Story takes effort.

Sometimes at night I sit in front of the TV and I don’t have the energy to watch anything more than a thirty-minute sitcom, or a singing reality show, which I can digest in small bites and turn off when I get bored. Because the mental effort of engaging with a longer story takes too much effort.

Watching a story takes effort.

Sometimes I get in bed at night and read one page before my book falls out of my hands and clatters to the floor. It’s not even that I don’t like the book—it’s just that I’m tired and want to go to sleep.

Reading a story takes effort.

Sometimes I don’t think I have it in me to write. It is so much easier to consume words rather than create them myself.  So off I go to wander aimlessly around the internet, which mostly involves sort-of, kind-of word consuming.

Writing a story takes effort.

Here’s the moral: anything to do with story takes effort. Studies show  that you use more of your brain when listening to a story, and I surmise that the same holds true for reading a story and writing one as well.  The more tension in a story, the more you’ll pay attention, the more you pay attention, the more you’ll feel the emotion of the characters in the story, and the more you feel the emotion, the more likely you’ll be to mimic the behavior of the characters in the story afterwards.  Which kind of goes to show why everything to do with story takes such effort. It’s almost as if we’re living it ourselves as we watch, read, or write a story.

Because story changes us. Never forget that you wield that power as you write.  I don’t know about you but knowing that motivates me to write. It motivates me to open the computer on days I don’t feel like it, to spend the time it takes to get a story onto the page. To make the effort. Because I can’t think of anything more powerful than the ability to change a person’s life with the words you write. Can you?

And so, truly, story is worth the effort.

Here’s a related prompt for you:

The story begins when….

(Remember, just use the prompt as a starting point. And you don’t have to take it literally.)

Writing Workshop!

And if you would like to study story through the lens of the five senses, consider coming to Astoria, Oregon, for a winter workshop!  We’ll be offering a week-long writing workshop in fun, funky and eclectic Astoria, Oregon, the first week in February. Great seafood, fun shops, a week devoted to writing and writerly camaraderie. We’re so excited, and we’ve already had several sign-ups. Space is limited, so check it out soon! You can read all about it here.