A Flawed Premise

All people are natural storytellers, whether or not they’ve ever written so much as a single piece of flash fiction. Unfortunately, to be perfectly blunt, most of the stories we tell stink. They don’t have any kind of narrative arc, nothing much happens, no one learns anything, and a lot of times they end with the world as we know it collapsing into an unrecognizable hellscape. They do, however, have plenty of villains and heroes. Those are never in short supply.

To be fair, we all tell these stories for the same reason: to make sense of the world we live in. Why, we cannot help but to wonder, is all this weird stuff happening? Why did this one succeed and that one fail? Why are those people doing awful things to those other people? Why are my plans not working? Why doesn’t she like me? And why do I feel so bad so of often? These are perfectly good questions. If you’ve ever written a story on purpose, you know how important a good question is. It’s the seed from which of most them grow.

When we sit at our desk in front of a blank page and ask our questions, like, “How can I get my protagonist out of jail now that I’ve put him there?” or, “What does my heroin do for a living?” we start getting answers. We don’t always like what we get. That’s why we sometimes sit there tapping our chin, sipping our coffee, staring out the window, waiting. Waiting for the idea we like, the one that will serve our story. Why put something in there that doesn’t belong, that takes it in the wrong direction? It makes no sense.

That’s deliberate storytelling. It’s the best kind. But then there’s what we do away from the desk. We keep asking questions and getting answers. Here’s another one I notice most us ask: How do I know I’m good enough? Am I attractive enough, smart enough, creative enough? How do you know? By how many books I’ve published? The numbers in my bank account or on my bathroom scale in the morning? How many lovers I’ve had?

I’ve answered that question the way most of us do: unconsciously. I didn’t know I’d answered it, but I had, and the story of my life unfolded accordingly. Then I’d find myself wondering, “Why do I feel so rotten? And why are things not working out the way I want them to?” My story, I was learning, had a flawed premise. Its hero had to prove his value, a task at which he could only fail just as he would fail to write a poem with a calculator.

Check out Fearless Writing with Bill Kenower on YouTube or your favorite podcast app.

Everyone Has What It Takes: A Writer’s Guide to the End of Self-Doubt
You can find William at: williamkenower.com