Is Romancing the Story Preventing You from Telling the Story?

I am coming across a problem with many aspiring writers. There seems to be a movement of romancing the story, the writer is so in love with their subject, or topic, or idea of what they want to write that they are having trouble writing the story

So the first thing you must do is FOCUS. Can you come out of the story long enough to develop an outline, or a solid foundation?  You probably don’t even know that you are in a romantic relationship with your idea. Just think about how you feel when you are imagining the book. Warm and fuzzy, excited, all kind of emotions emerges when you are thinking about writing.  Then reality smacks you in the face, frustration, and fear sets in and you don’t know where to start, so you write a few pages, it doesn’t come together (yet) so you go back to romancing the story; does it sound familiar? Knowledge is power, so let’s start at the beginning.

What do you want to say in your book?  What is the message? Let’s take the memoir genre for example, in the last few days I talked with two students in my writer’s workshop. They had the same problem. It took time to pull out what they want to say, so here are some tips to help you focus enough on what you are trying to say in memoir writing.

1.  What are you writing from?

Is it Pain, Frustration, Fear, Hope, Love, Courage, Freedom, or simply a need to tell a story. Knowing what is within helps identify and determine what you want to tell the reader.  Do you want them to identify with you? Do you want to give them insight on a particular subject; do you want to inspire them to change? Are you just telling a story to entertain? Are you educating the reader through your personal experience? Feel it authentically, and then identify it.

 2.  Why do you want to tell the story? Find your motivation. Can you explain why you feel driven to write the story?  You can only accomplish this by coming out the story and rationally looking at the work in a detached way. It is the only way you can successfully START the process. This is personal, and private, and it's the drive that you can't get away from. Many writers are writing from a personal pain, or frustration with an issue, what is yours? What issue or problem do you want to resolve or expose with your story.  Remember a memoir is your story.

 3.  Define your audience. As you write begin to see a group of people in front of you, they are the ones you are writing to. It’s safe to say that’s not everybody. When I wrote this post, I see the writer who is having problems with writing their stories.

 4.  Now you begin to see something emerging….a solid idea of what, why and who. Write it out, and then begin your first chapter.  Begin to see yourself as you romance and daydream about the story, you can’t change what you can’t acknowledge. keep writing, and begin to see yourself as author whose goal it is to finish the story!!!