How to choose the right story

On the time when I couldn’t

I was sitting at my desk working on my article, and it was not going well.

For some reason, I couldn’t shake the thought that maybe the story I chose is not quite right. Questions of doubt filled my mind:

• What if it’s not entertaining enough, or interesting enough?

• What if nobody cares…?

• What if I’m just telling a story for the sake of telling a story?

I shook my head in an attempt to get those thoughts out of it. My fingers back on the keyboard… Come on now.

I closed my eyes, and for the next few breaths I sat completely still – fingers at the ready, and yet I was not able to press a single key. Talking about writer’s block…

I hissed under my breath, frustration making my palms sweaty.

You’ve got this! I said out loud with a frown…

I decided to solve my problem by using a different arc, but after a few minutes of re-writing, I realised that it’s not helping – it was making the story worse, if I’m honest.

Now I had an even bigger problem. I wasn’t sure if the story was right and if the way I was writing it was right, either. Perfect!

This was getting ridiculous, but I pressed on.

Back to the original story structure…

• I re-wrote the lead… no improvement.

• I made the tone slightly lighter… still wasn’t right.

• I looked through all the books that have gotten me out of a story mess before, but all my bookmarks seemed to be about writing more than about selecting…

Perhaps I couldn’t shake that feeling for a reason?

Perhaps it wasn’t the right story to tell after all…?

I stood up and started pacing the room, as if being physically further away from the keyboard would make my problem somehow smaller.

Then, I had an idea!

In a desperate and final push to figure this out, I turned to YouTube. I thought, if I watch a few stories, I’ll be able to make up my mind if my story was worth all that effort.

Typical of my experience with YouTube, I went down the rabbit hole watching some incredible stories for at least 40 minutes. I was so immersed in the world the storytellers were painting with their words that I completely forgot about my problem. I wasn’t thinking about my story – I was thinking about theirs…

So, here I was, almost an hour later, feeling inspired and energised by the wonderful things I’ve just heard, but still not sure what to do about my story.

As luck had it, the last video I clicked on was from Matthew Dicks – whose books on storytelling I read and re-read several times – and in his video he said something that dispelled the doubt I felt in seconds:

“If you’ve got something in your heart and your mind that means something to you, that touches your heart and mind in a meaningful way, I promise you, other people will want to hear it too.”

I closed the tab, leaned back in my chair and stayed still for a good minute. Then, I breathed out the longest sigh of relief, followed by a giggle – the kind of giggle that sneaks up on you after a ‘casual’ game of Monopoly turns into a full-blown battle, but somewhere in the chaos of hotel disputes you realise you’ve actually won…

Another problem solved – I didn’t quit. And now, I finally know what to do with my story.

I sat back up, opened my draft and clicked ‘save’.

It is the right story to tell, I’m just not ready to tell it today…

If, like me, you sometimes find yourself not sure whether you picked the right story, I hope this one helps you decide.

Until next time,

Dot