Maybe it’s the way my brain works, maybe it’s a common need to make connections between disparate elements in life in an attempt to make sense of them. Whatever the case, elements not on the surface related to writing coalesced into a thought this afternoon. It’s not even something new to me, and likely not to you. So why would I devote a post to it as if to bash you over the head with the concept?
It all comes down to the thought that sometimes we need to relearn something, or have it hit us at a time when we’ll actually be receptive to it. It’s quite possible this won’t click with my three readers. But maybe a fourth will emerge and find some value. I can only hope.
Yesterday, I was part of a small discussion about transitioning into adulthood. There were six of us in attendance, and all but one of us are writers (at least, the one I didn’t know before then, the boyfriend of one of my new writer friends, hasn’t be introduced to me as having a writing background, so it’s possible he is, too, and I just don’t know it). The topic of writing in particular only tangentially emerged, if at all. But there were some hints at things that could apply to writing that compare to the push, as one gets older, to find purpose and accomplishment.
What is the meaning of life? Before you rush to say “42” and all, let it sit with you a moment.
All right, now that you’re back, what did you come up with? I’m not going to assume your answers or attempt to generalize a response that might cover your result. But part of coming to a conclusion is to boil the question down to its basic element: Why?
Why is your life? Because of…something. You can fill in the blank. Or maybe you don’t know. But if you don’t have an idea on why you’re where you are, how can you hope to move forward toward something else, hopefully for the betterment of yourself if not also for those in your family, and on a greater scale, the world?
This connects to writing in a way that I know I don’t consider often enough, and from my small sphere of influence, those around me aren’t keeping in mind enough, either. It’s all well and good to have an idea and put that idea down on paper/the screen, the prose moving and the plot tight and exciting. Maybe that’s enough to make it work, to be entertaining, and to get you readers.
But why is the story important? It can’t just be because it’s written well. It should say something about the human experience, teach a lesson, bring a smile or a tear to the eyes of your readers. Isn’t that what makes the universally considered “great” literature thus in the first place? Isn’t that what any writer doing so for reasons other than their own fun aspires to accomplish? And if not, why not?
I suppose this post is somewhat of an existential crisis on my part. One of the plot points of my Nano novel from last year came up in the discussion last night, and after having some laughs over it, what stuck in my head was that I lost the thread of the plot as I continued to write during November. That can happen, of course, and it was a first draft of a novel I had barely planned at all before the start of the month, so I shouldn’t hold myself to too high of a standard and get caught up in not reaching it by the end.
But as so often happens with my Nano novels (and, at least what I know anecdotally from others in what they work on during Nano or other times in the year), it’s easy to get caught up in the fact that the idea is exciting, and when plans are in place, the plot is concise and filled with enough threads to not only hold the reader’s interest, but shock and surprise them along the way. But is that enough? Is that not just putting a lot of words down that ultimately might not actually say anything?
I recognize that it’s somewhat ironic for me to highlight the importance of planning instead of pantsing not only because that’s how I’ve written the vast majority of my stories, but it’s highlighted in a post that I only had a vague glimmer of in my mind before I sat at my laptop. However, if there’s any one thing that really highlights why getting your plot in order is important, it’s to help with your why, your theme, and if it remains consistent throughout, it if even comes across at all.
A lot of what I write can entertain, get a laugh, or tug at a heartstring in a way that can be nice. Maybe that can work in a short story, because it doesn’t have a lot of space to really say much. And yet, maybe it makes the brevity all the more necessary to sculpt what you can do with words.
I don’t know. Maybe this is more of a me problem than anything out there stumbling across this might have going on in their writing life. But it’s what I have on my mind as I figure out how I want to start my project-finishing goals of 2024. Because even if it’s a first draft, I still like to do it as well as I’m capable of, and the better I get in figuring out what the why of the story is, the better it will be from the start.
And, frankly, the easier it will be to edit when that phase hits. But that’s a consideration for another time.