Crafting the story to lay the foundation of a solid blueprint begins long before you start writing the story. To get your story on the page as a novelist, and off the page and to the big screen, small screen, or stage, as a screenwriter / playwright, you need to embrace the process of taking your story from idea to marketplace.
When you start writing a new story it is so easy to be overwhelmed by the intricate detail of what happens in the story – the parts that make up the story – that you forget about the whole story, and simply write the story scene by scene, hoping that it will all add up in the end.
Rushing to write the first draft, you patch the details together and soon find that you have a story full of holes, or one that feels empty and does not live up to what inspired the idea
De-motivated and lost you soon lose interest in the idea and leave a potentially great story unfinished.
It’s like watching a film you can’t wait to see on DVD, then, with the remote at hand, you skip through the boring bits to get to the end, finding an ending that leaves you unsatisfied.
Sometimes you get lost in the daunting process of turning abstract or vague ideas into a tangible story that is logical, cohesive and worth investing the time it takes to develop the story to its full dramatic, comedic or dynamic potential.
It is about the story, the whole story, and nothing but that. Everything serves the story, the writer, the characters, the structure, each story event, the theme … You must own your story before writing it.
Although the writing process seems simple and straightforward, most novice writers tend to take a step in the wrong direction by shortcutting, outsmarting or over-complicating the natural, instinctive process of communicating their story and making their voice as a writer heard.
The 17 steps of the writing process is fully explored in The Write Journey course and takes you from IDEA to MARKETPLACE
