Why I can’t tell you what to write in your book:
(Or give you lists of options or ideas.)
1. It’s your story — Your know it better than I ever will.
I’m going to use an ask I received recently to explain this. Someone in need of ideas for their story wanted to know how to kill their character in the most gruesome way possible. Now, I personally have a secret fear of the garbage disposer. That’s my version of a gruesome death. But maybe that’s not something the asker thinks is gruesome at all. Maybe there are no machines of twirling blades in their story. Maybe their target audience isn’t here for that sort of death.
My answer isn’t necessarily the right answer. It’s just an option in a long string of possibilities, in which the right one is simply the one which fits best for the story — a story I know next to nothing about.
2. It’s your story — You’ll need a lot more than I can give.
Going back to the above example, not only would my answer not be the “right” answer, but it’s also a typical answer in a long list of answers which aren’t all that hard to come up with when you learn how to brainstorm.
As a writer (who will continue to write books and will continue to need ideas) you absolutely must learn how to brainstorm. There’s no way around this.
You, the writer, have to figure out a way to kick your own brain into gear, and make lists of idea that might work and then analyse each of them to decide what’s the best option for the story you’re trying to tell.
3. It’s your story — And I’m not your co-writer.
I did this work for my own stories already. I put in the effort, the time — hours and hours of it. In fact, I spent over 32 hours the past two weeks brainstorming for and outlining Ash From Stars and Flowers From Bone. I can’t outline your book too, and certainly not for free.
Does this mean you shouldn’t ever get help with your outlining or ideas?
Of course it doesn’t! But the people you should be getting help from are people who have personal relationships with you and your works. If you’re going to directly ask someone for advice on what exactly should happen in your story, you desperately need someone who’s already very familiar with your writing in general, with the current project you’re working on, and with what you mean to achieve with that project. And you should know their own writing well enough that you can (and do) return the favor.
I can teach you how to structure a plot and what character development entails and why good pacing works the way it does, but I’m just a teacher, teaching something that, at the end of the day, is an art form. Like all art forms, there’s no right or wrong answers.
That’s why writers need friends. They need beta readers. They need people from their specific audience who are invested in their work and understand it inside and out, who can tell them what works and what doesn’t work for their particular story.
So go make those friends. Because they will do so much more for you than I ever could.
