3
" The way—the only way—to “find” your story is to tell it. Nobody in the whole world has ever before told the story you are about to tell. You yourself have never told it to anyone, not even to yourself. You may have lots of intuitions about what the story is going to be, and you may even have a sort of summary overview of it. These are good and useful things to have; they are fine places to start. They are not enough. Until you actually tell the story, the whole story, it will be nothing but smoke. Moreover, you probably will not tell the story exactly right the first time you try. You'll make wrong turns, use the wrong key, or use the right key in the wrong door. After all, you have nobody to guide you. If you are like most people, you will have to tell this story more than once—maybe even several times—before you really get it down. "
― Stephen Koch , The Modern Library Writer's Workshop: A Guide to the Craft of Fiction
11
" And how do you make your way from beginning to end? You can be guided at every step by only one intuition: your own sense of rightness. But the sense of rightness can come only after you have been guided away from ten thousand wrong turns by your sense for what is wrong. The sense of rightness and the sense of what is wrong have no independent existence: Each is the other's reverse side. Most good stories die before they are born simply because their authors fail to understand this. That little voice inside says to them, “This is wrong, all wrong,” and they panic, they think they have failed, and they quit. They think that inner voice—wrong; this is wrong—is a reason for stopping. In fact, it is your art's best friend, the other voice of rightness. You must listen to them both, trusting that your intellect is capable of responding to their cues and discerning at least many of their mute meanings. They will be in play every hour you spend at your desk, and they alone can guide you on your path from perplexity, complexity, and conflict to the inevitable. That movement from the improbable to the inevitable is the truest course of a story, and it defines your path. "
― Stephen Koch , The Modern Library Writer's Workshop: A Guide to the Craft of Fiction
