Writing a story or just storytelling can also be challenging. Some believe that everyone has a story to tell. And well, the difference is in how one introduces it to the readers. Not everyone may have the right channel to tell the story. Not all stories are written well. So, what makes a story really? Or what is storytelling?
If a story has potential, it can be easily retold via different medium, in different format. Now, if you believe that all stories need to have the morally white protagonist, the current progress in the field of writing and stories reveal that readers love a flawed or a morally grey character more than they do the goody two shoes characters. But, what storytelling needs is the emotional connect with the reader.
And this tells me that there is really no standard structure or format that a story has to follow. Also, how you write a story really depends on you. Many go with the routine of planning the storyline, plotting the character development. Like David Abbott says in The Copy Book. There it applies to copy writing but here, I am drawing a parallel to story telling. What he stated was “How you do it is less important than what you do”.
I am someone who believes in doing things a bit differently. If you have a story worth telling, then start jotting it down. Or even just an idea would do. But, one thing though is unavoidable and I can also vouch for it. That is “Don’t be boring”.
More often, people may write a random scene first and then rearrange to a story. On the other hand, I work with scenes in a chronological order. However, rough your first draft may look, idea is to put it down on paper.
These are just some ways which show that not all writers follow a routine or a plan. Many may call me a panster, but writing whatever comes to my mind in the order that it comes in is what my first draft looks like. And it’s worked for me.
And that’s also my advice to any newbie writers. While planning and organising may work for many, for me, personally chaos drives my thought process. So, never be overwhelmed by what you think or hear of as should be’s. While you have to stick to the rules as required for submitting a manuscript to a traditional publisher, I believe that as a writer there are no rules that you have to follow.
Writing and stories are very subjective. And it’s not possible to really appeal to everyone. So, start by writing what you want but if you are looking to be a commercial success then the idea is to tell a story that others want to hear.
Or you could tell your story but via a medium that they want to hear. Listen to John Bevin in The Copy Book. His mantra “If you don’t enjoy writng it, no one will enjoy reading it.” As you can see there are a lot of parallels you can draw between Copy writing and story telling/ writng.
So, let’s all just get writing! Ciao now till we meet next.