The book opens with an introduction which begins, Something urges you to pick up this book. And from there she begins to write not just about writing craft, but about our humanity and who we are in the world. Alderson describes how the stories we write, and things we put our characters through, speak about who we are as human beings.
I teach the Universal Story to writers through plot. Though difficult to accomplish successfully, plot is critical to stories. As I continue to teach and write and consult, I gain new insights into plot... and into writers' lives.
She goes further to speak about the things that we struggle with as writers and the things that block us and how we should dig deep when these pop up in our writing because some baggage in our real world there needs to be unpacked and dealt with.
This is not to say that a murderous villain's actions are speaking to the author's experience. She's talking about the deeper stuff. The conflicts, the motivations, the juicy meat that makes a story universally relatable.
Alderson talks about energy, and the Universal Story that we all strive to come into contact with. And how our ability to tell a story that speaks to everyone will be dependent on how we approach the world as a left- or right-brained person, or both. AND THEN... she tells you how to do it. *yay*
Look what happened when I finished the one of the exercises:
That's my book there on my wall, all laid out in blue postie notes. I've been working hard to get my final round of rewrites completed so I can get this baby out into query land and have been having issues with that first little downhill jaunt up there. Postie note number 3 and 4 after the crisis peak were causing all kinds of havoc on everything that came after.
Posting it out like this, as the exercise advised, I was able to move through and solve the problem and have become completely jazzed in the process. Above all the things, being jazzed again about this book has felt GREAT! Granted, I have a whole lot of work ahead of me, but that is also part of the journey.
I got so excited I grabbed my husband and made him come in to see the fabulous plot poster, but insisted that he didn't actually READ any of the notes because he has not read this final draft yet and some of the juicy bits have now changed. So he admired my blue story structure plan and congratulated me and then left the room with me grinning like a starry eyed maniac.
When I started writing this book, I did so without a plan. I had it in my head where I needed to go and I went. Once the first draft was finished, it was okay. I was enamored of the process and realized my story went in a few directions I hadn't intended. Many drafts later, I am still paying for that lack of planning as I rework some stuck spots and solve the larger issues of plot. Above all things, I have realized that I require a plot plan.
And that little pink postie in the lower left corner? That is the start of another line of my story about to be explored and added to the six foot postie mural. I have green and orange tags waiting to go as well. The exercises in this book are done in such a way as to help you see your story to its fullest completion. My plot poster will be a kaleidoscopic adventure of bullet points when I am done.
Ms. Alderson wrote this book especially for me. She had to have. I mean, my goodness, the woman is speaking my language. Since finding her book, I have also found her blog and see that Ms. Alderson has all kinds of stuff going on that I have been MISSING! Go there after you go to Amazon to buy her book.
Have you already discovered Martha Alderson? What say you?
