Imagination to Execution
Get Done Daydreaming and Get Writing
Today’s Shelf Life is for all those who have an idea. In other words, it’s a Shelf Life for everyone.
Everyone reading Shelf Life has an idea for a story. I can say this safely because everyone has an idea for a story. This fact is well known to writers and editors because when someone finds out you are a writer or an editor they will volunteer that they have a great idea for a story. And that perhaps you could help them write or edit it.
Which is what I am here to do, after all: Help people write their stories. So today’s Shelf Life is really for the folks who have an idea but haven’t been able to get it out of their head and down on paper. Unfortunately, actually writing the story is the hard part. Having the idea for it is the easy part. Imagining is easy. Execution is hard.
Humans are idea machines. It’s in our nature to ideate. We identify problems, we use creative ideas to surmount them, we identify more problems, and so on. Everyone is having ideas all the time.
On the other hand, humans are not inclined to execution by nature. We’re really good at it when we do it, but it’s not our favorite pastime. Humans are apex predators and the natural state of the apex predator whose needs are met is lying around the savanna, sunning oneself. This is why I don’t believe people when they call themself, or someone else, lazy. Rest is the natural state of the satiated predator. Are your eyes on the front of your head? Yes. Are you hungry right now or exposed to the elements? If no, then rest is your natural state.
This is why capitalism works so hard to make life inhospitable for those who don’t work and overwork themselves. Billionaires can’t afford to let us slack off into a utopia. They have shareholders to think of.
But anyway there’s no need to get into all that. The main thing is: It’s easy to have ideas. It’s harder to execute them. It’s hard to get that first story, or essay, or poem, or blog post, or what have you, onto the page. After the first one, it gets easier.
So today’s Shelf Life is about how to get started on that first one, for those who are having trouble fixing their idea on paper.
The Five Ws
Let’s start by applying the 5 Ws of journalism to your idea. (We’re going to tack on an H in a minute, too.) The 5 Ws of journalism are:
Who
What
When/Where
Why
And the H we’re tacking on is, naturally,
How
I’ve combined “when” and “where” into one bullet that will become apparent in a moment.
These 5 bullets correspond to 5 critical things you need to know about your idea to turn it into a story proper, which are:
Character (who is this story about);
Backstory (what is going on in this character’s situation);
Setting (when and where does this story take place);
Motivation (why will your character leave their status quo behind); and
Plot (how will your character make their way from the beginning to the end).
The first step is to quiz yourself using these journalism questions. Instead of diving right into writing a short story or even a novel, try dipping a toe into the writing ocean by starting with a news article: Just the facts, ma’am.
All the News That’s Fit to Print
Newspaper articles are written in a very specific way. They follow what’s known as “inverted pyramid” style: The most important facts and information are at the top (that’s the big part of the pyramid) and then later parts of the article give more background information and detail. This is so someone reading the article can get the main idea quickly and decide whether they want to read more or move on to the next article.
This is what you’ll do in this exercise, as well. You’re basically writing a news article about your idea instead of, you know, writing the story or novel itself. Using the five bullets from the previous section—your four Ws and one H—start with a headline that captures the most important facts about your story.
Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet to Wed
That might be the headline for Pride and Prejudice. Is it a spoiler? Sure. But this exercise is only for you so don’t worry about spoilers.
Next, write your lede. The lede is the first paragraph of the news article and states the essential facts—the most important parts of your story. Several, if not all, of your four Ws and your H should be included here.
The following paragraphs can go into more detail of each of your Ws and your H. For instance, that Elizabeth Bennet has four sisters might not have made it into the headline or the lede, but would be important facts to include “below the fold”—later on in your article.
Elizabeth is the third Bennet daughter to wed, after her elder sister, Jane, and her youngest sister, Lydia. Mary and Kitty Bennet are as yet unmarried, though not for long if Mrs Bennet has anything to say about it.
Don’t feel like you have to constrain yourself to a newspaper length article—just try to write a newspaper style article. Capture the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth—all the facts about your story.
Remember, you’re not writing your story at this stage—just writing an article about your story. Pretend your story is real and you’re a journalist writing a newspaper article about the events. Your (imaginary) audience for this is all the random people who live in the universe in which your story is set.
Break It Down
Now you’ve done some actual writing. Make sure you check the word count on your newspaper article, too. Give yourself credit for what you wrote.
Next, read your news article back to yourself and think about how you’re going to break down the events of your story into a five-act structure:
Exposition
Rising action
Climax
Falling action
Resolution
The breaking points between each of these sections are fairly easy to find.
The exposition ends with the inciting incident; this is the moment when the protagonist’s status quo is irrevocably interrupted and they cannot go back to life as it was before.
The rising action is the longest part of your story and ends when the climax begins.
The climax is the big showdown between protagonist and antagonist. The climax ends when either the protagonist defeats the antagonist—or vice versa in a tragedy.
The falling action takes place after the climax and wraps up loose ends. This is the part of the story where everyone finds their new normal in the changed world. The falling action ends when the fallout of the climax has been addressed.
The resolution is the final part of the story wherein any final conflicts are resolved, lingering questions answered, and the story ends with the reader—hopefully—feeling satisfied.
Take all the things you wrote about in your news article about your story and put them into one of these five buckets. Within each bucket, put the items in chronological order, earliest to latest, to the best of your ability. It’s okay if you don’t intend to tell your story chronologically—for now, just try to put the events in order as best you can.
Draw a Line and Fill the Gaps
Once you know where each of your story events falls in the five-act structure, take a look at how many items you have in each bucket. Rising action should have the most, followed by climax. Exposition, falling action, and resolution should have relatively few in comparison. Juggle some items around if anything feels off.
Now: Run through the chronological events of your story. Ask yourself whether you can draw a straight line from beginning to end. Does your list of events include all the transitions you need to get from one to the next to the next all the way to the end of the story?
If there’s anywhere in your story where you can’t figure out how to get your characters from point A to point B, that’s where your plot’s a little thin. You may need to go back to the drawing board a few times to fill any gaps in the plot until you feel you have a nice, solid line from “once upon a time” to “the end.”
Next Steps
Now, perhaps you’re wondering: When are we going to get to execution? Isn’t this all still idea?
No! Surprise, you’ve been executing all along! Writing the news article was executing, planning your structure was executing, and filling your gaps was executing. You don’t have a finished story, but if you followed the steps in today’s Shelf Life, you’ve taken the first steps toward writing your screenplay, short story, or novel. You’ve knocked out one of the two hardest parts: Starting. Now you just have to take a swing at the other hardest part: Finishing.
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