How to Make a Story Work

Who knew - having a plan when you're writing a book is useful after all! Come behind the scenes of the book I'm writing right now.

What makes a story work? What makes a reader prefer The Three Lives of Alix St Pierre, let’s say, to The Paris Secret? Why do some stories grip us and keep us fixed in the world of the book and others make us close the covers and find something else to do?

I wish I knew!

I’m both a reader and a writer and I still can’t precisely say what magical ingredient makes me revel in a book, or if it’s a combination of several magical ingredients or if it’s nothing to do with magic, but just comes down to right story, right reader, right time.

I’ve been thinking about this because, as I mentioned in last week’s post, I’ve recently discovered John Truby’s The Anatomy of a Story and it’s giving me just the creative refresh I needed. But, once again, I can’t say exactly why this book about writing resonated with me when most others don’t. All I know is that I’ve worked my way through Truby’s book, making lots of notes and now I’m using those notes to rewrite The Secret Life of Marie-Madeleine and I can feel lots of exciting things happening on the page!

The Designing Principle

Perhaps one of the most useful things has been Truby’s discussion of the designing principle of your book, which is, “the fundamental process that will unfold over the course of the story”.

That’s sounds pretty abstract right? And at first I was stuck. What the hell did that really mean?