What Writing Well Really Means


How’s this for irony: the two things that writers focus on first and foremost are the exact two things that tend to keep their stories from getting out of the starting gate: beautiful writing and a well-structured, dramatic plot.


Sure, beautiful writing is a plus, and yes, a well-structured, dramatic plot matters. But they are handmaidens of something far more important: the story. 

Why don’t we already know this?




Because our experience as readers seems to say something else. After all, when you read a great book, the two things you see on the surface are the beautiful language and the plot. So it’s insanely easy to assume that they are the elements that hook and hold you, and thus are what you should focus on when you set out to write a book. 

Not so! 

What actually hooks you – what your brain is wired to crave, hunt for and respond to in every story it hears – is the story itself. Without that, neither the writing nor the plot, regardless how well executed, have any power at all. Except, maybe, the power to bore. 


Beautiful writing is not enough


Beautiful writing is merely the vehicle that conveys the story. By itself, language is an empty vessel. What gives language its life-changing power is the meaning it conveys, and that comes from one thing only: the story.


A good plot is not enough

And the plot, by itself, is merely a bunch of external things that happen. Which makes it all the more heartbreaking that writers are often so focused on the plot that they spend countless hours poring over “story structure” manuals, as if by creating a rigid one-size-fits-all exoskeleton a story will magically appear. 

Not so!

Now for the million-dollar question: If the story is what hooks us, what is a story, exactly? 


In a nutshell: A story is one single, unavoidable external problem that grows, escalates and complicates, forcing the protagonist to make an internal change in order to solve it.

The story is about what it costs the protagonist emotionally to change internally, not what happens to her externally. The plot is created to force her to make that change (or not). 

I think you see where this is going: how can you create a plot to spur that change if you don’t know what the change is, or why she needs to change?

You can’t. Nor can you express any of it in beautiful language until you know what it is. Until then, beautiful language just gets in the way, and starts to take precedence over figuring out what you’re actually trying to say in the first place.


The more meaning you have to convey, the more beautiful the writing becomes.

All of which means that there is a whole lot you need to know before you get to page one. 

So, what does “writing well” really mean? It means digging deeply enough into your story – before you even think about writing page one – so that when you get there, you have something meaningful to say.  

And – one final irony, a good one – the more meaning you have to convey, the more beautiful the writing becomes. 


Lisa Cron, who recently spoke at the SCBWI Midwest (U.S.) Conference, is the author of Wired for Story and Story Genius. Her video tutorial Writing Fundamentals: The Craft of Story can be found at Lynda.com, and her TEDx talk, Wired for Story, opened the Furman University 2014 TEDx conference. Lisa has worked in publishing at W.W. Norton, as an agent at the Angela Rinaldi Literary Agency, as a producer on shows for Showtime and Court TV, and as a story consultant for Warner Brothers and the William Morris Agency. She’s an instructor at the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program, and is on the faculty of the School of Visual Arts MFA program in Visual Narrative in New York City. She teachers an online Story Genius Workshop, and is a frequent speaker at writers’ conferences. In her work as a story coach, Lisa helps writers wrangle the story they’re telling onto the page. She can be reached at wiredforstory.com and at Story Genius Workshop.  [Your SCBWI Monday editor can also testify that she is an inspirational teacher!]

Twitter: @LisaCron
Lisa@wiredforstory.com  


6 comments:

  1. Lisa this is great! One thing I noticed: it took me a few drafts & lots of deep-think before I __knew__ what story I was trying to tell, in terms of that core-transformation of the character & how it was spurred by outside events. So time is probably our friend, especially at the early part of our writing journey: letting a story sit and percolate. Your post reminded me of the hungry beasts in the afterlife in Pullman's HIS DARK MATERIALS, who will do anything for a story and accept nothing less than the truth.

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  5. The definition of writing story illustrated by Lisa Cron is awesome. Here I noticed that I didn’t know how a story was formed in terms of co-transformation of the character and spurred by outside events. That’s why during our early writing journey, time is our best companion that allow a story sit and proceed. http://webtoolsreviewed.com/articleforge/

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