Give Your Story a Motor

This will be a short blog entry, but it’s an important one. Put on your thinking cap.

What would happen if your car didn’t have a motor?

Go ahead and answer out loud.

Right!

You couldn’t drive it. It wouldn’t go anywhere. Everybody would have to get out and push. Most people would get tired of that pretty quickly.

The same is true with stories. Without a motor, your story won’t go anywhere.

Staying on that Dream Page, give your character a problem, a motor. Be careful, though. Make sure the problem grows out of, comes from, is somehow suggested by something you invented when you answered all those questions. Make sure, in other words, that the problem is related to something you wrote down in answering the questions.

It can be a big or a little problem. In “Jack and the Beanstalk” the problem is that Jack and his mother are poor. Big problem; big motor. I’ve been poor. Believe me, it’s no fun!

In the beginning of the first Harry Potter book, we meet him orphaned and living with a family that treats him badly. Big problem!

In a story I wrote a long, long time ago, my character had to wash the dishes by himself. Small problem. He made it bigger as the story went along, but it started small.

Maybe the problem in your story comes from where the character lives.

Maybe the problem comes from the best friend.

Just make sure your character has a small or large problem and make sure it’s related to what you have written down so far.

Watch for the next blog entry! See you then!