Breaking story

Showing up to work on my various narrative arcs

I had a mini-epiphany recently during a conversation with my writer friend Heather about the book proposal I’ve been working on for the past couple of years. I’ve finally started sending my proposal out to agents, and we were discussing some recent feedback I had received that I felt was valuable enough to take to heart. Should I tweak my proposal a bit to reflect a slight reframing of my approach to the work? Or should I just keep sending it out and see what others think?

“Breaking story” is a term used in the film and television industry to describe the process through which writers figure out a screenplay’s blueprint or the story arc of a tv show. Picture the writing room for the show ‘Hacks’ in which the writers are mapping out season 4 and figuring out what’s actually going to happen between Deborah and Ava in each episode throughout the season.

I’ve been working on my proposal for two years now. How long could I possibly keep tweaking it in an attempt to make it perfect? (There’s no such thing.) A lot of writers do this, I believe, as a means of procrastination. And yet the outcome of my conversation with Heather made me feel like I was breaking story; that this gentle reframing was what I needed to really tie everything together. Something that would unify all of the various narratives in the book to make it even more marketable.

Part of this reframing was essentially just putting more of myself in the book. Not a memoir per se, but a hybrid something-or-other, as so many nonfiction books seem to be these days. Ultimately I decided to go back to my overview and see if I could make a few minor changes that would shift the narrative in line with this new perspective. And do you want to know what? It was kind of already there. Sure, I can edit it to be a bit more clear, and maybe I will, but maybe, just maybe, the framing issue wasn’t the breaking story moment I thought it was after all.

A writer I met once has this line he often uses which resonates with me, about how you never know where you are in your own story. I think about this fairly often now, and what it means for me this week, what with this idea of breaking story on something that I probably broke a while ago, is that manifesting our dreams (The dream being a book in this particular instance–I know I have a lot!) is really hard work. Meditation helps, and so does a positive attitude; talking to people about your work and your plans is great too. But none of that is a stand in for also putting in the work.

The day after that so-called breaking story epiphany I had with Heather, I spent half the day trying to keep this tiny little feeling of despair that was trying to creep over me at bay. Does this reframing mean that I need to rewrite my book proposal after all of these years? The idea was just too depressing.

That afternoon, an agent I sent my sample pages to asked to see my proposal. There was enough in my sample to pique her interest, which is a great sign, whether or not anything comes of it. I decided then to keep moving forward with the work, to keep putting it out into the world. I can make minor edits as I send it out, but maybe the breaking story is the hard work I put in every day on all of the projects, from writing to travel to raising a family. My own narrative arc. Just like I don’t know where I am in my own story, I don’t know when I’ll get an agent or if and when my book will be published. And for now that’s okay.

Later, while walking my dog and listening to a podcast, I heard the writer Charlotte Wood relaying some wisdom from a scientist friend of hers that spoke to me. “Visions come to prepared spirits,” her friend said. You have to show up to the work, and if you’re not there, it’s not going to come to you. I can be happy with this.