On writing: Testing your personal link to a story seed
[Check out this post on my personal page, where it looks better]
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Once you identify a story seed, you better ensure that it excites you enough; you don’t want to end up writing dozens of thousands of words only to realize that you’d rather work on something else. The following are the notes on the subject I gathered years ago from many books on writing.
-Freewrite about what seems important about the idea.
-What is the point of the story?
-Is the story really worth it?
-What could be the staying power of this story idea?
-Why would any of it matter?
-Does your imagination fill with possibilities? Do the preliminary scribbles get you excited about writing more?
-How is this story personal and unique to you?
-If you hope to write a book of either fiction or nonfiction, you will have to live with the characters or topic for a long time. Do you think you can do that?
-What quality, characteristic or concern surrounding your idea grabbed you?
-Why do you want to write this? What is it about your life at this moment in time that attracts you to this idea?
-Do you bring a long-standing, or at least overwhelming, desire to have lived the story?
-Why must you tell THIS story? Why is it important to you to spend the energy? Why are you willing to take time away from another area of your life to develop this story? What is it you want to say and why? And how? Where is it coming from inside of you?
-What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of?
-Is this something that by writing it might change your life? Is the story idea that important to you?
-Will it fill you, does it check something off your bucket list, will it give you focus and joy and challenge? Is the idea worth a year of your life? Do you want to be remembered for this story?
-Imagine you are dying. If you had a terminal disease, would you finish this book? Why not? The thing that annoys that self is what’s wrong with the book. So change it.
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Once you identify a story seed, you better ensure that it excites you enough; you don’t want to end up writing dozens of thousands of words only to realize that you’d rather work on something else. The following are the notes on the subject I gathered years ago from many books on writing.
-Freewrite about what seems important about the idea.
-What is the point of the story?
-Is the story really worth it?
-What could be the staying power of this story idea?
-Why would any of it matter?
-Does your imagination fill with possibilities? Do the preliminary scribbles get you excited about writing more?
-How is this story personal and unique to you?
-If you hope to write a book of either fiction or nonfiction, you will have to live with the characters or topic for a long time. Do you think you can do that?
-What quality, characteristic or concern surrounding your idea grabbed you?
-Why do you want to write this? What is it about your life at this moment in time that attracts you to this idea?
-Do you bring a long-standing, or at least overwhelming, desire to have lived the story?
-Why must you tell THIS story? Why is it important to you to spend the energy? Why are you willing to take time away from another area of your life to develop this story? What is it you want to say and why? And how? Where is it coming from inside of you?
-What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of?
-Is this something that by writing it might change your life? Is the story idea that important to you?
-Will it fill you, does it check something off your bucket list, will it give you focus and joy and challenge? Is the idea worth a year of your life? Do you want to be remembered for this story?
-Imagine you are dying. If you had a terminal disease, would you finish this book? Why not? The thing that annoys that self is what’s wrong with the book. So change it.
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