Greatness: If You Need It Defined, You Don’t Have It

Part Five of a five-part series entitled, How To Write A Story, A Good Story, And Finally A Great Story. You can read Parts One, Two, Three, and Four here.

If you’ve been reading my series on ‘How to write a good story,’ then you’ll know I place a very high premium on tension and suspense. I firmly believe they are the most important elements of your narrative. Without them, you’ve just got the ramblings of a lunatic. No, check that, a lunatic would be more interesting.

Let me put it this way. Have you ever read a stranger’s diary? It’s boring. It’s just the day-to-day travails of a person who means nothing to you, and without any context, you have no reason to care. That’s what reading a story without tension or suspense is like.

Conversely, do a good job of creating tension and suspense for your readers, and you’ll have a successful story.

But as the title of this series implies, I haven’t just promised you how to write a good story, I’ve promised greatness.

It’s time for a quote:

They say no one person can do it all
But you want to in your head
But you can’t be Shakespeare and you can’t be Joyce
So what is left instead

Lou Reed – Magic And Loss

I can’t actually promise you greatness. I can’t even accurately describe what greatness is. Why is it that certain books stick with us our entire lives? Why is it our favorite characters become part of who we are? Why do I return to my favorite authors, Kundera, Cervantes, Tolkien, time and time again when I need them? Even if I answer these questions for myself, there’s no reason you’ll have the same answers.

However, even if greatness can’t be defined, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive for it.

If you want to be a great storyteller, then be a great storyteller. Dedicate your life to it. Make it the most important thing in the world to you, at the expense of your emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being. That is the cost of greatness.

If you want to make a living as a writer, I promise that with hard work and perseverance, you can achieve it. It doesn’t take great talent. It takes proficiency and dedication. Learn the techniques, add a dash of individuality, and you’ll thrive.

Everyone loves a good story. It doesn’t matter what technology has in store for us, there will always be a market for good storytellers. Maybe you’ll be writing for video games or creating virtual realities or SMS serials. Whatever the medium, the principles of tension and suspense will still be true.

But if what you crave is greatness, then throw everything I’ve said out the window and follow your own path. Be ready to meet with ridicule and scorn. Expect to be destitute. But most of all, realize that what you are really craving isn’t greatness, or fame, or even acknowledgement. What you are craving is Art. And the creators of great Art are more than likely to be consumed by the pursuit of it.

I have a feeling that if you truly craved Art, you wouldn’t be reading this blog. You’d be holed up somewhere creating. And I’d wish you the best on your Artist’s journey.

But then there’s the rest of us. We must not despair when we fall short of greatness. We may not be the next Shakespeare or Joyce, but we will probably be the happier for it. We love stories, and we love to entertain. But we also love life and we will enjoy it to the best of our ability. We won’t subsume ourselves in pursuit of an elusive ideal. We’ll do our best to create magic, while at the same time remembering that our job isn’t everything.

Greatness is for the few. We can admire it, and try to emulate it, but we will inevitably fall short. That’s okay.

The world needs plenty of good stories to go along with the great ones.

Check out Decater's new novel, available now at Amazon. Plus, don't forget his earlier books: Ahab's Adventures in Wonderland and Picasso Painted Dinosaurs.