Wednesday 5 October 2016

Insecure Writer's Support Group: How Do You Know When Your Story Is Ready?

I’ve been slammed with a couple of ghostwriting assignments lately, not to mention releasing my novels about the refugee crisis and a western, so I haven’t blogged in a while. I can’t miss today, however, because it’s the first Wednesday of the month! That means it’s time for the Insecure Writer's Support Group, where we talk about writing and vent our frustrations to the world. This month’s topic is “How do you know when your story is ready?”

I find this impossible to answer. It’s related to another unanswerable question that’s commonly asked of writers: “Where do you get your ideas?” Stories come out of the void. Sure, we consciously form them, throw in clever little twists (or what we hope are clever little twists), literary references, products of our research, and all sorts of other things. If you ask me why I made a scene a certain way, I can probably answer you. But ask me why I wrote a story along a particular theme or in a particular genre and I’m stumped. Stories come from some hidden place inside, and that hidden place decides when it’s done.

So listen to your gut, fellow writers, it’s what’s actually doing most of the writing.

5 comments:

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Listening to your gut is probably the best thing to do.

Tony Laplume said...

I think if you think about it a little more, you'll know exactly where your stories come from. They're usually your way of processing something or other. Apparently in your case you don't know what you're processing. But you're processing all the same!

Madeline Mora-Summonte said...

We really do have to learn how to trust our gut, our instincts. That should be the loudest voice, even though we often let others shout it down.

Nick Wilford said...

You're right, it's quite intangible in a way. It's hard to pin down what makes a story ready - it just feels "right" or as close as possible.

Jennifer Williams-Fields said...

I agree, trust your gut. The hard part is not letting others make you doubt your gut!

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