As we all gathered together for today’s online video chat with 8 writers, Literary Agent Jill Corcoran and me, one writer had difficulty logging on. This being our very first technical snafu, I thought to myself, ah, ha!
Jill attempted to help the writer and then she disappeared. When she came back she advised all of us to turn off other apps on our computers. We all disappeared.
The problems resolved quickly and went on to explain how this week (the 3rd session of 4 in the Pre-Plot Workshop of our 4-month Plot from Beginning to End series) represents the Crisis point in the Universal Story. I ask if anyone had trouble with their homework this week and felt their stories weren’t what they had hoped, got lost, struggled and suffered doubt and uncertainty. Everyone raised their hands. Two or three writers, in their frustration and deeming their stories unworthy, tossed the story they started with on our journey together to plot and write throughout the entire series and chose instead to begin working on a different story.
Perhaps I should have thought to warn everyone at the end of last week’s class in preparation for the torment they could suffer when the 4 Energetic Markers of the Universal Story failed to appear in their stories or because what did appear seemed not quite right, not quite good enough.
My hope is that they’ll stick it out with the story they were first drawn to work with. It may seem easier to go back and start over again, start fresh. The harder way, the Universal Story way, is to wade deeper into the uncertainty and insecurity and fear of not being good enough or your story worthy. In the end, a gift awaits.
First, however, I find myself trembling in anticipation of what’s going to happen when we reach the 3/4 mark of the entire 16-week series…
*****NEW left for our Concept, Logline, Pitch Workshop . Have a bunch of ideas but not sure which one to write? Have a completed manuscript and ready to start querying and pitching to agents and editors? Literary agent Jill Corcoran knows concept. I know plot. Join us live and online .
If you’d like more, join me at an upcoming a writers conference, picture book workshop , middle grade and young adult intensive , and WRITER’S PLOT RETREAT and read my plot books.
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