Posts by Lisa Cron

I can’t believe I’m back! I missed you all, and the amazingly warm, welcoming and fabulously engaged and engaging community here at Writer Unboxed. I’ve spent the past year working on my new book, Story Genius, and thinking about one thing: story itself, not “writing.” Because to talk about writing is to talk about the method. The technique. The format. The genre. To talk about story is to talk about the juice, the point, the content, the thing that hooks readers from the first sentence.

I want to spend the next ten months before Story Genius comes out, letting you in on what I’ve learned about story – not just theoretically, but hands on, boots on the ground, so you can begin to harness the unparalleled power of story right out of the starting gate (which is not page one, but miles before it). It can all be boiled down into this one simple sentence:

Story first, writing second.

My goal in Story Genius was to create a step-by-step method to go from the first glimmer of an idea to a finished first draft by focusing solely on story. After all, writing and technique is born of story, not the other way around. This is good news for writers. Because story is story regardless the format, the technique, the genre.[pullquote]You know that old saw, “The pen is mightier than the sword”? It’s a metaphor, right? Wrong. It’s a fact.[/pullquote]

And the heartbreaking thing is that story – what it is, where it came from, what its biological purpose is, and what the readers’ brain is actually responding to – is not something that tends to be discussed by writers, let alone taught to writers. But strangely enough, the biological effect of stories is being talked about with increasing frequency and urgency by scientists. Discoveries and connections are being made that explode our understanding of story and the power it has over us. In other words, everyone else is beginning to figure out that writers are among the most powerful people on the planet.

You know that old saw, “The pen is mightier than the sword”? It’s a metaphor, right? Wrong. It’s a fact. You know who believes it?

The Pentagon.

I’m writing this on the Saturday morning following the Writer Unboxed Unconference in Salem, still under the spell of the one of the most amazing weeks ever. It was the absolute best, hands-down, no doubt about it, most transformative writing conference I’ve ever been to – and I have been to a lot. I want to go on to say that other conferences had their fabulous moments, too, because sheesh, you don’t want to offend anyone, and it is true. But right now, it doesn’t feel true.

[pullquote]What made the UnCon different from other writing conferences is the same thing that can help you figure out what matters in your work, where to put your energy, and how you can care for yourselves and your writing career.[/pullquote]This conference played in a different ballpark and gave writers something seminal that other conferences don’t put first: real community.

This doesn’t mean everyone sat around singing Kumbyah (thank god). Rather, we came together as complex human beings. We listened, we learned, we argued, we debated, we found common ground, and through it all we didn’t pretend to be anyone other than who we were – let the chips fall where they may. Did it make us vulnerable? Sometimes scarily so. But it was liberating, expanding, clarifying, empowering.

I can hear you yawning, thinking And so? Unless you were one of the lucky pups who got to spend five days together as the winds rattled through Salem, why on earth would you care? Why would exploring the difference between the UnCon and all those other otherwise-worthy conferences matter to those of you who couldn’t come — which, let’s face it, with everyone’s crazy, busy schedule, along with a cut off at 100 writers, is most of you? The answer is that what made the UnCon different is the same thing that can help you figure out what matters in your work, where to put your energy, and how you can care for yourselves and your writing career.

What made the UnCon so different?

As I gear up for the Writer Unboxed Un-Conference next month (woo hoo!), I thought it might be helpful to revisit some of the basic story tenets that I’ve been writing about here for the past two years (sheesh, time doesn’t fly, it vaporizes!) Often these tenets don’t come from the writing world, but rather, they’re set by what your reader’s brain expects. Writers sometimes balk at this – after all some of it flies in the face of what is taught in the writing world. Besides, it’s easy to believe that story doesn’t need to be learned. After all, no one ever had to tell you what a story is when you’re reading one. But you have to admit, when it comes to writing a story, suddenly it isn’t quite so clear. Why is that?

[pullquote]We’re hardwired to come to every story tacitly asking one question: what am I going to learn that will help me make it through the night?[/pullquote]

One of the main reasons is because what actually hooks a reader is very different from what we’ve been led to believe. It’s even very different from what seems logical, clear and obvious – which is that readers are hooked by the beautiful writing, the clever plot, the fresh voice, and so on and so forth. All those things are great, no denying it, but they’re not what readers come for. Those elements simply give voice to it – they’re the surface, the conduit. Readers come for what goes on beneath the surface. We’re hardwired to come to every story tacitly asking one question: what am I going to learn that will help me make it through the night? We’re looking for useful intel on how to navigate situations we haven’t yet been in, and new ways of looking at those we have. As a result, there’s a set of specific expectations by which we unconsciously evaluate every story — expectations that have nothing to do with being able to “write well.”

But articulating what, exactly, we’re responding to when we read a story isn’t easy, because it’s not something we had to learn, the same way we didn’t have to learn how to enjoy chocolate or how to feel pain when we skin our knee. Being enthralled by a story just happens. It’s not something we think about, because it’s part of our standard operating package – we roll out of the factory with this wiring already in place.

The good news is that we can decode what we’re wired to respond to in every story we hear. We can learn what triggers the surge of dopamine that biologically pushes the pause button on real life, letting us get lost in the world of the story. And once we do that, we can create a story that lures a reader in as surely as a trail of crumbs in the woods.

Here, then, is a reader’s manifesto – twelve hardwired expectations that every reader has for every story they hear, whether they are consciously aware of it or not. Meet these expectations, and readers won’t be able to put your novel down.

It happened again last month. A writer emailed to say that she had finally finished her manuscript and it was now ready for my professional feedback. “I’ve wanted to get it to you for months,” she wrote, “but I had to make sure it was finished first.” Uh oh, I thought. I wasn’t being mean — that was hard won experience talking. I knew this person was a good writer. That’s almost never the problem. The problem I feared was that she was about 300 pages too late, and I’d be reading a well-written, story-less, plot-filled novel that went nowhere. Which meant I’d have say to her what I almost always have to say to writers – even well published writers — who come to me with finished manuscripts: “Let’s go back to the very beginning and nail the story before you begin [pullquote]One of the biggest mistakes writers make is waiting too long to seek help.[/pullquote]to spin a plot.”   I take no pleasure in the fact that I was right.

One of the biggest mistakes writers make is waiting too long to seek help. I’m not talking about writers’ groups to cheer them on, or writing workshops to learn about craft. I’m talking about serious, professional, story-focused help so they can get their story right, right from the start. Because learning to “write well” is not the same thing as learning to write a story. And without a compelling story, the result is — at best — what’s known in the trade as a beautifully written, “So what?” And at worst, merely a bunch of things that happen.

In this regard, I practice what I preach. I worked with a coach on my first book and on the proposals for my next two books (on which my publisher instantly made offers). I work with her when I develop speeches, talks and articles. I can’t imagine working without her. I’d feel like an orchestra without a conductor, an athlete without a coach. This outside assistance helped catapult my career to a whole new level – and it can do the same for you.

But what is a book coach, exactly?

Over the past year I’ve spoken at a number of writer’s conferences, where I’ve met a great many fabulous, dedicated and talented writers and listened to a lot of keynote speeches by best selling novelists. And while just about all of them were incredibly entertaining, riotously funny, and full of I must remember that one, my writer friends will love it! anecdotes, ultimately they all made my heart sink.

Why? Because I believe that instead of being helpful, those hilarious, inspiring speeches were likely to actually derail the emerging writers in the audience. They are, in fact, surprisingly treacherous – in part.

[pullquote]Trying to take someone else’s personal process as the gospel truth can be a waste of time at best, and a career-squasher at worst.[/pullquote]

I was thinking about the danger a couple of weeks ago as I listened to one Famous Author, a man who’d written upwards of thirty novels, many of them New York Times bestsellers. He was a brilliant speaker. Funny enough to do standup, and kill. And some of his advice was, indeed, dead on because (as you’ll see below) it was Concrete, Clear, Specific and Doable. The problem was, it came wrapped, as it always does, in something decidedly more vague: anecdotes about the famous writer’s own personal process. As I watched writers all around me nod and laugh and eagerly scribble notes about his process, I wished I could have warned them to be a little more discerning – okay, a LOT more discerning. Trying to take someone else’s personal process as the gospel truth can be a waste of time at best, and a career-squasher at worst.

Does this mean that we can’t learn anything from best selling authors? Of course not! It just means that we need a guide as to what info is helpful, and what isn’t. In other words: how do you separate the pearls of wisdom that you can use, from the ones that will hobble your novel out of the starting gate?

Using the aforementioned Famous Author’s keynote speech as a case in point, here is a breakdown that separates the useful advice from the kind of advice you’d do better to scrunch down in your seat, put your fingers in your ears and hum through.

These days it often feels as if we have very little power to change things. After all, how can one actual flesh and blood-type person make a difference in the world if the Supreme Court says that corporations, with their billion dollar megaphones, are people too? Money talks exponentially louder than you or me, even when we’re shouting. We live in a country that fully personifies George Orwell’s Animal Farm maxim: All people are equal, but some people are more equal than others. Citizens United, indeed.

Thinking about it, my blood always begins to boil. That’s when (after taking a deep cleansing breath), I remind myself of the power we do have – not in some new age “we are all one” sort of way – but as writers. Because story is the most powerful agent of change on the planet. You have more power than the Supreme Court. You have more power than the biggest corporation. You can affect people directly because story mainlines meaning deep into our hearts and minds. It’s a biological truth. Story changes how we see the world, how we feel, and therefore what we do. Want some proof?

Last month we talked about the trap that unsuspecting writers are encouraged to walk right into, nay wholeheartedly embrace, from Kindergarten on. And that is: to come up with a “premise” that is out of the ordinary – think: Jane woke up one morning to discover she’s an alien – and then begin writing a story to see what happens.

And hey, that is pretty dramatic, right? Lots of things might happen. So many things that instead of being liberating, it’s paralyzing. Especially since neutral “what ifs” like this lack the elements that every compelling story needs. For instance, conflict. Where’s the specific problem? What will Jane have to struggle with? What difference will it make to her? What hard choice will it force her to make? What’s the point? We have no clue. Jane being an alien is just something decidedly odd, and ultimately, totally random. Read: meaningless.

And here’s the harder-to-see, and even more deceptively damaging fact: it’s an utterly surface problem. It’s just a [pullquote]Stories aren’t about the things that happen in them — the plot; stories are about what those things force the protagonist to struggle with, and what they force her to overcome internally in the process.[/pullquote]plot, not a story.

Point being: stories aren’t about the things that happen in them, that is, the plot; stories are about what those things force the protagonist to struggle with, and what they force her to overcome internally in the process. These are things that pre-date the plot. By a long shot. They are also things that the plot itself is then constructed to force the protagonist to deal with – often kicking and screaming.

Story is internal, not external — which is one of the many reasons why stories that only focus on external events (the plot) never work, and why starting with story structure books — from the Hero’s Journey on – will always lead you astray. Why?

I’m often asked, “What’s the biggest mistake writers make?” The answer is simple: they don’t know what a story is. So instead they write about a bunch of big, eventful, unusual things that happen. And so although they may indeed devise a fascinating protagonist, spin an interesting set-up and write beautiful sentences, their story will still be completely uninvolving. Because while big, unusual, eventful things do happen in a story, they are not what the story is about.

I’ve always wondered where, exactly, this widespread mistaken notion came from in the first place, and I just stumbled on the answer. As I’ve mentioned before, this year I had the privilege of helping a small maverick school district in New Jersey incorporate story into their writing program.[pullquote]While big, unusual, eventful things do happen in a story, they are not what the story is about.[/pullquote]

What I learned from working with the incredibly dedicated teachers, the curriculum, and the state mandated tests is that the “story is a bunch of big, eventful, unusual things that happen” idea is firmly planted in kindergarten and nourished from there on out — which is why it can be so damned hard to uproot. It’s at the foundation of how narrative writing is taught, and a major reason why so many kids (not to mention former kids) hate writing. And, for those of us former kids who love to write, it’s a major reason our manuscripts fail.

So let’s revisit elementary school for a glimpse of how our well-meaning but often misinformed teachers may have accidentally planted beliefs that have hampered our writing ever since.

“Let me tell you a story.” That’s how my talk began last month at Furman University’s TEDx conference. The topic was “Stories: The Common Thread of Our Humanity.”

I’d spent almost a year prepping for those 16 minutes. Writing, editing, and rewriting my talk. Memorizing it and rehearsing it morning, noon, and night for months till my husband, my dog, and my best friend had just about memorized it, too.  A kind friend even gathered 30 generous souls in her living room to listen to it, so I could get the feeling of an audience in my bones. Then there was picking out the right thing to wear, a particularly arduous undertaking for someone like me who hates shopping and basically wears the same thing every single day.

It all came together beautifully. When the day finally arrived, sure I was nervous. But as I stepped onto the stage, the audience looked up at me, the camera started rolling, and voila! the presentation went perfectly.

Boring, right? There’s no real story there. It’s just a bunch of things that happened. Who cares? Plus, it sounds kind of like bragging. And like maybe I’m hiding something. Could it really be that simple and straightforward?

[pullquote]One thing is for sure: the party line is always boring. Why? Because there’s nothing for us to be curious about, nothing to anticipate. No inside intel we could use, no surprising revelation, no unexpected moment, nothing that takes us beneath the suspiciously smooth surface.[/pullquote]

If only! But it’s so tempting to tell it that way. Even though it then comes across as just another version of that sugar-coated story we’ve all heard a gazillion times: “I had a goal, I worked hard, I succeeded.” Yadda, yadda, yadda, in other words, the party line.  And we all know that when it comes to party lines, the defining factor is that at best they’re a gross oversimplification, and at worst, a downright lie. One thing is for sure: the party line is always boring. Why? Because there’s nothing for us to be curious about, nothing to anticipate. No inside intel we could use, no surprising revelation, no unexpected moment, nothing that takes us beneath the suspiciously smooth surface. And that’s not what we come to story for. The surface world? We’ve got that covered! Because that’s what the surface world does, it covers up the far more messy, challenging, juicy, and intriguing world going on underneath. We come to story for a glimpse of exactly that: what goes on beneath the surface.

Which can be really hard to write about, whether it’s fact or fiction, because it’s crazy scary to step out of “never let ‘em see you sweat” territory. But that’s what stories are about. Sweating.

So, what if instead of the tidied up version I just told you, I went on and revealed . . . the truth. (This is really hard.)

In January I wrote a post suggesting that if some Pantsers weren’t successful, that maybe, just maybe, for those specific writers, it might be helpful to ask if Pantsing is a habit, rather than their inherent, unchangeable writing process. And, since that habit wasn’t serving them well, whether they might consider breaking it.

It was a simple question. And it stirred up quite a bit of passion and controversy, which is always a good thing. I love a spirited debate.

But an interesting thing emerged during that debate. It was assumed by many that if Pantsing was off the table, there was only one other alternative: Plotting. Many people therefore assumed that I was advocating Plotting, even though I never once mentioned Plotting or outlining.

A quick recap for those of you who aren’t familiar with these terms:

So first let me set the record straight: having worked with writers for decades, I’ve seen that Plotting, as the very first step in writing a novel, is one of the most counterproductive things a writer can do. And, let me say even more strongly than I did before: for most people, Pantsing is not nearly as productive as it’s touted to be – and very often is downright damaging.

[pullquote]Both Pantsing and Plotting, by definition, bypass the key element around which a story is built.[/pullquote]

This is not because the people in either of these camps weren’t good writers, or didn’t have a splendid story to tell – which is what made it all the more heartbreaking. It simply had to do with the nature of what a story is, and the fact that a lot of the common wisdom about writing is wrong.

However, as I said before, if either Pantsing or Plotting is working well for you – great! I am not for a minute suggesting you stop, or casting any doubt whatsoever on your process. In fact, I’m really looking forward to seeing your novel in the window of my local bookstore.

But for those of you who are not quite so sure about your process, or who are wondering why you’re not achieving the result you know you’re capable of, here’s what I am suggesting:

Let’s talk about New Years resolutions — sheesh, everyone else is. So, what’s the big idea here? It’s simple: the goal is to find things you’re doing that aren’t working, and swap ‘em out for things that will work.

For instance, eating fast food has made us (pleasingly, I hope, I hope) plump; watching TV every night has (let’s be honest) kinda numbed our intellect; promising to start exercising tomorrow (aka a week from never) is probably why walking up a flight of stairs has suddenly gotten so tough (no, they didn’t add more steps while we were guiltily watching Duck Dynasty and absently scarfing down Tatter Tots).

So why do we do those things day in and day out? Because they’ve become habit. And because they’re super easy – and we live in a society that has long promoted ease as a major selling point. It’s way easier to watch TV than to do, well, just about anything else. It’s easier to eat fast food than to cook a meal. It’s easier to sit than exercise.

And so watching TV, eating fast food and sitting became habit. And as we know all too well from personal experience, habits are maddeningly hard to break. Especially because it doesn’t take long for them to stop feeling like a habit at all, and instead feel like “the way things are.”

But, as Charles Duhigg says in his insightful bestselling book, The Power of Habit, “Habit isn’t destiny.” We can – and should – break habits that are not serving us well.

But first you have to recognize that what we’re doing is a habit, rather than “the way things are.”[pullquote]Habits are maddeningly hard to break. Especially because it doesn’t take long for them to stop feeling like a habit at all, and instead feel like “the way things are.”[/pullquote]

Which brings us to the real subject at hand: pantsing. Many writers embrace the notion of being a pantser – writing by the seat of their pants – as the most authentic way to write.  That is, letting it all pour out as a way of “discovering” the story they’re fated to tell. Hey, as Robert Frost said, “No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.”  It’s a dodgy sentiment at best, and often taken to extremes that would no doubt make Mr. Frost cringe, until it sounds a bit like Kevin Costner’s Field of Dreams hokum: “Build it and they will come.” Translation: write blindly and the story will magically appear.

Instead, the surprise in both the writer and the reader is most often: “Well, I thought this would be engaging, but instead it’s a big fat mess.”

Theme is something writers often talk about, especially literary writers. You rarely hear a romance writer agonize over nailing her theme before she begins writing. Which might be why “genre” fiction often has more to say about the human condition — and way more accessibly — than, um, some of the more notoriously impenetrable literary novels touted as the pinnacle of high art. (Read: Ulysses. No, on second thought, don’t. Most boring book ever, even with the dirty bits. No one is “above” narrative – it’s how the brain is wired to process information, not something we can, or should, transcend. Sorry, James.)

The problem with the preoccupation with theme is that it obscures what really matters: having something specific to say to someone. Story is communication. And yet, when it comes to teaching writing, theme often comes before anything else.[pullquote]The problem with the preoccupation with theme is that it obscures what really matters: having something specific to say to someone.[/pullquote]

All this focus on theme is something I’ve come to believe derails writers from the get-go. And by the get-go, I mean kindergarten. I’ve recently been doing work with a brilliantly maverick public school district, helping them incorporate “story” into how they teach writing. Which, as it turns out, means undoing a lot (okay, just about all) of how writing is currently taught, given state mandated we’re-going-to-test-for-it-because-its-technically-quantifiable curriculum.

Case in point: theme.

Theme is a concept that often makes seasoned writers quake – it feels esoteric, somehow highbrow, definitely academic — the sort of thing that scholars bestow upon “great literature” so graduate students can endlessly debate these novels in small, earnest seminars. Or, as a student of mine, who’d just received an MFA from one of the most prestigious universities in the country, said of her experience: “They made me read books that made me cry.” Beat. “Because they were so boring.”

Rule of thumb: Narrative gives birth to theme, not the other way around. Theme without narrative is a big fat sleep-inducing “Who cares?” Sure, theme might be helpful when analyzing something that has already been written, but it’s insanely unhelpful when trying to write something from scratch.

And yet, kids as young as seven are asked up front, before putting pencil to paper, “What’s your theme?” Just trying to define how theme manifests in a story is hard enough. To then parse it out into something specific enough to sit down and begin writing? Impossible. Why? Because theme itself is general, vague, and thus meaningless as a starting point. [pullquote]Rule of thumb: Narrative gives birth to theme, not the other way around. Theme without narrative is a big fat sleep-inducing “Who cares?”[/pullquote]

It’s kind of ironic, because theme is actually something incredibly simple: What does this story say about human nature?  Which means that, by definition, every effective story has a theme, whether or not the writer has given it a moment’s thought.

And here’s the rub, when the teacher asks, “What’s your theme?” she’s not actually asking about theme at all. What she’s really asking is something much simpler, much clearer, and much more helpful.

Translation: