What’s your story about? If you’re anything like me, you trip over this question. It’s hard to sum up your story in an elevator pitch. That’s because it’s the wrong question to ask.
In today’s episode of Writer Unleashed, I’ll give you 3 questions to help you get clear on, not only what your story is about, but why your story matters.
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Big Takeaways
What are your essential questions? [03:15]
We writers are an introspective bunch. We deal with essential questions or obsessions that fascinate us, even haunt us over the course of our lifetime. Over the course of our writing career.
We all have our own deeply embedded obsessions, and these obsessions haunt us throughout our lives. Even if we try to suppress them, even if we try to write against those obsessions, they keep bobbing to the surface. They refuse to let us go.
Whether we’re conscious of it or not, everything we write revolves around our essential questions.
Why does this story matter to you? [05:56]
Explore your relationship to your material. What are you trying to understand or come to terms with through this piece of writing? If you’re writing a memoir, what are you trying to understand about what happened in your past? How are you implicated in your own story? Or, if you’re writing fiction, what’s your character’s part in the story’s action?
What’s the emotional journey? [08:14]
What are you trying to understand or come to terms with through this piece of writing? If you’re writing a memoir, what are you trying to understand about what happened in your past? How are you implicated in your own story? Or, if you’re writing fiction, what’s your character’s part in the story’s action?
Horizontal and vertical plot [08:40]
The horizontal plot is what happens – it’s the sequence of events – this happened, then this happened, and so on. It’s causal.
The vertical plot is the emotional movement. It’s your character’s reaction to what’s happening. It’s the internal journey.
Both the horizontal and vertical plots intersect.
Readers don’t really care that much about what happens in your story. They’re much more interested in who it happens to and why.
Writing exercise [11:37]
Think of a memory that, to this day, still haunts you. Write it down. Through the writing, try to discover why it has such power.
Or
Write a short paragraph about a secret you’ve never told anyone. Except maybe your therapist. This is for your eyes only. Remember, nobody ever has to read it.
The purpose of these writing prompts is to uncover what matters to you, what your essential questions are and to write where the energy is. And to discover what it is you’re writing about.