Writing the Bones

What is a story? This is the question every writer should consider before setting pen to paper, or fingers to keys. A story has a purpose, it has reason. Or it should. Stories are tales of life, of hope, of lessons learn and those yet to be learned. Some have morals, some are entertaining, and some educational. They can be all of these or none, but what they shouldn't be is about nothing.

Once you have that glint of an idea in your mind and decide you want to write it down, to pass it on to others, to share with your best friend or the world, make sure you know what the purpose of your story is. What's its theme? What are you trying to say. If you don't know or think it's not important, think again.

Great writing can envelop us, draw us into imagery so marvelous and fascinating that we lose track of time, of our cares, and our troubles. But that alone does not a great story make. If you take the reader on a glorious journey of language only to arrive back where you started, having ultimately said nothing, you will have failed in your purpose as a writer.

Stories pass on a host of things and too often the writer is drawn into the power of their own words that they forget the most basic element. What is a story? To tell someone something.

So go to it. Tell me.

-G.