Discovering Your Story

Right now, I’m in the midst of drafting Book Three of the UNDER THE NEVER SKY Trilogy, as well as developing a new series idea.

I should say, discovering a new series, because that’s what it really is.

Developing implies that I’m manipulating something. Molding it to fit my purposes. My vision. And the same thing applies to the term creating.

I don’t create stories. I listen to what interests me. I think about characters and how they behave. I consider the things that made them the way they are, and then the things that will occur in the story to make them who they’re destined be.

The same thing is true for story. I have an impulse. A compass heading. I’ll know that I want to go North, and so that’s where I point myself. I might think about the things I want to see along the journey, but I don’t force them.

I think Beth hit the nail on the head earlier this week. We need to learn to trust our story instincts. I’m an avid studier of story craft. I have, probably, twenty books on writing fiction, creating characters, writing compelling first pages and last pages and everything in between. But when it’s time to sit down at the computer, that all needs to be forgotten.

We’ve been telling stories for thousands of years. We know stories because we live them. We know characters because, well, we are a character. It’s somewhat humorous to think that we devote so much time to looking at how characters should be multi-faceted. Honest liars. Evil do-gooders. Complex. Shaded. Nuanced. That our fictional settings should be detailed and vivid and specific. We work so hard to find that which is everywhere.

Take a look in the mirror. Take a look at the world around you. What do you see?

Now rest your fingers on your keyboard and tell me what you saw.

Discover it for me.