Half Your Job
In the Army I once had a boss who said, “Do not come into my office with problems, come in with solutions.” I learned to bring him several so he had choices. That’s half of your job as a creative writer: provide creative solutions.
The other half is probably more important: cause a problem. I recently Zoomed a seminar with the Northwest Christian Writers’ Association (They do one a month.) where Steven James (17 novels!) said, “You do not have a story until something goes wrong.”
Wrong is the hook. Wrong needs fixing. Wrong pits the character against the reader for a solution. Wrong needs to be important to the reader and what it is defines who will keep reading. Different audiences care about different things. That is why we label our books in categories such as romance, western, mystery, thriller, cozy, literary, sci-fi, and (wait for it) Christian. Wrong defines what is a stake: a heart? A life? A civilization? Honor? Justice? The ecology? Two or three of those things?
And don’t forget to put it in chapter one.
And don’t forget to solve it.
By the way – NCWA would love to have you join. Google them or e-mail them at eric.gollings@gmail.com .
