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How to Know if You have a Great Story

[See a video version of this post]

A brilliant idea will not always become a great story. Nobody can really see one or two years ahead and know how their story will turn out. For an idea to come to full fruition, it must be strong enough to set the tone, theme, and setting of the story. This is particularly important for indigenous and local writers who plan to write in English. You don't have to plan too much around details when you are writing in your own dialect, because those who can read in the language will know your customs well enough to fill in the blanks. Readers who read in English, on the other hand, may not know your culture, so you must have a clear theme and setting to help them along.

Below is a trick I often use to decide if I am willing to see a story through to the end, and if I decide to do so, how to add sub-plots to it.


Write a 200-500 word ‘Once Upon a time’ story

This short fairy-tale will help you see if you have a strong Beginning, Middle, and Ending. Leave it alone for a few days, then come back to it again. If the story still excites you then you have a good story. 

It also helps you know who your main characters are. This way you will not get diverted by the minor characters that you add on later when you are writing the full manuscript. If the minor characters become too strong, you can always write a separate manuscript about him or her later.

One of the dangers of writing in the setting of your own culture, is that you try to add too many stuff into your manuscript. This short tale will help you focus only on the part of the custom that is most relevant to your story. For example, my Iban Dream series is focused on folklore and mythology, so I use omens and dreams instead of customs and rules. 


Play with ‘what-ifs’

After you have decided to write your story, you can use 'what-if' questions to help you create sub-plots that move the story along. For example, my heroine comes down with a fever. So I asked: 'What if the heroine lost her way in a dream, how will she get back?' The answer to this type of question will depend a lot on how much you know the folklore and superstition of your people.

As in the above example, I can send an Iban shaman to the dream world to retrieve her soul. Or I can get a Melanau musician to guide her back to the world of the living with the beat of drums. In Iban Woman's case, I made the gods in her dream-world lead her back. 

I also use this technique when there are long stretches of nothing happening in between scenes. If, for example, my short tale says, 'The family sails to Mukah'. This can be a journey of many days from the Rejang delta. The reader needs more than descriptions of the view and sound of nature to entertain them for the trip. So maybe I might ask, 'What if a cobra follows one of them in his dream?' A strange questions? Not in my culture.


Familiarity Creates Relevance Because You Know What You Experienced

Every culture is rich with its own stories and folklore which is based on their own peculiar life philosophy. If you write from a standpoint of knowing because of experience, instead of imagining because of film or books, your story will stay relevant for a long time. You know what you have experienced. You can only project your own beliefs and philosophies into a culture you have never experienced. These two standpoint will produce different results. There are Iban readers out there who have said that my writing is tedious, or boring, or overburdened with purple prose. But I have yet to meet anyone who says that my novels are not Iban.


Protect Your Idea. Keep it safe.

Don't try to get feedback at the idea stage. At this point, only you can see the full vision. Everyone else can only understand it through the lens of their own psyche. If they are positive people, they will encourage you and insist that you add their ideas to the mix. But if they are negative in nature, they will try to dissuade you and tell you all kinds of horror stories about writers who live in poverty. Either way, you will end up confused and lose confidence in your idea. It is best that you finish the manuscript first before you try to get feedback. Only then can people give you constructive feedback based solely on your story.

Good luck with your writing. Please help me share this post.

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