The Idea Makes the Story... Not

Meta
Title:	The Idea Makes the Story... Not
Creator:	Arduinna
Date(s):	May 25, 1999
Medium:	online
Fandom:	multi
Topic:	fiction writing
External Links:	The Idea Makes the Story... Not, Archived version
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The Idea Makes the Story... Not is an essay by Arduinna.

"While every good writer has an imagination, not everyone with an imagination is automatically a writer, much less good at it."

The essay was posted to Essays: Rants and Rambles.

A Story, Three Ways

To illustrate the essay, the author takes one of her Sentinel stories (White Ceiling), and writes it three ways.

• White Ceiling, ^{Archived version}
• White Ceiling (version 2), ^{Archived version}
• White Ceiling (version 3), ^{Archived version}

Excerpt

On various lists, the discussion turns to stories -- what makes them good, what makes them worth reading. At some point, usually starting early on in the discussion, there's a chorus of voices arguing that "grammar and spelling and usage and structure and syntax and attention to plot details don't matter; it's the author's *idea* that makes a good story, the author's *imagination*."

That's an interesting concept, but... no. Sorry, but no. Not so. Yes, the idea is key to the story -- but the idea alone does not make the story a good one. Without a carefully crafted support structure, the idea is nothing.

People who think that don't believe me when I say "not so", of course -- so I decided to prove it. I've taken one of my own Sentinel stories, and reworked it, twice. All three versions are linked here; read them in order, and you'll see what I mean. Each version faithfully follows the same plot line -- the *idea* is precisely the same in each. To keep the playing field completely level, I even put each story on an identical page -- no different graphics to distract the reader. If you read these and honestly -- honestly -- believe that each of these stories is deserving of the same amount and kind of praise, criticism, or indifference, please tell me. Because I read these three versions very differently, and I'd really like someone to explain to me how they can be considered equivalent.

The idea is the easy part; anyone can come up with a story idea. Anyone who has ever thought about a character and said, "I wonder..." or "What if...?" has had a story idea.

Having a story idea does not make you a writer. I cringe every time I see a story drop with an opening like "I thought of this on the bus a=dn I came home and I typed and tpyed and typed as fast as I could into email and I don't have a spellchecker but htis is really really coola dn I know evehr one is gonna luv it so i wanted to post it right awy and apleae please tell me how mcuh oyou luvd it and no flames."

There are bad writers. They write bad stories. They believe them to be good stories. They're wrong.

There are people who post story ideas or brief vignettes, and expect the same sort of praise as someone who actually writes a story gets. There are those who have no grasp of grammar or sentence structure (and I'm not talking about people whose native language isn't English -- that's an entirely different thing. I'm talking about people who are writing in what is supposed to be their mother tongue.). There are those who can't maintain a point of view, or even a tense, for more than five words (I have honest to God seen fiction with lines like, "He raises his hand and waved goodbye." -- and it wasn't a fluke, because the same sort of thing happened throughout the story). There are those who think nothing of making a tough middle-aged male character who's been trained in some of the worst hellholes in the world into what amounts to a weepy 13-year-old girl who falls apart when someone gives him a *look*.

A story has a beginning, a middle, and an end -- of some sort. Writing something that consists of a paragraph of Blair thinking, "Geez, I can't believe this is happening, three weeks ago I could've sworn that Jim was totally straight and now he's fucking me through the mattress, this is so wonderful I could cry, no, no, can't cry now, he'll think he's hurting me, and this feels so good," and then describes the sex scene for about five pages in excruciating detail, then ends with "Blair fell asleep in his lover's arms" -- that's a story idea with a sex scene thrown in, folks. A story would bring us back to that time three weeks ago. It would and show us how, when Blair and Jim were walking down a corridor at the University and came across a pair of male students snatching a kiss in a corner, Jim tensed up and turned a little green. Then it would bring us forward, showing (not telling) how Blair started noticing all sorts of little things about Jim now that his eyes had been opened, and how his hopes kept sinking further and further. It would go into detail on how they went from that to fucking -- what happened? Why? When?

And even if you do all that -- if you have a plot of some sort, if you have a beginning, a middle, and an end -- it still isn't enough. Whoever told you that writing is easy lied, okay? It's not.

I once heard someone make a wonderful analogy about writing: A writer's primary tool is the English language; you need to have an excellent command of that tool to be an effective writer and create your work of art, just as a carpenter needs to know how to use power and hand tools to make beautiful furniture. (Nice, huh?)

I took it one step further, to counter the argument that there's no such thing as objectively bad writing: Someone who uses bad spelling, bad grammar, bad punctuation, bad plot flow, and bad characterization has written a bad story, in my book -- just as a carpenter who didn't bother to level the beams or use long enough nails or square off a corner or lay an even floor has built a bad house, even if some people like the basic shape of its layout or the color of the paint on the trim.

No matter how wonderful your idea is, no matter how wonderful your plot is, if the reader can't figure out what you're saying you've lost her. If a reader has to spend time deciphering your bad spelling and convoluted grammar, she's not going to bother finishing the story (there is one hell of a lot of fanfic out there, and most of us don't have the time to waste on stuff that takes three times as long to read as it ought because of poor mechanical skills on the author's part).

To be a writer, you have to know how to use a writer's tools -- spelling (much though it appalls me to have to add this to a list of tools that people should consider before writing, I've seen far too many stories where not even the character's name -- the media-based character's name -- was spelled right to feel comfortable leaving this reminder out), grammar, punctuation (yes, it matters!), syntax, phrasing, semantics, rhythm, flow, show-don't-tell, POV... all things that make people want to read your wonderful idea.

Reactions and Reviews

This essay was discussed in another essay at The Darkness Within. The writer of that essay quotes a large part of it but does not know the author. See: The Darkness Within: Feature Article.