Universal is characteristic of the whole, covering the entire collective, everyone and everything.
Story is an account of events in the evolution of something.
The Universal Story embodies both these parts. An account of events in the evolution of something characteristic of the whole.
With no true beginning and no end -- though we often believe we can pinpoint the moment a new life is born, the true end of life -- when you begin writing a story, you jump right into the middle of the universal flow of things and fly in the current. Coming into existence, bound up and separated from all you know a struggle ensues. Finally free, transformation happens.
The Universal Story flows endlessly. Within the collective, each moment, each scene, every life begins, struggles and grows, transforms and dies off. Beginnings, middles and ends, each part of the whole. The Universal Story sends all our stories, all our lives spiraling upward, evolving, transforming and dying off.
I teach writers about the Universal Story with Plot Planners to better see the whole of of their stories and how each scene fits into the collective of the Universal Story.
Each of us benefits from considering our own personal stories and lives against the backdrop of a broader reality and the Universal Story
The final quarter of your story bears the burden of getting your characters to the right place at the right time for one final confrontation and facilitate the final play that leads to success and ultimate transformation.
The scenes that comprise the final quarter of your story are filled with the tension of not knowing whether protagonist will win or fail at the climax.
Writing to the end of your story may very well be filling you with tension. Will I ever finish this thing???
Not just with your writing, you may find that with other parts of your life that somehow when your back was turned (though if you retraced scene by scene, you'd note the clear path) your antagonists have grown stronger and more determined and the stakes rise in intensity as you become more and more aware of all the ways you sabotage yourself from finishing and seizing that which you most desire (because, ultimately, no one else can fell us. We--us personally--are the only ones who give up).
Writers make symbolic gestures, like writing down specific daily writing goal and turning off the cable and removing the TV from the premises, as promises to their writing lives and living proof of their commitment to themselves to write. Such dedication and willingness to do what's demanded to succeed at your goal!
You've been making good progress and then Bam! Blindsided by a familiar antagonist you'd mistakenly believed was sleeping, the backstory wound you've patiently been been nursing to health activates. This time, rather than touch off your transformed emotional maturity, the blow sends you spiraling all the way back to your old ways of dealing with hurt and betrayal or whatever your backstory wound oozes by beating yourself up and/or raging. Even so, slowly, you find yourself recovering more quickly after each hit and back to writing or whatever your passion as you continue to internally incorporate the you that you are becoming. New strategies and actions you learned during the hard times now serve you well.
Each time you take positive, conscious steps toward your goal, you find yourself acting with more and more emotional maturity than at any other time in your life. You take responsibility for the pain you've suffered and inflicted to get to where you are now and suddenly delight, finding gifts awaiting you and gaining confidence as you prove to yourself and everyone around you that you're passionate about growing and changing. You begin to see how you yourself influence the action around you at your weakest and now through your new strength and determination and maturity.
In this last quarter proving ground on the way to mastery and your prize -- finishing your story, making peace with the past, falling in love again for the first time -- even as you fall back, you pick yourself up, learn, remind yourself of your goals and take the next step needed to move forward.
Today I write!
~~~~~~~~For more: Read my
Plot Whisperer and Blockbuster Plots books for writers.
~~~~Need more help with your story?
- Looking for tips to prop up your middle with excitement?
- Wish you understood how to show don't tell what your character is feeling?
- Are even you sometimes bored with your own story?
- Long to form your concept into words?
We can help you with all of that and so much more! View your story in an entirely new light. Recharge your energy and enthusiasm for your writing.
1st video (43 minutes of direct instruction + exercises for your own individual story) FREE
