Pearls, Nuggets and Excerpts… the Series, Part 4
More light shed on process versus product.
If you are a genre writer, and you don’t view your work as a product… you are kidding yourself.
Day 4… the viability of the story idea.
It is rare, even unheard of, when someone in the writing community will tell you that your story idea isn’t strong enough. It’s as if the default position—to an extent that it is commonly considered to be part of the conventional wisdom—is that a writer can and should write anything want. The underlying assumption is that that said writer can define what a story is, when fact the idea may not qualify as a criteria-meeting story at all.
This is no different than believing we can and should eat and drink anything—and as much as—we want, when there are principles that clearly show us we cannot do so and simultaneously seek a high level of health. Ice cream for dinner every day.
When a friend or a writing teacher allows you to settle for a thin or weak idea, simply by refraining to tell you that they don’t see great potential in your story idea, they haven’t served you. Or possibly, they aren’t able to differentiate a strong idea from a vanilla one at this early stage. They nod and smile and say, “Wow, that sounds terrific!” When in fact, it actually doesn’t, as least to someone who understands the criteria for a good story idea at its core. Rejection may be the closest you’ll get to an assessment in that regard.
Rarer
still is feedback on the core idea when the draft itself is complete. And it
may indeed be too late, if the idea has collapsed under the weight of what the
criteria are asking of it. This is like suggesting to a recent college grad who
can’t find a job that maybe they should have chosen a different major. That’s a
decision best vetted before the fact, not after.
Nobody—not agents, not editors, not readers—is waiting for someone to reinvent the genres they love. Rather, they are rooting for someone to excel within them.
Truth is, for genres other than literary fiction, where the principles are more vague and more flexibly applied, agents aren’t really shopping for the next great writer at all. They cling to hope, but that’s not the road before them. Rather, they are on pins and needles hoping to find the next great story.
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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