Spring 5 Ways: #2 - New Possibilities

Continuing our spring-has-sprung month of talking about “new” things, after last week’s look at New Beginnings, let’s continue by looking at New Possibilities. Possibilities is a word that can lean in a couple of directions. On the one hand, it’s got kind of a mystical component… it can denote things that are risky or chancy… But it’s got a more down-to-earth meaning, too, when you think of a possibility not as something to be leery of, not as something risky, but as something to be excited about, because possibilities are about opportunities.

Possibilities can have positive or negative outcomes—they’re merely options one has. And for writers? Well, we’re lousy with options. Whenever we put one word after another on paper, we’ve made a choice, eliminated a myriad of words we could have chosen for the one that we do choose. People in our lives are like that, too. We choose our friends—from all the possible people we meet, we pursue some as friends rather than others. Lots of prospects to choose from, but we make the choice, we choose our friends.

When you think about what you write, you’re also thinking about possibilities. Let’s approach this like a newspaper reporter would:

WHO?

Will you do an ensemble piece or will you have one main character around whom all the action revolves? For many writers, the character comes into their head before the story does. Is that you? And thinking about the movies you like, what was it about those characters that won you over?

WHAT?

Do you decide to write a comedy or a drama? Or a dramedy? Or a thriller? Or a hybrid of some sort… horror/comedy or sci-fi/romance or coming-of-age/action? Choosing your genre requires you to know what audience you’re going for. After all, a horror audience is expecting something different than a sci-fi audience might. So a word of advice: choose a genre or genre combo that you love—you’ll have a lot more fun writing that way.

WHEN?

Will it be set in the present day or in the past? Or the future? This determines many of the choices you can make for your story. Set your story in the past? Well, no cell phones for one—are you prepared to have characters track down phone booths whenever they want to make a call? So from the small things to the big, you want to pick a time period you’re comfortable with.

WHERE?

A small town? A big city? A spaceship? A coal mine?

WHY?

Will people care about this story more than others they have to choose from?

You answer those classic five questions that every reporter answers in writing their stories and you’ll be well underway to beginning to write a story of your own.

Oftentimes there’s a fifth question reporters ask, and that’s How? That’s a question we’ll deal with next week as we spring forward with our possibilities.

Copyright © Diane Lake

08Apr18

Email Diane a question to Diane@DianeLake.com