Please, Fence Me In!

Have you read this yet? Jeff Goins has a way with words, and sometimes he grabs my attention with a topic that arrives right on time. I've been mulling a couple of the points from his post. I don't disagree with the post. The truth is, I'm not thinking about marketing when I'm kicking around potential titles. Some would say I should be more concerned about that, but I'm really thinking about a lovely white picket fence. Sure. It's about marketing—but it's about content.

For me, the title is the neat, welcoming picket fence that defines my boundaries. When I'm drafting the gate is open to almost any and all words, but eventually some of those words are shown the sidewalk when I know which ideas, scenes, and sentences play nicely in the yard with the others.

But that fence. I guess I need a plat survey to know where the posts will go before I can seriously evaluate what stays or goes. It's the granddaddy of all college term papers in my mind sometimes. Writing needs a raison d'être. I'm on the hunt for that.

The nugget I needed in Goins' post was this: choose an argument.

We called this a thesis for college papers, but it never goes away in our writing. This argument is the work's reason for being, the lifeblood of the work itself. To be honest, a storyline is a beautiful thing (especially in memoir), but I need to consider the why behind the story. Why tell it? Why should my reader invest time and emotional energy in the story? The tension in the argument makes all the difference, and it's still there when the content is "just a chronological story."

There's a big idea out there somewhere. It may be entertainment, but I think there's something deeper. Stories have purpose. They draw us in. They teach us. They engage us. They sit with us in a kind of conversation (usually while I sip mug after mug of java). And stories also have a life of their own, flowing at their pace and following their chosen path. The reader rides the current, and the current is the story. But that's no excuse for words traipsing all over the page without restraint in my mind.

I have a favorite title in mind, and I haven't been able to shake it. In a moment of brilliance—at least I hope it was!—I saw a connection between the main character's name, her understanding of her identity, and a couple of different meanings of that name. We'll see if White Wave Crashing remains when all is said and done. I definitely need to take a closer look at my work's purpose, audience, and argument because these are posts or pickets in the fence that defines my book.

Goins makes a fantastic point about marketing. An author has one chance to grab the reader's eyeballs in order to get their fingers leafing through the pages. He's right about the marketing, and if I could see just a little further down the road—

What do you think?

Does the author let the work grow at its own pace? A sculptor might say the rock speaks, and he merely responds by removing whatever is not part of the piece it wants to be. Maybe authors are like that. Maybe I am a little like that, too—on a good day when I am not self-editing the self-edits or plotting every curve, rise, and fall in the WIP.

I say, "Fence me in, please!" I'll be working on this in order to have a loose framework, but I don't expect to write a final draft the first time through. This is a process. Even knowing what the book is not is a very good thing.What has helped you in choosing an argument? Can you share an argument you used in a sentence or so? If you write memoir, how do you think this plays into that genre? I'd love to hear your thoughts.