Writing Your Best Story

I've heard or read where coutless published authors, editors, and agents advise aspring authors to write their best story.

I get the notion of producing the best work you can, the most polished and flawless manuscript within your capabilities. But is that your best story?

How do you know what that is? How does one tell?

Well, it's probably not your first manuscript.

Of course, it could be, because I always allow for the possibility of pure genius. I also allow for those who study everything there is to know, sit down, and get it right the first time. Improbable but possible.

More than likely, your first complete manuscript is riddled with issues a freight train couldn't miss. A weak opening. Multiple POVs within a scene. Boatloads of backstory. Boring scene/chapter endings. A sagging, if not, fallen middle. Too many subplots. Uninteresting characters. A rushed or tired ending.

What happens to that first manuscript in many cases? It sits on a hard drive, or other storage device, never to marry with a printer, much less a publisher. Or, for the sake of actually being able to hold it in one's hand and feel the weight of that first opus, you print it in all it's glory, rubberband or box it up, and slide it neatly beneath your four-poster bed.

Then, you start another story.

Hopefully somewhere before the start of that first story and the start of the second, you learn some things. You attend online classes, fly to a popular writer's conference, absorb every recommended craft book, lurk on every "must-read" blog, join a friendly and encouraging critique group.

So the next story will be a better story. Better written, anyway. But will it be your best story?

Margaret Mitchell wrote one book. One. All fans of romance and women's fiction know that book to be Gone With The Wind. There are some things she could have done to make it a better book, in my opinion. (I realize I'm bordering heresy here for some folks but stay with me.) I haven't read GWTW in a while but I've read it numerous of times. It's looong. Too long. Lots of omniscient POV narrative, even if it was the writing style of the day. A few subplots, and maybe even a few major plot plots, probably could have been dropped without damaging the story much. But it was her story, the only one she was moved to write. Likely her best story. I believe that's truly why she quit.

So, let's say your second novel is now friends with the first, lying dormant somewhere and you begin yet another and then another, all the while improving your craft. You're writing better quality manuscripts, and they're starting to get noticed but are they your best story? What if that first effort, or second, was truly your breakout idea?

Maybe you consider revising one of your manuscripts, now that you know so much more than you used to. You know your voice. You know what genre works best for you. You've mastered the craft and you're confident in your writing skills. But are you telling your best story? What if it's already behind you or waaaay into your future?

I've got loads of story ideas, and I wrote my first complete manuscript last year. It was hard but fun. I proved to myself that I could. Then I tried to revise it and I couldn't. Just couldn't wrap my brain around going over and over that thing to make it much better. Too many holes and problem spots, even if I knew where exactly where every one of them lay. (If I'm screwing up the lay/lie thing, forgive me. It's my Achilles heel.)

It was too much work, I felt. I knew I could make it a better crafted story but I just wasn't willing.

Writing is hard work. I know and accept that. Part of that hard work is revision. I know that too.

But I think I also knew it wasn't my best story. In truth, I knew it when I was writing it. I had a good story idea, one that others might enjoy reading. But it wasn't my best story.

Some folks, like Margaret Mitchell, find their best story on the first try. That's why you hear of writers revising that one novel again and again and again. Deep down, they must believe, they know, it's their best story. If not, why would they put in so much hard work on something that's merely good?

A writer friend allowed me to read and critique one of her stories this past week. I thought it was a really good story, one that could be published and enjoyed by many, but it needs some work to get there. She said, as I did last year, "It's too much work." Now that bothered me a bit, which is what got me thinking about this post. I think her book could really sell but maybe for her, it's not worth the effort because it's not her best story, the one that springs from a place in her imagination so fertile and so deep that when she finds it she'll know it's is the one.

I suspect the best story of many novelists is never published. Either they find it too early in their writing careers, before they know enough to execute it well, or they get too far into their writing careers, maybe in a different genre or style of writing, that they push away or tamp down that best idea, the one that might cause their agents or editors to squirm and their readers to turn away. I think many writers, especially those who write in multiple genres, are still looking for their best story and this is part of what drives them to try new and different things, risking fan loyalty and continued income.

I think this is where the quest for "The Great American Novel" began. I don't think I've found my best yet, the one story that I can't turn loose no matter how much work has to be done to get it right. The one that I'll write and polish and revise again and again before submitting and submitting again because it has taken hold of my heart and I've got to see it through to the end. Nope, I don't think I've found that story...yet.

So, I've begun again. I'm writing a new story, trying to incorporate everything I've learned while writing the previous manuscript and since.

Is it my best story? I don't yet. As I write, perhaps it will evolve into that. But I think it's at least a good story so I'll work on it and give it my best effort. And who knows? It just might wind up being saleable and getting published.

Then I'll be off again, starting yet another good story, in search of my best story.

What say you? Have you found your best story, that one idea that deep within your spirit feels like you've hit the motherlode? The one that holds on to you like a clinging, tightening vine, no matter how many other books you write and maybe even publish? The one that gives you goosebumps even in your sleep?

Maybe I should have gone to bed earlier last night...

Peace & Blessings,
Patricia
Stay focused. Work Hard. Believe.