A Guest Post By Larry Brooks of Storyfix.com
One day a chicken was standing on the side of the road. Actually, he was staring at the road, a little lost, when someone stopped and asked him this question:
Speaking as a chicken, which came first… you, or the egg?”
To which the chicken, after pondering for a moment, replied, “Who cares. I’m just trying to figure out why I’d want to cross this thing in the first place.”
Which is a different question, equally cliché. Consider yourself foreshadowed here, because the punchline is your fate as a writer.
Ever had a great omelet made from bad eggs? Or a bad omelet made from perfectly good eggs? Ever smelled a bad egg? Ever had an egg that started out fine, but you played around with it for so long that it went bad?
Have you ever not been completely sure what to do with an egg? Hard boiled, scrambled, diced into a salad? Deep fried?
What then? Do you keep cooking? Or do you begin anew with a fresh egg, one you haven’t mucked up, perhaps leading to a different dish altogether?
And if you, the cook, don’t know what to do with the egg, especially a bad egg, where does that leave your hungry guest?
Of course I’m talking about storytelling here.
Our initial story ideas are very much like eggs. Precious, yet completely worthless until you do something with them. Not healthy or delicious until they’re cooked, seasoned and, if you consider yourself a chef, added to other ingredients and all gussied up, because presentation is everything.
How can something be precious and worthless at the same time?
Because it’s a paradox.
As is storytelling.
We evolve our eggs – the initial spark of inspiration – into something wonderful, called stories. When we do it right, our little cell of a story grows into something akin to a fully glorified banquet of dramatic possibilities… one that we, as the cooks in this literary kitchen, are obliged to bring forth. That is, if they are ever to be fit to consume. Otherwise the egg just sits there, getting old, until it smells up the joint.
Which brings us full circle. Because if the egg isn’t good, the meal will suffer for it. Which means, whether we begin with the egg (an idea), or we begin with the recipe (characters, setting and theme) and start mixing with the hope than an egg will soon appear… either way, which came first – chicken or egg – is no longer the point.
That’s why the chicken was staring at that road. He was squaring off with a different question altogether, caught in the paradox.
The paradox is why manuscripts go unpublished and dreams die. Because writers sometimes try to cook up bland ideas, stories with no compelling conceptual centerpiece. Bad eggs. Even when presented on fine china, the meal will be less than satisfying if the egg has gone bad.
Equally fatal is when the writer has a killer initial idea but doesn’t execute it well. Up to professional expectations and standards. Bad cooking. Or at least not enough cheese and oregano to go with that egg.A great idea does not a great story make.
Which comes first doesn’t matter.
It’s the wrong question.
We need both the chicken (all the moving parts) and the egg (a killer idea), and we are allowed to get to them in no particular order. As long as we get to both.
The good news is that this is only truly a paradox when the writer doesn’t completely understand the relationship between the egg and the chicken of your story. Or – analogy free for a moment – doesn’t juxtapose the weight of an idea in context to the balance and flavor and nourishment of the surrounding story elements.
Ever heard the term “all style, no substance” applied to a story? That’s a story without an egg somewhere in the mix. Vice versa, too: that’s a story that doesn’t live up to its inherent potential.The truth is that a successful story must have both an egg, and a recipe that stirs in all sorts of other goodness.
And therein resides the pothole in the road you, the chicken-wrangler in this analogy, need to cross. If you don’t recognize the duality of the necessity for both a strong conceptual egg and a delicious storytelling recipe, you’ll tumble keyboard-first into it.
And you likely won’t make it to the other side.
What kind of cook are you?
You can hatch an idea and begin to develop it into a story using a plan. Or, you can create a shell for an idea and go looking for it by drafting. Or a little of both.
Either way, it’s all the search for story. A base you must cover in writing any successful story.
As writers, we live and die by our ability to circle back and make sure our stories aren’t all broth and spice with no evidence of an egg anywhere in the mix. Our goal is to stir all the ingredients – egg and other goodies – into something that becomes a feast in excess of its independent parts.
Why did the chicken cross the road?
To get to the other side, of course. Duh. That cliché answer remains a paradox.
Writers, however, need a better answer. We need to get beyond the paradox. For us, here’s the real answer: on the other side, where the readers are, awaits the full meal deal.
That’s where the egg was all along. Waiting to be found. Waiting to be given wings so it can turn into… a chicken.
The other side of the road is where the story is. Just watch out for those potholes.
Because however you get there, nobody gets to eat until you do.
Larry Brooks is the author of “Story Engineering: Mastering the Six Core Competencies of Successful Storytelling.” His website, Storyfix.com, is a leading resource for novelists and screenwriters at all levels. His latest book is “Warm Hugs for Writers,” with a free ebook offer available through his website.
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Bravo, Larry. This was certainly a treat to read. I loved the creativity, and the whole mind-assault that your piece had me go through. Storytelling is definitely a tool to turn eggs into a full-grown phoenix and getting it to fly across the road, or just have it get eaten by a weasel.
Sorry about the previous comment. Apparently I was still logged in. Good job with this post.
Heh. “We evolve our eggs,” takes on a whole new meaning when you’re a woman. :P
As always, great post, Larry!
Good one!
Thank you for posting this. Larry is the ‘full meal deal,’ the Egg McMuffin of writing for writers so they get back to their work sooner than later.
And it’s non-fattening.
David
You’ve given me some food for thought, Larry :) “Our initial story ideas are very much like eggs. Precious, yet completely worthless until you do something with them.” – maybe this is why going back to the WIP sometimes feels both vitally important and a horrific waste of time…
Larry, I’m all smiles.
I believe any good egg will have six yolks inside, eh!
There is so much truth in this … fantastic way to present it.
Just gained a reader my friend, looking forward to more awesome.
Thanks!
Thanks Brett, good to have you out there. Lots more where this came from. Appreciate it. Larry
Larry, I love the egg analogy. I’ve definitely over-cooked an idea. Or, started down one path, only to find myself on another path.
First, I love this story and analogy and the lead up to your point. I have to admit that I read your punch line incorrectly and liked what I came up with, then had to read yours and say it was pretty good as well. In essence, without knowing it I did exactly what you said to do in creating my own ending, although I also mentally slapped myself for getting it wrong to begin with.
Second, we all know the egg came first, at least as it pertains to chickens. Now, let’s see someone start a story from that. :-)
Excellent post, Larry. Thank you.
Awesome post and I’m actually working on reading your book right now. I read the sample and loved it. Great analogy and it makes perfect sense. Thanks!
Awesome post. This whole website has been such a great help for my new wordpress blog http://im-horny.net
I get inspiration every day.
Ideas evolve. Their starting points are often really stupid, cliche ideas that have been done to death by other writers, many of them lousy and derivative. One of my favorite story prompts is to start with a story that’s always been told and ask what it’d be like if I plugged real people into it – if it really happened, would it be that simple and sappy? Hardly!
A teenager who suddenly got super powers might go closet with them and decide she really doesn’t want to become a cop because she has a military advantage over everybody else. She might decide to go public and do something completely different, like stunt work or charging for psychic readings or showing off at a carnival. She might do anything in the world besides wear Spandex and punch out criminals. What if her politics weren’t so conservative?
What if she used the powers to defy authority and protest things she thought were unjust? What if she rescued an innocent kid from a crooked cop? You start getting story lines that aren’t the norm when you look at real people. She could do anything – it’s not likely to be the expected thing – in fact, what she does is going to be heavily dependent on who she is, what she believes and what she cares about.
She could decide that her powers are a miracle from God and she needs to start a ministry, demonstrating the miracle and passing the collection plate. If she has healing powers and does this, is she going to get prosecuted for it? Is someone going to get mad and report her for practicing medicine without a license?
The best way to get lots of eggs is to buy some hens. Jot down every idea no matter how stupid it is.
If they don’t stand up by themselves, they may work great in combination. There are relatively few bad eggs. I suppose there are a few – like “Jesus was a vampire.” That will get stories rejected from some publishers just on the premise. But it may not be the main point of the story. It may be backstory to a lot of vampire characters some of whom are Christian and some do or don’t believe Jesus was a vampire. If one of them actually meets Jesus at some point in the story, it has to make sense within the story – and the story has to be a good one.
I have a motto about ideas. “Cliches are classic stories told badly. Classics are cliche stories told well.”
It’s all in the execution. I think there’s actually an Asian recipe for turning rotted eggs into a delicacy – you bury them for X days and they get rank ,then go at them with the seasonings and preparation and people like it. They might be an acquired taste but it’s the other ingredients that make them palatable to their fans.
One thing about it – telling your stories to other people before writing them well may make you a crashing bore at parties. My daughter pointed out to me that doing so, telling the whole plot before the book’s done, is a bit like waving around a spoon of cake batter before all the ingredients are in and expecting people to react as if you gave them a slice of cake. So I dropped back to testing teasers and pitches on non-writers. Other writers, go ahead – as long as you reciprocate when they tell their plots, that’s like asking a cook to taste the batter and see if it needs more salt.
GREAT INFO.