpts… the Series, Part 3

More fodder for the writer’s inner learner.

Day 3

Principles and criteria are what feed and nourish our instincts as writers. All writers–plotters and pantsers alike–rely on this storytelling instinct.

But all instincts are not created equal, nor are they applied at the same point along a writer’s learning curve.

It is when those instincts are underdeveloped–which is the case for almost all new writers–that our reliance is misinformed.

Instincts inform all points along the story development process continuum, because they can be applied at the moment of creation, just as they can be retrofitted at the revision and polish stage. That’s two points of entry where criteria are concerned . No matter how you get there, when the story works, it will be because of how the story reads and unfolds, rather than how it was assembled.

Because the criteria don’t favor any given process. Many roads can take you there, even though many forms of the end product are not as available. And when you arrive, the reader will neither know nor care what your process was.

So if this
is true—and I can assure you that it is—process boils down to nothing other
than a choice. A comfort level leading to a preference. This is critical
context for understanding the bigger picture, where process and product merge
into one outcome.

We need to know when we’ve arrived at a final
draft and when we haven’t.

This is one of the highest-risk benchmarks new writers, and too many resistant writers, face. How do we know when the story is done, and if it’s good enough? They stop too soon, before all the requisite bases have been touched—because they aren’t aware of, or don’t believe in, the term requisite—or the scenes remain less than optimized.

Or, they don’t stop soon enough, which leads to overwriting. Either way, the story is thusly compromised … unless and until they know.

Here’s the paradox that results: They think they know, but outcomes show that they don’t.

These excerpts are taken from my new craft book, “Great Stories Don’t Write Themselves.” Feel free to share with your writer friends, directly or via social media.

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