Reflections by Daniel E. Dercksen

When I was inspired to adapt my stage play The Beauty Of Incomplete Things into a novel, I assumed it would be an easy task. How wrong I was.

Although I had written the play over a span of 15 years and directed it in two theatres, I took the plunge to adapt a story that felt second nature to me—only to discover how different it is to know your story and to write it, a challenge that sustained me through the ten years of crafting the novel.

Knowing your story places you in a comfort zone of confidence and bravura. Writing your story quickly reveals how little you truly know it, demanding a journey into what you thought was familiar—opening the narrative in ways you could never have imagined.

Only when you truly accept that you don’t yet know your story are you ready to transform it—shaping a tale of promise into a masterwork that will test the very depths of your heart and soul.

It is never about perfect grammar, cleverness, or outsmarting yourself, but about respect—for the people who live within your story, and truthfulness to the story that lives within you.

Knowing your story can be misleading, even deceitful; it is all too easy for ego to take command, chasing self‑praise and adulation.

There is no place for ego in writing your story; you must become a humble, loyal servant to the creation itself. You learn to be truthful to what matters and never deceived by misguided notions. Only truth will set you free.

You cannot control your story; you must allow it to grow organically. Only then will it become instinctive and reflective—never didactic—moving with the rhythm of set‑up, confrontation, and resolution (beginning, middle, and end), while honouring the opening and closing values of the story and of each chapter.

New ideas will sprout, characters will rise to challenge, thoughts will grow wings, and your mind will find space to breathe.

In that openness, you will merge with your story—realising, at last, that you are the story.

The Write Journey course, which I created in 2000, was born out of a desire and passion to guide writers through the process of bringing to life the story that lives inside them.