Wired for Story: The Writer's Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence (37 page)
Authors: Lisa Cron
Back in 1999, Michael Arndt felt he’d paid his dues, having spent ten years in the movie business as a script reader and assistant. So, having accumulated a small nest egg in the process, he quit his job and hunkered down to write a screenplay. He wrote six stories and ditched each one. The seventh—which he wrote in three days—he had a good feeling about.
14
So he kept at it. For over a
hundred
drafts. His motto was
No point in doing something if you’re not going to do it right
. And he was determined to get it right.
15
Which is probably why, six years after he began writing it, he won the Oscar for best original screenplay for
Little Miss Sunshine
. Why? Because his allegiance wasn’t to himself, or to his first draft, or even to his ninety-ninth. It was to the story itself. And to us. A world full of strangers who he knew would never, ever give him the benefit of the doubt. So his story didn’t ask us to. All it required of us was that we sit back, relax, and give it our undivided attention.
With that kind of care and determination, imagine how far
your
story can go. You don’t need to be a genius, although you may well be one. What you do need is perseverance. The one thing that makes a person a writer is
writing
. Butt in chair. Every day. No excuses. Ever. As Jack London famously said, “Don’t loaf and invite inspiration; light out after it with a club.”
16
Hemingway concurred: “Work every day. No matter what has happened the day or night before, get up and bite on the nail.”
17
It’s only then that the real story you’re telling slowly emerges. Here’s a secret: when you’ve tapped into what it is we’re wired to respond to in a story, what we’re hungry for from the very first sentence, it
is
your truth we hear. As neuroscientist David Eagleman says, “When you put together large numbers of pieces and parts, the whole can become something larger than the sum.… The concept of emergent properties means that something new can be introduced that is not inherent in any of the parts.”
18
What emerges is your vision, seen through the eyes of your readers,
experienced
by your readers. So what are you waiting for? Write! Although they may not know it yet, your public is eager to find out what happens next.
- End -
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REALLY
WANT?
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Ibid., 274.
