In a new post, C.S. Lakins suggests six questions you can ask to reveal the heart to your story and elevate your book from good to great. “A book with that kind of magic—that resonates with our heart and somehow fulfills a need in our soul—that is the mother lode,” she writes.
So, how do you target that heart? There’s no secret formula for creating it, but there are some keys to unlock it. First, Lakin says writers have to go deep within themselves. “If their writing doesn’t drag them long into late-night hours with grabbing intensity, it won’t keep anyone else up reading either,” she writers. “If their writing doesn’t possess them and draw life from them in order to come alive, the story will be flat, and maybe even feel dead.” And one dive isn’t enough. “Each story you mine will be different, and will require a new journey on perhaps unmapped trails and dimly lit tunnels,” Lakin adds.
Most writers decline to make the journey, but the less-traveled road is worth the trip. “That road takes you to a deeper level than you can reach with your intellect, and if you’ve ever had a moment when you’ve written a mind-blowing sentence or paragraph, or you’ve found tears streaming down your face as you reread a passage you just wrote, you know there is that special place a writer can get to, a Shangri-la or nirvana where magic happens,” Lakin writes. “For some of us writers, that’s the place we aim to get to every time we sit down to write.”
Lakin’s six questions for discovering your story’s passion are:
- What passion inspires me to tell this particular story?
- What idea or “message” do I long to get across to my readers in this book?
- What would I say is the enduring theme of this story, and how do I feel about this topic?
- What scene or element in my story gets me excited and why?
- What would my main character die for?
- Who will be uplifted by this story and why?
