Truth and Lies Within the Collective Writing Conversation

(NOTE: I just learned the pub date for my new writing book has been pushed to November 12. As you may know, Writers Digest Books has been acquired by Penguin Random House, and the delay is explained by the complex logistics of that changeover.) Today’s post is an excerpt of an early draft of my new writing book — Great Stories Don’t Write Themselves — which releases next month. It frames the opportunity at hand, as well as shining a light on why so many writers come up short. It’s not process that is to blame, even though process consumes much of the focus within the writing conversation. When imbued with and informed by truth and knowledge, any process can be made to work. Rather, it is what a writer doesn’t know or fully understand — or misunderstands — about the craft of storytelling that may be holding them back. Too seldom are we really talking about this perspective on writing our stories, straight up and clear. So here goes. There are many great writing teachers out there, and I strive to be among them. James Scott Bell. Randy Ingermanson. Donald Maass. Art Holcomb. K.M. Weiland. Steven James. Robert Dugoni. Michael Hauge. Jordan Rosenfeld. David Corbett. Jane Cleland. Jennifer Blanchard. Jennifer Lauck. Eric Witchy. A bus full of screenwriting gurus. There are many more, some of whom I’ve never heard of, some of whom are dead and gone. Others teach MFA programs (this is who you’ll see when you Google famous writing teachers), which is terrific, but I can’t speak to them, and to be honest I’ve never met a commercially-viable genre author who cites their MFA experience as a source of their success. Literary fiction, perhaps. But not so much on the romance, mystery and thriller shelves. In addition to those who teach, there exists an abundance of conferences and books and blogs that claim to deliver what is true, all just a click or two away. And finally, there are famous and quasi-famous authors who love to wax effusive about how to write, which too often boils down to this: “Just do it like I do it… I can’t really explain how or why it works, but if you just write you’ll get there, like I did.” One of them (who puts the quasi in the quasi-famous label) claims that writing cannot be taught, right before he invites you to attend his next writing workshop. And thus the noise continues, unabated. At some level we who seek to teach you how to write are all singing the same tune, though with varying emphasis and stylings from different hymnals. So how, then, with all this information floating around out there, can there be such a high density of writers who, for lack of a better way to frame it, have no functional clue what they are doing? I have an explanation to offer, though it may be only part of the complexity at hand. I recall reading one blog in particular, by a guy who has never written or published a novel, instructing his readers on how to write one (to be fair, he did have a successful blog focused on positive thinking, but that’s not the same thing as writing a novel). And another guy, in a forum, who declared, “I don’t outline, it robs the process of creativity and fun.” Somewhere out there are writers who encounter this type of hubris-infused fake truth, and because it exists within the context of the online writing conversation, they decide that they believe this statement. When in fact, it is only that guy’s opinion and experience, offered up as conventional wisdom. The noise within the chorus is part of the problem. In fact, it may just be the problem. People who don’t know what they don’t know, framing what they think they know as universal truth. One of the most confused facets of the discussion, right alongside process, is the critical element of story premise. Get this one wrong, and the road will be long and hard, indeed. The definition of premise is consistent. It doesn’t vary from genre to genre or process to process, though there are genre “tropes” (specific expectations, techniques and styles) that are expected of certain categorizations. Premise is a universal principle. One that can be broken down into eight essential, non-negotiable parts. If you can’t recite them, then you’ve just demonstrated that you don’t know what don’t know. And in this case, what you don’t know can hold you back, sometimes for years, sometimes forever. Premise, when broken down into its component parts—thus creating criteria—becomes the gravity-like essence of fiction. When you understand what they are, you can then access and apply criteria to whatever story you seek to tell. Failed and less-than-ready stories almost always demonstrate a weak or a complete lack of one or more of those eight essential facets of premise. The story is broken or at least compromised right out of the gate. I don’t believe writers are hearing enough about the most core and fundamental things that are available to them to understand how a story works at its very core. I don’t think they want to hear it. They’d rather sign up for the “Get an Agent” breakout session at the conference than the “Nail Your Premise” session. I’m not claiming to be the only voice singing the right song. All those folks I just mentioned, and many others, are preaching the gospel of truth to writers. It’s that the noise, collectively, combines to create a dull roar that drowns out everything else. It’s so much simpler, and easier, however fraught with risk, to just write. When you just write without having an awareness of how those eight criteria for premise will play within your story, then you are, by definition, imbuing your process (pansting, in this just write case) with the primary objective of unearthing them along the way. That’s why what you don’t know will come back to bite you. Because in that case, the writer doesn’t even know what they are looking for along that path. Too often, this is where a meltdown in the process, and the product, occur. The writer may possess no clue as to why their story isn’t working… and, indeed, may reject the notion that it isn’t. Breaking Down Your Story To understand premise at a deep and applicable level (beyond the “story is story” over-simplification that dominates the lunchroom chatter at most conferences), there needs to be a breakdown of narrative arc into its core elements, both in terms of parts (structural elements) and essences (the forces that make stories work). I’ve done that in my books, on my blog and in my workshop presentations, and with some success as well as becoming the target of some blasting negative feedback from writers who want to just write and not work that hard at it. Writers get to decide what is true for them. Given that 96 percent of stories submitted to, and from, agents experience rejection (according to a recent Huntington Post article), this leads us to conclude that too many writers don’t know what they don’t know. Which means, as a statistical certainty, some will land on things that aren’t true at all. This is complicated by the fact that there are qualitative degrees of application, and thus, truth. What works for one may not work for all. I submit that a core principle, however—like gravity, which unarguably does work for all—is a universal thing. Let’s recall what Picasso said:

Learn the rules (I prefer principles) like a pro so you can break them like an artist.

The real magic awaits in the degree to which a story resonates with readers, the acknowledgement of which validates the escalation of principle-based, mission-driven storyteller. The core principles of story, and the criteria that frame them, are the means by which we access that level of efficacy. **** My new book, Great Stories Don’t Write Themselves (see top of the column to the right on the website), publishes November 12. The eight criteria for an effective premise are the focus of a third of the 25 chapters presented, with specific criteria for not only checking them off, but for landing on the best possible story beats that execute on those criteria. Click here to preview the Table of Contents: TOC . Look for Part 2 of this post in a few days. ***** Conference/Workshop Update I’ll be teaching again this year at the Writers Digest Novel Writing Conference, October 24-27 in Pasadena, CA. On Thursday the 24th I’ll be doing an all-day Master Class entitled “Elevate Your Novel Through Criteria-Driven Story Development,” which is a distillation of my new book, which rolls out at the Conference, as well. I’ll also be doing two regular conference workshops on Friday and Saturday. It’s a great event at a first class venue (the Pasadena Westin), with a keynote by Alice Hoffman and a bunch of great presenters. Click HERE for the conference website… and HERE for the page describing my Master Class.