Where Is Your Creative Effort?

One of my fave books is by the acclaimed author and teacher Robert McKee's book STORY. If you don't know about it or don't own a copy, get it QUICK here: [link]. Every person who is serious about writing should own it. Though McKee is focused on screenwriting, the book holds truths for ALL forms of writing.

There's a passage from the book that makes me think about the Writers Boot Camp course I offer online.

McKee states, “Of the total creative effort represented in a finished work, 75 percent or more of a writer’s labor goes into designing a story. Who are these characters? What do they want? Why do they want it? How do they go about getting it? What stops them? What are the consequences? Finding the answers to these grand questions and shaping them into story is our overwhelming creative task.

“Designing story tests the maturity and insight of the writer, his knowledge of society, nature, and the human heart. Story demands both vivid imagination and powerful analytic thought.”

In my Writers Boot Camp, I instruct and coach writers on the questions mentioned by McKee because like McKee, I believe that for a story to live and breathe and connect with readers it has to be designed in a way that all storytelling engines run perfectly together.

Many new writers spin stories that lack full development of these vital questions. We read way too much description of a character's appearance. We read way too much backstory. We read way too much thoughts and feelings that are not integral to the story's purpose. We read flowery prose that is meant to heighten our reading experience but is too "fluffy" to hold any real literary weight. We read way too much telling and not nearly enough showing. We read way too much "real life" that is not examined to show us a "real" life.

To grow as a writer, to develop your storytelling abilities, you need to study and put forth most of your creative effort in examining the vital components of a story: character, desire, motivation, conflict, obstacles, resolution, etc. By taking the time to understand what these components are and how to develop them for your story, you will be surprised at how deep, how complex, and how real your book will feel to you...and to your reader.