When you first get excited about a story—when that little spark of something suddenly lights up your whole brain—it can be tempting to dive right in, pen cap forgotten on the floor.
But if you have stumbled onto this article just before writing your first story, allow me to bend your ear for a moment. If you want to see your story through, I have a few questions you’ll want to ask yourself before diving in.
Question #1: What’s the ending?
You discovery writers or pantsers or what-have-you may cringe upon reading this, but hear me out! Take it from someone who has written (or attempted to write) stories using just about every approach: you want to know at least what vibes the ending will have before you begin. This will give you a guiding light to step towards when you are in the darkest part of your manuscript—when you might otherwise get lost or get bored and want to quit.
If you know the ending, you know where you’re going. If you know where you’re going, you might find taking the next step that much easier.
Question #2: Who is this for?
This question is secretly several questions stacked on top of each other wearing a trenchcoat and a fake mustache.
To start with, do you have any intention of publishing? Because that will affect many, many things about your story (maybe not now, but definitely later, when you start the revision process). Publishing means you will have an audience, and you’ll probably want to keep that audience in mind—what beats they expect to be hit, what tropes you could subvert to surprise them, et cetera.
On the other hand, you may have no intentions whatsoever of showing this story to another soul. And that’s okay! Great, even! Type that—that this story is for you and no one else—in a comment on your doc. Or scribble it on a sticky note and use it as a bookmark in the journal you’re using it. Either way, you’ll be much more likely to remember that when you’re wondering if what you have is any good.
Question #3: What am I trying to say?
Every story has a meaning. Even if you don’t plan one, it’s gonna have one. If you at all desire to have your work read by other people, it will save you lots of thinking and hand-wringing about whether people will get the wrong idea about what you’ve written if you simply clarify that for yourself now.
And if you’ve decided you don’t want anyone else’s eyes on this? Well, it might help your therapeutic fiction writing be more effective if you know why you’re needing the self-therapy in the first place.
