Tell A Great Story

Tell a great story.

Sounds simple, right?

All you need is emotive characters that are true to life and compel your readers to care about them, a plot that is simultaneously not boring and not overdone, enough tricks to keep the reader hooked, but not so many they become trite, a colorful world full of cultural references to create atmosphere, enough of your voice to not be remote, but not so much as to overpower everything else, the use of language that is both beautiful and basic, so as to intrigue but not irritate your reader, a variety of sentence lengths and types that will give your story a rhythm to march to, and the list goes on and on and on.

I recently read an article by Chuck Wendig entitled "25 Reasons Why I Stopped Reading Your Book." It was genius. It was also a lot. A lot to remember, a lot to think about, a lot to obsess over as you put your own pen to paper (or finger to key). So what is one to do?

Easy. Tell a great story.

Many times, for me at least, especially when writing fantasy, we find ourselves caught up in the rules, the world-building, the magic, the language, and we get lost. We become so desperate to be original, to be beautiful, to be exciting, to be mysterious, to be dangerous, to write a strong female lead, to write a non-cookie-cutter male lead, to write the next Harry Potter or Hobbit or Odyssey. We try so hard to write, that we forget to tell.

And that's the difference. Note I've said: Tell a great story. Not "write" a great story. TELL a great story.

There's nothing wrong with doing research, with using a thesaurus, with checking facts, with creating a new language, with developing a detailed plot, with catching the reader by surprise. In fact, a good, publishable work requires all those things. But without a great story--a simple, real, compelling story--the rest is all window dressing. Smoke. Illusions.

Ask any magician: behind all the tigers and cages and curtains and trap doors and birds and flashes and fireworks, there is a solid, simple illusion. And without the solid, simple illusion, the rest is all meaningless. 

Don't be meaningless. Just tell a great story.

So here's your challenge: 

Tell me about the wolf. Who is s/he? What is s/he? What is s/he doing? Where is s/he going? Doesn't have to be long, doesn't have to be involved. Unless you want it to be. But tell me the wolf's story. Make it great. (I'll tell you mine next week!)

Much love!

**I cannot completely take credit for this post. The inspiration and advice comes directly from the great Jeff Brown (AJ Brown), my awesomesauce SSP liaison. He knows his stuff.**