I’m reading Story Genius by Lisa Cron, recommended by one of our sessoion presenters at the recent Women Writing the West Conference. It’s all about how you must dig deep into the past of your protagonist and find out what actually needs to be driving your stories. Cron says that the plot is not the story and that’s the problem with a lot of authors who never see their work in print. They create a long series of events with nothing driving them. I’m going slowly with this book because it’s so deep. I have to read a couple of chapters, then think about what I’ve read and let it percolate for a while.
The key to understanding what drives your story, according to Cron, is to understand what’s driving your protagonist. What are their deepest desires and what misbeliefs are keeping them from attaining those desires? If you can figure out what’s driving your hero, you can create a story that readers can’t put down because they probably have experienced the same desires or seen them in someone familiar. Just writing down a series of exciting events won’t do it because the reader won’t feel connected to the protagonist and won’t care.
I’m not going to summarize the whole book because I want you to read it yourself so you can follow the excellent advice within. I’m going to be reading Cron’s other writing textbooks as well, and I may review them here for you later.