In a world of apps doing our thinking for us, it’s easy to fall into a trap of… well… not thinking anymore. For creative writing, however, we may need to reconsider. Call me an old lady at 51, but I had no idea until very recently that there was something called a “plot generator.”
Actually, I was horrified.
I will go way out on a limb here and hopefully not make any enemies in the process: not everyone is a writer. If you desperately want to be a novelist, but you are straining at it so much that you are relying on an app to generate the story for you, you might not be ready yet. Or it might be that it’s just not what you were meant to do.
Image by Sophie Janotta
There’s an old saying that when you’re born to do something it just happens. Take for instance the person who asked one of the smartest people in the world, “Should I pursue painting as my career or get a job that’s more financially secure?” The woman responded, “If you were meant to be a painter, you wouldn’t be asking that question,. You wouldn’t be able to stop yourself from painting. Money would not be a factor." I tend to agree.
If you have to strain at it, maybe you’re pushing yourself to do something that really isn’t your thing. It’s just like when people get inspired by songs, and they suddenly want to be singers. Unfortunately, they might not be cut out for show business. It’s the same with writing. Millions of people love to read, and they read a good book and it inspires them to want to write one, but it doesn’t mean… and here’s the part I hope I don’t become a hated person for…it doesn’t mean that person is a writer.
I know it’s politically correct taboo in this day and age to say that someone isn’t cut out to do something. We're supposed to tell everyone they’re doing a wonderful job even when they played the worst game of their life, sang the worst song of their life, did the worst dance of their life or got an F on a test. I think it’s far better to live in reality, and if something isn’t coming easy– or isn’t coming at all, such as a basic plot– that maybe it wasn’t what you were born to do.
There’s plenty of careers in journalism that don’t involve writing novels. There’s editing, where you get to read all day long. What’s wrong with that? There's writing articles for newspapers or magazines. And then there’s nonfiction writing, where plots are not even a factor. My advice, and it may be well received and it may not, is if you are depending on an app to generate a story for you, it may be time to reconsider novel writing as a career. There should be at least a few stories swimming around in your head dying to get out, if writing books was truly your calling. Sometimes when you have to strain at something, it just isn’t meant to be. And the thing is...that's OK!