Why Does Story Take Time?

Josie Wannabe-Writer: I'm articulate. I read widely. Why can’t I produce compelling stories with the same ease?

Because story takes time.

Apparently fiction writer, Margaret Atwood, met a brain surgeon at a party. He said he planned to take up writing when he retired. She replied, ‘Really? When I retire, I plan on taking up brain surgery.’

Like so many non-writers or even beginning writers, that surgeon had no concept of the skill, dedication and creativity needed to become a good writer.

 It’s not just the mechanics of getting the fantastically creative story written, there’s a lot of other stuff – the craft of writing – that has to be understood as well.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, US essayist and poet said ‘Every artist was first an amateur.’[1]

Fortunately the artist doesn't have to stay an amateur forever. The child artist (above) now runs his own successful graphic design business.

I love this quote from Truman Capote:

'Writing has laws of perspective, 

of light and shade, 

just as painting does, 

or music.

If you are born knowing them, 

fine.

If not, learn them.

Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself.’

I really was an amateur when I started writing fiction.

Recently I overheard a woman talking about how her husband read Dostoevsky to their kids. I don't remember being read to by my parents. The literary collateral in my family book bank was well in the red. Pop up story books, Heidi and my mum's Children's Story Bible were the sum of the books in my home. We didn’t have a radio until I was 14. The TV didn’t go on until it was dark outside. This was also before the age of computers and electronic games. I amused myself by creating stories in my head; playing them out like a movie on the screen of my mind. Or, I created characters and scenarios which my friends and I acted out. 

When I started to write fiction I launched into my novel with wild abandon and handed the first draft proudly to a friend, an English teacher, for her opinion. I figured she’d recognise my brilliance straight away and, with a snap of my key tapping fingers, I’d have that book published.

I won’t repeat what she said, but her comments were honest enough to propel me into a life of learning about writing. I enrolled in courses, became an active member of the Northern Territory Writers’ Centre, became a workshop junkie, attended festivals, talked with other writers about writing, found proof reading and critiquing buddies, read books about writing, participated in and then ran critique groups, subscribed to blogs, read and read and, well, I'm still reading.

Literary deprivation couldn't have been all that detrimental to my imaginative future. Years later I find myself approaching writing fiction in much the same way as I approached, as a child, my imaginative interior world and play life.

I think deeply about characters, their goals, motivations and struggles and sketch out a basic story line; rejecting many ideas before I feel confident about proceeding with one. Most of this happens in my head and, by some bizarre law of nature that forgets the shopping list five minutes after I’ve written it down, I remember most of my thinking about what I’m planning to write.

In 2009 I moved from a thriving writing community in Darwin to the country town of Dubbo where there appeared to be very little happening to help and support writers. My workshop junkie days were over. Or where they?

I’ve conducted over twenty five fiction writing workshops in the last two and a half years and discovered that not everyone is wired for story in the same way I am. For many of the participants, the initial problem is starting. Once they try to write, their minds go blank and they feel totally cut off from their imagination. They know the story is there but…

Borrowing from a number of sources, and trying different ideas out on workshop participants, I’ve developed a technique that gets many would be writers started. It’s a subtle, easy and fun way of accessing the mysterious place of the imagination.

This blog, then, is for people who, like me, are not geniuses. People like me who need to learn the laws that go into crafting a good piece of fiction and, having nailed them, will know which laws to 'rearrange' and why. And, more importantly, people who live a long way from major cities and can't lock consistently into a rich community and culture of creative writing workshops, courses and classes. 

I'll be publishing Three Steps To Finding Your Story in my next blog.

If finding the story is not your problem, skip those blogs and see you in a few weeks.

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[1] Ralph Waldo Emerson, Letters and Social Aims: Progress of Culture, 1876