What if…

Where do you get stuck - finding a story or bringing it to life?

I’m going to be one of those annoying people and say that, for me, ‘it depends’ (and shout out to the person on one of my recent storytelling workshops who says that’s my answer to everything to do with story - because it is).

If you’re someone who finds coming up with ideas easily then finding a story is usually not a problem. The difficulty might with bringing it to life in as engaging a way as you can.

I’m going to argue (and this just might be me) that if you find coming up with ideas easily then that’s the place where you’re also the most comfortable. Which means the next stage - making it shine or feel different - may be where you feel most uncomfortable.

Coming up with an idea is just one tiny part of the whole creative process. You’d got to hone and develop it to make sure that it’s not just good, but great, that it’s compelling and engaging and well structured. If you love coming up with ideas, well, that second part can be feel slow and excruciating and so it’s tempting to give up and go off and find a new idea. Because a new idea is always sparkly and it also feels like a lot less work. But then you hit the same problem…

I enjoy the ideas part so I sometimes struggle to find the same joy in the next part of the process.

So here’s one of my solutions - I bring my ideas mentality to it. Instead of thinking ‘I need to make this better’, I ask myself ‘how else could I do this’ or ‘what if…’  and this opens back up the ideas part of my brain and then I’m excited to dive back in.