(Discovering why you want to write it.)
You can create a story from almost any idea. But it’s hard to keep writing if you lose interest and stop caring about the story.
Many writers have plenty of ideas. But they struggle to finish their books because each shiny new idea doesn’t hold their attention for long.
They start a story, then get bored and move on to something else.
Does this sound familiar? It sure does to me. Especially with my latest book, Solo.
I thought I needed to be more disciplined: get up earlier to write, outline more… maybe even try dictation.
But discipline wasn’t the problem.
Connection to the story was the issue. I just didn’t care about it, and I didn’t know why.
Why Finding the Heart of the Story Feels So Hard
The heart of the story isn’t the idea or even the main premise. The “heart” is where the story connects to you.
Writers are often told to focus on plot, structure, premise, etc. All of these things matter, of course.
But none of them answer the question: Why do I want to write this particular story?
So we choose ideas that are promising or popular or interesting, and that can work for a while. But eventually, that isn’t enough. We need a deeper point of attachment to the story.
What is the Heart of the Story?
The heart of the story isn’t the plot, subplot, trope, or genre. It’s the part of the story that keeps calling you back.
It could be something that feels unresolved, or unsettled, like:
• A difficult situation the character is thrown into
• A relationship dynamic you’d like to explore
• A “what if” question that you’d like to answer
It could be something you’re trying to understand:
• Why would someone walk away from a good relationship?
• How can trust be built again?
• Why would a friend betray another friend?
Or you might notice it in different questions:
• Where do you find yourself wanting to spend time in the story?
• What is pulling at your heart and won’t let it go?
It could also be a personal connection:
• A character’s voice
• A fear
• A longing
You don’t need to know the answers yet. The question is enough to start.
I Needed to Find the Heart of Solo
I’ve been struggling to write my contemporary romance novel, Solo, for over seven years. It started as a challenge my husband gave my daughter and me—to each write a full novel during November for NaNoWriMo. We accepted.
I worked out the overview and outline of Solo, and wrote about half the book.
Then I stopped. I just didn’t care anymore.
Since I was pretty burned out with writing at that point of my life (for a lot of reasons), I decided to put Solo aside. Since then, I’ve picked it up and worked on it off and on, but kept getting distracted away from it. I wondered why.
Did I want to write it? Should I throw it into the dustbin of history, even though I’d spent many, many months working on it? Clearly, I didn’t care enough to want to finish it. But it’s hard to throw something away after investing so much effort into it. (That, by the way, is the textbook definition of sunk cost fallacy.)
So, I kept trying to figure out how to salvage the book. Was the premise strong enough? Were the characters compelling and likeable enough? …And so on.
It wasn’t until we did an iteration exercise at our annual writers conference that I realized I was asking the wrong question.
I had no idea why I wanted to write the book in the first place.
And I didn’t know how to figure that out.
Our speaker showed us how to iterate; how to gradually narrow down to discover the core of what matters the most to us. Since that exercise was designed for an in-person setting, I’ve adapted it here for Substack.
When I tried the adapted method for Solo, it worked! I’ll tell you what I discovered in a minute.
How to Find the Heart of Your Story (Through Iteration)
Here’s the process I used.
Step 1:
Choose one of these:
• A story idea you’ve been thinking about
• A character who has captured your imagination and won’t let you go
• A single scene or a moment you’d like to include in the book
• Something in your life that you’ve been thinking about a lot—perhaps something you’re trying to understand
• An image you like
• A line from a book that speaks to your heart
• Or one of the situations or questions listed in “What is the Heart of the Story?” found earlier in this article
Set a timer for three minutes and write down whatever comes to mind.
Step 2:
When you’re done, read it out loud, if possible. If not, then read it to yourself.
Read it again, slowly, and notice which words or phrases stand out to you. Which ones catch your attention? Circle, underline, or highlight the words or phrases that you notice and which may be speaking to your heart. You don’t need to know why. Just notice them and mark them.
You might notice certain words or phrases are repeated.
Step 3:
Now choose 2-3 of the words or phrases that mean the most to you and write again for three minutes, using them as your starting point. Write whatever comes to mind.
Step 4:
Read your second piece out loud, if possible. If not, then read it to yourself. Read it again, more slowly, and mark what stands out.
Then look at both pieces. Notice what is showing up more than once. Are those words or ideas pointing toward something that matters to you? That’s often where the heart of the story is beginning to show itself.
Step 5:
Now try to answer this question:
I think I’d like this story to be about______________________ because ___________________________.
I like this exercise because I don’t have to do mental gymnastics and analyze everything to try to figure out what is wrong with my story.
With this exercise you don’t have to force anything. You just pay attention to what you’ve written. What matters most to you tends to show up in your words.
That is how you find the heart of your story.
What I Discovered About Solo
When I did this exercise for Solo, I noticed several ideas repeating:
Alone
Isolated
Reserved
Reach out
Connect
Here is part of what I wrote for Step 3:
I want Lily to move through that arc like I did, going from feeling isolated to reaching out and connecting. She realizes she can do this, because she has agency. And because she does this, she connects with others and starts to grow. In love, in connection with her found family, which is Joe, his brothers, and the people in Hope Point.
One of the core ideas of this book that means the most to me is: I can do this. Lily can make her life different. She has agency. She can make her life into whatever she’d like it to be. She doesn’t have to be pummeled by the winds of life, reacting to everything and feeling controlled by circumstances. Instead, she can take action and change her life for the better.
Before this exercise, I thought the story was about Lily’s loneliness. But that was only the beginning. That idea didn’t provide direction for her journey.
Now I know I want her to grow from:
From isolation → to connection
From passivity → to agency
Through the exercise, I found the through-line that speaks the most to my heart.
Now I actually want to write the story.