My Writing Breakthrough

So I made my roughly annual visit to my psychotherapist, bringing what seemed to me an intractable writing problem.

THE PROBLEM: I didn't have a reliable sense of how many times I have to say things in a story to make them clear to most people. I'd write something that I felt hammered the reader over the head with the point. Yet not everybody got it. And I'm talking about people with good sense.

In no time, Nick Stratas (my doc) offered a plain and simple and effective solution. So simple it seemed like a no-brainer. And yet I, and later my writing group, were stunned by the power of it, and the fact that none of us had thought of it after 23 years of meeting, a stack of published books, several movie deals, a couple of stage adaptations, and decades of writing struggles.

EVOLUTION OF THE SOLUTION:

Nick: How long does it take you to figure out the point of one of your novels?

Peggy: One full draft.

Nick: And then you write that down and keep it in front of you while you write?

Peggy: No.

Nick: Why not?

Peggy: Because I know the point by then.

Nick: It takes you a full draft to discover it!!! This is preconscious material. It can slip away. That's why people keep a notebook beside their bed. I wake up with some wonderful idea and by the time I go to the bathroom, it's gone.

Peggy: (flooded with memories of times of re-remembering the point of a story, after not thinking of it for months) Oh. (pause) Yeah. (pause) You're right. (in wonderment) Jeez.

THE PUNCHLINE: Write down the embarrassingly simple idea that underlies the story. Keep it visible during writing times.

Turns out the problem hadn't been that I didn't know how to be clear; it was that I periodically forgot what I was talking about.

THE CHEEKINESS OF IT ALL: It takes confidence on the part of an advisor to make such a simple suggestion. A few years back I visited a notably astute psychic on my January birthday, a tradition I maintained for while. My annual question was: how do I make the most of what's going on for me in the next year? On one visit her answer was: eat more vegetables.

What a letdown. And how true. It would be easy to think that it's necessary to look good by saying something more complicated. It takes boldness to say the simple effective thing.

MY WRITING BREAKTHROUGH: Putting the idea in front of me is working. That's what it took to get fully clear.