I'm working with a new writing client helping her finish her memoir.
Memoir is deeply meaningful to me, as it was the first genre that captured my own writer's heart. I was a senior in high school when I feverishly scrawled a story about my uncle's death and shared it with my family declaring myself a "writer." And in the 25 years since, I've penned blog post after blog post in that same earnest spirit of truth-telling and sharing.
So I was reading my client's draft this week, and I found myself embroiled in the details of her story, nodding along, gasping at times. She was building to this particularly big moment in her life when suddenly the story shifted forward a few years without warning.
Now, this is a first draft, lovingly known as a "shitty first draft" in the publishing world, so I wasn't expecting a seamless end-to-end narrative. As her editor I 100% realize that. But as a reader I was so invested in her story that I found myself irritated with the giant plot hole.
I scrolled back up in the document to make sure I hadn't missed anything.
"What the hell happened to Ricky?!" I shouted.
"And who's Bill?! When did you marry Bill?"
"And who the fuck is Paulie?"
I laughed out loud at myself and then continued reading. She and I were scheduled to meet the following day to talk about next-steps with her draft, so I needed to get finished. But the lapse in the story stuck with me. I found myself thinking about it for the rest of the day and later that night.
When we finally connected, I could barely contain myself. She popped up in the Zoom room, and I blurted out, "I'm so glad to see you because I have GOT to know what happened between you and Ricky!"
She laughed and filled me in on the high level bullet points of her love life, which of course opened up even more questions for me. She assured me that she was adding it all to the draft.
I've always adored the plotting process when writing fiction, and even though this was memoir and her life was very much real, it had become story to me...delicious characters in a fantastical world of tribulation turned triumph.
After the call I couldn't get the whole experience out of my head. How, as consumers of story, we get invested in the plots playing out in front of us, and how often the "what next" is so obvious to us from behind that fourth wall.
I had scrolled through page after page of her document yelling at her to leave the guy or take the job or just tell off her mom already. To me it was crystal clear. But to her, it was the murky, confusing, complicated machinations of actual real life.
It got me thinking about my own life and what if it was all a book.
What if someone was reading my story live right now as I was living it?
What would they be yelling at me through the pages?
STOP WORRYING ABOUT THAT DUMB PERSON AND MOVE ON!
JUST WRITE THE DAMN THING ALREADY!
CAN'T YOU SEE THEY'RE LYING TO YOU?!
UGH, DON'T FALL INTO THAT THINKING TRAP AGAIN...
When you take a step back and remove yourself from the role of leading lady and slide into a front row seat in the theater, suddenly the drama doesn't seem so complicated. It's classic storytelling 101. The decisions don't seem scary; they look inevitable. And the players aren't villains; they're just actors pushing you to conquer your demons.
It's way less dramatic than it feels. It becomes formulaic. A series of questions with obvious answers in a well-known format.
What does the heroine need to overcome at this moment in the story? What decision does she need to make to finally grow and create a different outcome?
As humans we've been telling stories for thousands of years because they're compelling and they connect us. But also because they remind us that life is just a repeat of about 7 main storylines.
If someone was lovingly addicted to the soap opera of your life right now...
if they were invested in the characters and the plot twists and the complications...
if they were in the know about alllll the backstory and alllll the drama...
What would they be yelling at your character right now?
What's that obvious step they'd want you to take to move the plot forward?
Today could be a completely new scene. Your move.