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Week One: writing a clear narrative
This week’s prompts are at the very end of this post. Please welcome our first guest editor Saalon Muyo who tweets as @saalon and blogs at Saalon Muyo. If you have any questions or need any clarification on today’s topic or prompts, please feel free to begin a discussion in comments.
If you’re here just to hang out, click here for the yeah write #64 hangout grid.
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Not the Originality You’re Looking For
Ready for some bad news? The story you’re about to write? It’s been told before. A few dozen times, at least. In fact, there’s a better than average chance that there’s someone writing basically the same story right this second. What you’re about to write – the story you’re super-excited about – is about as original as when you hung Munch’s “The Scream” in your dorm room freshman year.
Hold on, don’t run off. I only started with the bad news because I’m about to prove just how meaningless it is. People get all hopped up on novelty like it’s the holy grail all writers should seek. It’s not. What we actually want when we say we want our story to be original is to write something that only we could have written. It’s easy to get seduced into thinking that means finding really original stories that no one else has told. Down that path leads disappointment, desperation and madness. There’s already something you have in your stories that no one else does: You.
I’m in the middle of writing a novel—not a personal narrative, I know, but stick with me—and the heart of it is a love triangle. Nothing original there, right? Love triangles are all over the place. I bet there’s even been a few on the purposefully plotless Law and Order. I could let that freak me out (admission: sometimes I do), but I’d be getting hung up on the wrong thing. What makes my novel (hopefully) different form all the other love triangle stories? The characters. Their quirks and their pain; the way they react to stress, to happiness, to defeat; their senses of humor; their hopes and dreams; the way they change. The combination of those things makes them real and distinct people. Stories powered by real and distinct people are…um, distinct. Could someone get me a thesaurus?
Unique! They’re unique! In their own very personal way, they’re a story that hasn’t been told before.
[pullquote_left] The things you’ve experienced—the bad day with your kids, the fight with your parents, the pure, obnoxious insanity of your neighbors—are things with which your readers have dealt, too. [/pullquote_left] So who’s the main character of your soon-to-be awesome personal narrative? You! In my last post, I talked about finding the reason you’re telling a story and grabbing onto it with all your might. Once you’ve done that, it’s time find yourself within that Reason and draw it out. What was it about who you are that got you into the situation? How did you feel as it was happening? What made you laugh? What made you afraid? How did who you are change the story? How did the story change who you are?
The more of you that’s in your story, the easier it is for other people to find themselves in it. That’s why a story being “unoriginal” isn’t the problem you think it is. The things you’ve experienced—the bad day with your kids, the fight with your parents, the pure, obnoxious insanity of your neighbors—are things with which your readers have dealt, too. In finding yourself in the narrative and giving that to your readers, you’re inviting them to feel what you did. You’re giving them an opportunity not to feel alone. There’s nothing more lonely than the fear that no one feels the way you do.
Write a story can’t be told the same way without you in it. Unless you end up singlehandedly saving the Earth from a sentient chinchilla invasion, you’re the most original thing you’ve got.
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all your story are belong to you
[check_list]
- Read the summer FAQ page for other details
- Let the prompt lead you, but do not include the prompt in any way in your post, not even at the end as a footnote
- If the prompt takes you from thunderstorms to watching TV at your grandma’s house to how much you love Pat Sajak to the oldest person you’ve ever kissed, we want that story the furthest away in your imagination from the original prompt. Let your imagination loose
- Keep your writing style! Do you tell stories with humor? Prose? Verse? Photos? Illustrations? Keep doing that. We’ll read Shakespearean drama on our own time
- Cut away at everything unnecessary to your story
- Remember: publish no more than 500 words
- Not ready to add your entry today? Still perfecting and reading other posts? No problem: you’ve got until Thursday at noon EDT [-4GMT]
- Don’t forget to badge your post
- Have fun!
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[divider_header_h3] This week’s prompts [/divider_header_h3]
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- Write about your greatest fear
- Describe a time in your life when everything turned out fine despite the odds
- If you could start your life over from birth, what is the one thing you would change about yourself?
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Yeah write #64 summer grid continues…
Bring on the chinchillati.
Wait.
That wasn’t your point?
I love it when someone finally gets the *real* meaning of my posts. Chinchillas forever!
I just wanted to say thank you for the challenge, Saalon (and Erica and all of the other Bosses of Win and Awesome)!
This was incredibly difficult for me, and to be honest I had written two posts which I ended up hating, and I was about to start writing a third.
So I took a breather, cleared my head and dove into the first one and reworked it, which is the one that I submitted.
I can tell that I am going to learn a lot from this summer series just based on how hard this was for me.
Thanks to everyone involved!!
Thanks for joining in! I know exactly what you mean. This post got junked twice, too, and it took a rage session where I shouted at my laptop and paced and then took a shower to get me to where I needed to be. I might gripe about writing being hard, but if I’m being honest, that’s exactly why it’s so, so satisfying.
wowie that wasn’t easy for me- THANKS though! 🙂
I think that regardless of what “it” is–personal narrative, fiction, memoir, non-fiction, sentient chinchillas invading the earth, WHATEVER – it has to have a point. It’s as simple and as complicated as that: there has to be a reason why the thing is being told. What’s driving it? Chinchilla fear? the need to exorcise the demons of a childhood memory? I think that in everything we write (even academic prose) there is some seed of our own story, however deeply hidden. Finding that seed…that’s the hard part.
I love these two posts Saalon, thanks!
Exactly! You need an anchor. A gravity well around which to orbit. A north star to guide you. Whatever metaphor makes your brain twinge: you need to be writing toward and around something. And that’s often not as easy as it sounds when we have soooo much to say.
Thank you so much for the compliment. I love your blog, so it means a lot.
I chose to write fiction for this prompt, but I suppose there is some of me in it. I like fiction, I love fiction, I eat fiction up. But I want to know that it’s fiction and not represented as personal drama. It still needs a clear narrative. It still needs passion mustered from the writer’s emotions – empathetic or first-hand.
I just want to put that out there since fiction is totally acceptable as well (isn’t it?) – but don’t pretend it’s your own life. (I think there’s been a bit of that going around in the personal blogging world lately.)
Kristin, When I got the topic for my week, it was a little more specific: Writing a *personal* narrative. So this post was trying to stay focused on that. It looks like it broadened out to just writing a clear narrative, so I feel a little sheepish that I talked so specifically about non-fiction. And I love talking about fiction! That said, I guess the majority of what comes in isn’t fiction, so maybe this is for the best.
You’re absolutely right about not pretending fiction is your own life. Fiction is its own beast, and in the blogging world it can be frustrating when you don’t know if what you’re reading. I have this problem on This American LIfe, where they’ll slip in a fictional story every once and a while and not tell you it’s fiction until it’s over. About halfway through I can start to tell that something isn’t right, and it always ticks me off.
Yeah, I know. I actually thought I was continuing the conversation on the Monday post – so much for posting stuff after three glasses of Pinot Noir.
I’m on the hangout for obvious reasons, but I chose to use the prompts anyway. Totally get the personal part, but since I’m not all about confessionals (I’ve got baggage!), I hoped that people might feel good about writing a personal narrative that wasn’t necessarily their own. Which, naturally, will still reflect some of themselves – even if couched in the safety of fiction.
I’m kind of intimidated by these first posts, Saalon. How will I live up to this in my week? Ack!