My Report: Part Three

Storyline first.

So many of us get caught up on the details--I know I have. When should we use that token adverb? Was that passive voice? How much detail should I use?

One thing I loved about Dave Wolverton's workshop was his emphasis on story. I raved before about that book, STORY by Robert McKee, and I stand by it. It is the single greatest book for writers... who mean to write STORIES.

At the workshop, Dave looked at our outlines. He also read our first twenty-five pages. But who cares how those pages read if the story is schmuck. We need to know what genre we're writing, who we're writing to, how we will reach them. These are the questions we must answer before we conquer sentence structure. Why do we get so bogged down on the details when the framework may very well be wrong?

In McKee's book, he said he new very many writers who could write a flashy sentence, but he knew almost zero writers who could tell a great story. It is an uncommon skill! We should harness it! And on top of the difficulty, we're competing with the thousands of other writers out there, millions if you count those who have written before us. Today, we're dealing with readers who have consumed thousands of stories via TV and books. They want something to make them feel. We must give it to them, if we aim to stay afloat.

So, that is my message for the day. While rewriting fragility I'm not worrying about making the sentences perfect. I need to spit the story out first.