As I’m building Mesh, I remembered that I promised to use the ‘Pixar Rules of Storytelling.‘ I went back and started filling these out as though I was doing an essay exam and the results have been surprising. I’ll post exercises from time to time to help you understand where I’m coming from as the novel finds its home in the publishing industry. Here’s the next one:
Rule 11: Get it out of your head and onto the paper.
Any project I work on has to be complete before I can see the parts that can be better. A cake isn’t a cake until you’ve mixed the ingredients and put them into a hot oven.
By the same token, all these little elements of a story sound cool in theory, but will they work in the book? There’s no way to tell, until you write it down. Keep writing, keep creating. Stand over that muse and shake the art out of her.
Write on!