123: Roadblocks to Telling a Good Story

 

There are lots of essential building blocks when it comes to writing a good story, and new writers can often stumble on some of these foundational elements. I break down four roadblocks that can prevent that story from being told in an effective way. 

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Roadblocks to Telling a Good Story

Hi, Friends, welcome back to another episode of your big creative life. I'm happy that you're here. And oh, okay. The sun just kind of came out broke through readings. I said that it's like the most magical spring day and Charleston, spring in Charleston Island, South Charleston, South Carolina. Spring is absolute perfection. A lot of people think that summer is the best time of year to come here because the beach and yes, the beach is nice. But summer, it can be brutal here because of the humidity. It's rough. It's March as I'm recording this and like I went on a walk earlier today and got red faced and sweaty from a 20 minute walk. Anyways, yeah, it's just really nice. Okay. Let's buckle down.

 

Let's get focused, Katie. Because we're talking about roadblocks to telling a good story. There are a lot of things that we can cover under this umbrella topic of roadblocks, because there are a lot of things that can sort of stand in the way whether they're mindset related on you, the writer, or more craft focus things that will kind of like prevent the reader from getting immersed in your world, your story, your characters, etc. So we're going to talk about a few things in this episode. But this is obviously not a comprehensive list. These are just things that I've been thinking about things that I've definitely noticed.

 

Okay, so the first roadblock that we have, okay, what's in your head, is not coming out onto the page, it's not being translated. This is something that I found so frustrating when I started noticing this when I started writing, because I knew what I wanted to happen. I didn't start out writing a novel, I started writing. When I started writing creatively, I wrote some short stories. And I remember this feeling of frustration that it's like the tone of the story. And the tone of the characters just was not quite right, like I was getting close to it, but it wasn't there. And I just felt frustrated about it. And this is only after I started noticing it because initially I didn't notice it. Because I would read let's say a short story that I had written, I would read it and it would match up. I thought to what I had in my head.

 

And I was like very, I could picture the characters, I could picture the setting, I could picture the awkwardness that the seat might have, or the fear that the character is feeling in this scene. I can picture all those things so clearly, that when I was reading the story, I would put those things in there, I would fill in the gaps, because I was already very, very familiar with how it was supposed to look and how it was supposed to come across. So you filling in the gaps can sometimes be a big roadblock. Because I mean, this is this is not like, you know, it's a personal failing. This is just we can't be objective about our own work.

 

But I did, the more that I started writing and reviewing my own work, I did start to notice that I was doing this where I was like, I'll give you an example where I wanted a character to like a mother character is one story I wrote it was about a mother and a daughter. And the daughter was coming to visit for like dinner or something. And it was about all this stuff that happened. And the mother character I wanted her to come off as like overbearing, and also a little bit of a Karen, in this interaction that she had at the store when she was trying to return something before she came home for dinner.

 

And I realized that after I sat back and really read it and like kind of thought about it for a while because I could tell that something wasn't working, I realized that she was not coming across that way at all. She was just coming across as kind of, I don't know, rude in the store. And then like passive everywhere else, it just was not working. But initially when I read the story, I projected all of those things that I wanted to happen that I wanted for her character onto the page. So this is something that can, this is why it's kind of important to well, two things important to give yourself some time, some distance, I think, from what you're writing, before you dive into editing, you'll give yourself some time to kind of step back. And then also why it's important to really read critically and carefully your own work because this can easily happen.

 

So that's something to watch out for. So again, the way to solve it, I guess to be more specific and direct about it is take that time, take that space. Be very critical and look at what's on the page. Don't worry so quickly that your brain is just filling in the gaps. And then you can also get outside feedback outside perspectives on it as well, because that that can help to, you are so focused on plot that you neglect your characters. This is something that I see pretty frequently when I'm editing client manuscripts where I can tell that the author has put so much time and energy into the plot. And for good reason. It definitely shows the evidence is there in the story, they've got a solid plot, everything moves along, there aren't big inconsistencies. It's complicated.

 

But the characters are just flat, the characters don't have much agency, they get kind of swept along, I couldn't tell you really much about their personalities. So the way to fix this is, of course, make sure that you're focusing on your characters. This is something that I talk about a lot, and I believe is crucial in every single genre, I believe this is crucial whether you are writing commercial fiction, which is more generally more plot driven, or very literary fiction, where typically there is a more focused on much more of a focus on characters, it doesn't matter wherever you are in that spectrum.

 

However literary your writing, or your story, whatever genre you're writing in, this is essential because if you have flat bland characters, then the book as a whole is probably not going to live up to its potential just because if all the focus is on the plot, and again, like nothing characters in the book is just going to be lacking, I mean that there's just no way around it. So make sure that yes, you want to figure out your plot and all the complexities and how things fit together and all of that, but you cannot neglect your characters. Okay. Okay.

 

The next roadblock is trying to emulate someone else. This is actually something that I think a lot of new writers are very aware of, like trying to be mindful of not just being like, Okay, I want to be the next, Leigh Bardugo. And write exactly like her like people are people are aware of that. And I even have some clients that I work with some writers that I know who do not read at all, in their genre, when they are writing their first draft, just so that they don't unintentionally copy someone else's ideas, someone else's writing style, etc, which makes total sense, I get that you can decide for yourself, if that's something that you want to do or not, that can be a way to prevent yourself from sort of mirroring someone else's pros or their plot or something without really realizing it.

 

So instead of thinking about becoming the next so and so or, you know, I, this can be tricky. And when you are, if you have an intention of querying to try to find an agent to try to go down the road of traditional publishing, because one of the things that you usually include in a query letter are like two comparable titles, where you say, you know, this book will appeal to fans of this other book or this other book. But even in that, you're not saying that I'm the next so and so or this is the next, this book, it's just hey, readers who find these books interesting. And you know, who picked these up in a bookstore probably will also find mine appealing. That's all that is so and it can be really, it can be really hard, especially if you are someone who gets inspired by other writers. I know, I certainly do.

 

You know, I think about like, authors who have written a lot of successful good comp, like complicated, you know, psychological thrillers, for example. And I admire them so much. But I use them as inspiration in a sense of like, I really liked their career and the kinds of books that they're writing not inspiration in, let me copy their writing and try to emulate that. You're going to have your own writing style, just because if you you are going to have your own life experiences that you draw from and maybe infuse into your book. That's all personal so so that can be a roadblock if you are trying to, like copy and paste someone else's book or style or voice onto your manuscript. So make sure that you're not doing that intentionally or I guess, unintentionally.

 

The last thing that we're going to talk about in this episode, again, there's so many things that can be roadblocks, but the last thing I want to talk about is just that the plot points in your story aren't connected, they're just random. So if you think about plot points in a story, there are well okay, there are a lot of different outlining methods and story methods of dissecting the building blocks of novels of fiction. So this can be something that you know, if you are really into this and you want to take read, like save the cat or taking a class or something to understand this, you that's fine. But even if you don't do that, you know, you still needed to kind of think about how all of these plot points are connected.

 

Sometimes when I'm editing a manuscript by a newer writer, there are scenes or moments in the manuscript where it's like the purpose of of those scenes or moments, it's just not clear. And every scene that you have every plot point needs to serve a purpose and build upon the previous one. Now, when I say serve a purpose, I don't mean like, plot related. Always, a lot of times, yes, but it's not a sudden, it's not a case where every single scene has to have the action packed and move the story forward. Sometimes the purpose of a scene like let's say you have, you're writing a novel, a fantasy novel, and your main character has been on this quest to do something related to like magic, I don't know.

 

And they have a scene where they're just like, you know, they're traveling through this different kingdom, they have a scene where they're in the cave, sleeping for the night, and they're just like processing what happened, that scene isn't technically moving the plot forward, and that nothing happens. But it's essential for from a character development perspective, you have to give the character a room to breathe, you have to give the character time to process and for the reader to understand what's going on with them internally, like, how are they feeling about everything that just happened that day, or that those chapters, you know, so purpose doesn't always have to be plot.

 

But what what we don't want to do is just kind of throw like loosely connected random things that happen, because they might be fun into the story. If you think about plot points and how they're connected. And you're maybe you're stuck in brainstorming and trying to figure out what your plot points are going to be. Think about this question or think about freezing it this way, when you're coming up with these plot points. Because of this, this thing happens. And because of this, this thing happens. So because I was running late for my job this morning, I didn't have time to stop at, you know, my usual coffee shop. And because I was because I didn't have time to stop, I was sleepy, I was caffeine deprived.

 

And then I got in an accident. And because of that I was even more late to work. And because of that I had a meeting with my boss that got pushed, you know what I mean? Like thinking about it like that. Not that you have to outline every single step like that. But that's just an example of how all these events are building upon each other. So if you can answer that question, or like, not question I keep wanting to call it a question, but it's not. Because of this, this thing happens. Because of this, this thing happens. And think about it as like, all of these plot points is building blocks of the story, and all of the scenes that you have as building blocks of the foundation of your story.

 

So yeah, just be be mindful of that. And it might be the case, like if you're listening to this in your mid draft, or you know, kind of in the writing process somewhere, and you're not really sure if these are essential building blocks. And if you're doing this accurately, it might be a case where you just have to finish your draft. And then you can go back in the editing phase and look at it from a bird's eye perspective to see, okay, are all of these things sort of building upon each other in some way? Yeah, so that can be something that's good to do an editing, if you are like, already well into the writing process.

 

And you are not someone who outlines and identifies all these things at a time, which is fine, don't have to be someone who doesn't outline and figures all this out ahead of time. But if you are more of a pantser, and you just kind of write as you go and discover the story, then it might be again, it might be essential for you to go back and just make sure that everything you put into the book needs to be there and serves a purpose, whether related to the plot or character development or something like that. So okay, so take a look at all of these things, kind of check with yourself about them. You know what, I guess one other thing that we, that I'll mention that we didn't talk about is just the mindset piece of it, like sometimes the roadblock to telling a good story is you like you getting in your own way, you being afraid to sit down to write because you fear that it's not going to be any good. So that's definitely something that can happen.

But they're just from a craft perspective, you know, these are things that you should watch out for. And they're going to be easier to identify, the more that you do this. That's just the thing, like I mentioned, in my own experience, that first short story that I wrote, I didn't have the skill or the ability to be able to see that what was on the page was not really strong. I was just projecting all these things onto it. So you know, this is something that you'll be able to do, the more that you write, the more that you practice, you're just going to get better at doing these things.

Katie Wolf