In the middle of September, I launched what I’ve been calling “The Build-a-Book Workshop.” Every Wednesday, between September and June, I’m sending out a weekly exercise designed to help you strengthen the foundation of your book, no matter where you are in the writing process.
And here we are in November! If you’ve been following along, you’ve learned quite a bit about what kind of book you want to write. Here are some other topics you’ll learn about by the time June rolls around:
· How to build your hero
· How to drive your story forward with conflict
· How to create a page-turning plot
· How to get your draft onto the page
· Where to get feedback for your draft
What’s the point of your story?
In recent posts, I’ve pressed you to consider your audience’s pain points, even if you’re writing something light and fun. Now you’re going to take the emotional experience you want your reader to have and distill it into a short statement of what you are trying to say with your book.
Think of it as like a thesis statement for your novel.
Uggh, thesis statements? That sounds like homework!
You may be thinking to yourself: I don’t have a point – that would make the story preachy and boring. I just want to write a fun adventure story about pirates and mermaids. Do I really need a point?
If your sole intention for writing is to entertain yourself, then no, you don’t have to have a point.
BUT, if your goal is to publish the story, convince other people to pay for it, read the whole book, and enjoy it, then you need to craft a story that other people will care about. That is much easier to pull off if you have a clear point.
Why?
Because our brains are constantly searching for meaning. We read stories because we want to understand ourselves, other people, and the universe. We might consciously think we like stories because of the political intrigues, explosions, banter, etc. But we like it because it makes us feel something and we come out of the story a slightly different person than when we started.
If you want your readers to feel something after they have read your story, it’s a good idea to have a point.
What if I don’t know my point?
You're in good company. Lots of writers don't know their point at first, and it can change as you write. Here are some exercises that might help you figure it out.
Exercise 1: Journal about the following questions
Why does writing this story matter to you? Why is it so important that you tell it?
What feelings do you get from thinking about or reading your story?
What feelings do you want your audience to feel after they finish your story?
What is something you want your audience to know, do, or think after they finish your story?
What is the lesson or point that you need to hear in a story? (I have found that frequently, the point of my story is the something I’m chewing on in my subconscious…it’s almost always something about accepting change.)
Exercise 2: Write down your point
Distill down that idea, feeling, or lesson into a one or two sentence statement about life, human nature, or the universe. E.g. "Better to have loved and lost than never loved at all."
When you come up with a point that makes you go “YES! That’s it!”, write it on a sticky note or somewhere you will see it often so you’ll remember what you’re story is all about. This is your True North!
I did that, and it sounds cliché.
If it sounds cliché, that’s actually a good thing, because it means your point has universal appeal. And don’t worry, it won’t feel cliché in the story. You can write so many different stories all centered around the same point.
One of my friends and I both wrote YA novels where the point was that tradition isn’t always good and bad traditions should be broken. My novel is a high fantasy and hers is a monster-in-the-house horror.
I did that, and I still don’t know my point.
That’s okay too. You might need to keep writing scenes, or even a whole draft to figure it out. In my own writing, both fiction and nonfiction, I usually start out with at least a vague notion of what I want to say or write about, but it’s not until I start actually tinkering with words on the page that the idea crystalizes. It’s totally fine if you haven’t figured out what you’re trying to say until the end of your draft. Once you do figure it out, you can go back and revise your story to make sure you drive the reader towards your point.
Once you have a point, how do you make sure that your story transmits that point?
Often, your point is also the thing your character learns from their quest. That’s why for the rest of November and into the beginning of December, I’ll be sending you exercises to help you develop your main character and their arc of change.