One of the things I struggle with as a writer is finding my way into the story. I've seen a lot of other writers struggle with this, too, which is actually heartening. We know that gorgeously written narratives don't fall out of a writer all of a piece, yet when it's time for us to apply our fingers to a keyboard and start a new story ourselves, it can be discouraging how many false starts and throat clearings we have to go through until we get to the good stuff.
I know many subscribers to this newsletter are memoirists, so perhaps you'll relate to this: I've been circling around how to tell my own personal story for years. (I went to a boarding academy that occupied an old tuberculosis sanitarium and worked in a bakery that was once a morgue—how can I not write about that?) The bare facts are easy to relate, as I just did in the previous sentence, but knitting the reasons and ramifications into a story that is both personal but also in some way universal is pretty dang hard. You memoirists know what I mean!
And so I've circled around, writing snatches of scenes (the bakery/morgue is only the tip of the iceberg) trying to discover an opening into the narrative. And yesterday I found a way in. At least I think so. Now the trick is to grab onto the story by the horns and keep writing, as I so often encourage all of you to do.
I'm listening to Ruth Reichl's wonderful memoir, Save Me the Plums, and something about how she approaches her story and her past self shook something loose in me. Finally. What books have inspired or shook free your own stories? I'd love to know.
If you're having trouble finding a way to start your own story, here are some things to try:
- Start at a point of absurdity that will tie into the overall theme of your book. (Reason: It may keep you interested and will definitely interest your eventual reader.)
- Hone in on an object (or something relatively small that happened) that will widen into the larger story.
- Don't worry about explaining everything at the beginning. In fact, you can't, plus you will lose your eventual reader. You've got the entire book to reveal what happened and why, and why it matters now.
- Write the parts of your story that interest you most, even if they are just brief scenes. Don't worry about order or where the beginning of it all is. You can arrange the pieces and sew it all together later.
These are just a few ideas that worked for me and my particular project (remembering, of course, that I have a lot of writing and rewriting ahead). They may not be right for yours. I encourage you to keep investigating, keep looking at your story from different angles. Eventually, you'll find an opening.