What makes a good story?

Here is my take on what makes a good story.

A super idea, great writing, clever construction, and relevance make a story good.

Starting with the first one, we writers have a passion about something.  We queue on writing prompts, a news flash, the efforts of a snail dashing cross the yard that we came across or it could be a message of spiritual or political import that we want to put out metaphorically or overtly.  Could be we just want to play the Devil's advocate and stir things up.  Whatever the case we have to write it well.

That takes us to great writing.  That entails a vocabulary appropriate to the intended reader.  It means putting the modifying phrases close to the object.  It means a comma in the right spot and less Yoda think, which is what I suffer from the most.  This tell you, I do.  There are volumes written on correctly putting out ideas and feelings on paper.  I have a near half-dozen in my library.  Although, you might not know it by my first draft.  These first two are pretty straight forward.  We all have great ideas and grammar can be edited and fixed.  What about the construction of the good story?

When talking about how to construct the story it gets a little dicey.  Do the plot and subplots interweave cleverly?  Do story elements introduced here and there interlock in a meaningful way?  The intended readers probably haven't read Steven King's book on writing or Sol Stein's "How to Grow a Novel".  Yet, they will know what they like.  The readers know from plenty of reading what works for them and what doesn't.  There is a given about readers, the more they read the better they get at reading.  Once tasted a superbly written book they won't give much time to a lessor wrote one.  Part of that maturity in the reader brings into play the final item I bring up and that is relevance.

First off, not everything we write is going to work for everyone.  That is what makes relevance important.  Is what is being read meaningful to the reader?  Some readers are cross genre readers; even though they probably have a favorite genre that is read most.  It could be for relaxing or for education.  One of the elements, in my mind, to the relevance of story is the objects written into the story that relates.  For instance, if I were writing a story about a trucker and wanted a reader that is a trucker to enjoy it I would have to get into the story stuff that a trucker can identify with, such as an electronic logging system gone awry or the mysterious discovery of a 17th gear in a sixteen gear compound axle drive.  The trucker/reader might wonder, what is that going to do?  A good story has to have relevance to the reader.  That is why we hear the advice given to new writers; write what you know.  When we write what we know it gives credence to our prose.  Otherwise, research and write what you've learned.

To wrap up, take that super idea, write it well with clever construction and make it meaningful.  The audience will grow.

Took a Break in Writing

I wrote last week about our vacation and my lack of writing because of it.  It took a bit to get back into the swing of being home and finding a new routine where I could get some wordsmithing in. 

I'm not quite all the way there yet.  I did though get in a couple thousand words that to date are probably some of the best writing I'm done.  So good in fact, that I may have to mess it up a little in order to keep it in the style of the rest of the book.  Or, perhaps I should rewrite the previous 70K words. 

Nah, I'll see if I can improve them in the editing.  Previously, when I got stuck and laid off writing for a bit to figure out what I was going to do, I thought about the dilemma facing me at the time.  That took me through the problem and I came up with a clever bit of plotting to tie things up.

This past June, while on vacation, I hardly gave my book a thought. 

I attended my writer group for my monthly thrashing on the material I submitted before I left on vacation.  They were all so kind and gentle, letting me know it was some of the worst stuff I've put out over the past couple years and I was lovingly encouraged to fix that.  It wasn't the content or story line that was bad.  That they all love.  It was the way I put it (my grammar). 

I have to admit.  I don't do well with putting my modifiers and adjectives where they ought to be; close to the object.  I sometimes feel I have Yoda think.   I turn my wording around and I don't even know Spanish so there is no excuse.  I'm not outwardly handicapped.  I'm handicapped in my writing.   All fixable, of course.

I've been at writing this book for so long family hardly ask me anymore as to how it is going.  Slow, it is going slow.  This break I took from it in June has actually been invigorating now I am back to it.  I can see an end in sight.  I know just where I want to end the book all I have to do is move my protagonist through six more years of his life.  Hey - I can do that.

I know that we are all the same in a different sort of way.  My woes in writing are not strange to some of you.   Perplexing to you prodigies though, like those silky hard-body women doing weight loss ads - who never were over 3% body fat from the day they were born.   That tells us if I can do it, so can you.  I can.  I just have to work at it a little harder.

Thanks for coming by.   Now I will go and try to write the right way. 

6700 Miles

Hi all, we just got back.  This was one of our stops along our 7200-mile trek that we truncated to 6700 miles.  I won't bore you with a travel log at this point (leaving myself to do so later).

Overall, it was a super great trip and we learned a great deal about motor homing.  One of the many things I learned is my routine was blown all to hell.  I only wrote one evening in an RV park.  That means for a month I only wrote 600 words.

Why was my production so low?  As you could guess, I wrote so little is because of a number of things.  First and foremost is the same thing that I think gets most of us out of writing.  A break in our routine.

Authors and wannabees like me write about the pitfalls of not writing and what to do about it.  Getting motivated, writing junk until it jells into some coherent and so forth.  What I think is at the top of the list is structure, routine, a time and place consistently.

When we have a place where we are comfortable and a time where we expect to be productive and free of distractions our word count soars.  Get in a motorhome and head down the road thinking about how many miles we're going to make today, where will we dump if we don't rent a spot in an RV park and why isn't the propane on, doesn't give much time to think about that scene I want to write or how to weave in the next chapter with a new character that I'm going to introduce.

The break in routine doesn't have to be as dramatic as my trip.  One of the gals in my writing group commented, "I didn't write anything this past month.  I have relatives visiting."  At least, I got a short story of 600 words. Ain't I proud of myself. Ha...

Now I'm home.  Yet, my routine is broken.  I use to count on two days a week to write as I watched my granddaughter toddle around trying to stick her fingers in the outlets.  That's over.  I don't babysit anymore.  I have all kinds of remodeling projects going on.  I'm flooring, replacing windows, chopping on that darn stump that's been in the yard for two years.  When am I going to write?

I could write at night.  I've done that.  But (I admit it), I'm old.  I don't know when to quit and then I'm wasted the next day and everything else suffers.  I am still distracted.  I have the camera full of pictures from the trip to download.  I have a shoe box of receipts to sort and a ton of mail to review.

Sure, it's a matter of priority.  What's important to me and what's important to my wife.  Writing is way up toward the top of my list.  It is a little lower down (toward the bottom) for my wife.  So, there is that to consider.

There is so much to be said for stability in life.  I don't know what distracts you.  I suspect the more successful of us have one or more things going for them.  They are in a nice productive routine or so committed and talented that they can write anywhere at anytime. Of the latter, I am so envious.