Hi everyone!
It's been a long day. I left the house around 7:25 AM and I got back around 17:00 PM. It's not 17:15 PM. I managed to eat something and immediately raced to my computer to write a blog post for you. Why? Because it's important!
I'll get to it.
This morning in the train to my commute I started reading a book called 'Story Driven' by Bernadette Jiwa. It's the second goal-setting/achievement/success book I've read in the last two weeks. (I'm astonished I actually had time!) It doesn't talk about stories or fiction as the title might suggest but about success in business.
Why did I buy this book? I bought it because (like most millennials) I'm a bit lost in this world. It's a book about how to achieve success and the first chapter explains why competition isn't necessary and aggressive money goals usually backfire. I'm not going to quote it but I'll sum it up quickly:
There seems to be a trend that once companies start to think about profit and success and reaching their goals rather than how they can help people/improve their vision/improve people's lives they inevitably do two things: They fail and they lose money. This has happened to Volkswagen (the emission scandal a few years back). Instead of focusing on their product and improving it in a legal/people-friendly way (their goal used to be to make an affordable and family-friendly car for the people) they decided to cheat the system and installed software that would show their emission levels of CO2 below the allowed standard. In reality their emission levels were 40 times higher than the standard. As soon as this was revealed they not only lost money (a few billions to the law) but also the trust of their customers. Their stocks dropped rapidly and... well let's say a lot of people won't be buying their cars any more.
This really struck me as significant because I know this happens to myself as well. At some point when a story is difficult I'll stop thinking about what I wanted to do with it and try to cut corners. I'll set myself easily achievable goals (cheating!) and think about how to get it out as quickly and as 'ok' as possible to still make money. An example: if a story is tough and I have no more idea what to do I'll lower my goals. Instead of 150k words for the first draft I'll establish a goal of 60k. If that doesn't work then maybe 30k. At the end - you can guess it - there's really nothing left and the story fails. This happened more often than not because of panic and because of very competitive thinking (I have to get this story out QUICKLY to make money! I need to beat everyone else's quantity of books on the market to ever make money! And so on).
Obviously this doesn't work. As soon as I fail to follow my story-goals (as opposed to money/copies sold goals!) the story inevitably turns bad. I lose sight of my actual goal (my theme/why I am writing the story in the first place) and then I try to revive it by adding things that are either tantalising (for example a shocking/violent action scene where none should be) or take a break. These two methods inexorably turn into 'this story sucks' and I drop it. To my shame it's happened more often than once.
If you're feeling lost in your story (in general) or are thinking too much about which corners you could cut: Don't.
If you're lost in your story go back to what you originally wanted to do. Think about your theme. What was it you wanted to teach people? What did you think people should REALLY REALLY know when you started this book? What did you have in mind?
Did you intend for them to learn compassion? To see how even an angry and selfish teenager can be compassionate to a random old man she meets by helping him across the street? Did you want to teach your readers how to deal with sorrow or regret?
There might be a $ symbol hanging before your eyes. You might be panicking (If you don't finish this book/story quickly you'll lose... well everything!). And if that's the case you simply need to buckle down. It's hard. Definitely. But it's the only thing worth it. You can't lose sight of your theme in favour of quick money or meeting your goals. A story will take the time it takes to be completed. A project will suffer when you stop investing into your theme and start looking at the clock.
Volkswagen's theme was to create a car everyone could easily acquire and drive safely. They then overlooked this goal in favour of quick money and intentionally mislead their customers. In turn their car ('s emission) actually became harmful to the very people they had promised to keep safe.
Don't be Volkswagen.
You'll lose much and while you might make up for it your reputation will forever be tarnished. And in this internet-obsessed age who can afford that?
Have a think on that and a nice evening!
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