The trick to writing a story

The trick, I sometimes think, to writing a story is not necessarily just to get it written down. Stories can pour forth in voluminous quantities, especially when they find their source in deep places. The sheer onslaught becomes a torrent, unstoppable in its force, and prone to setting its own course.

No, the trick to writing a story is to wrest control of it, even while it flows forth with such generosity that you feel awash with tides of happy inspiration. Because the only thing worse than having to cull superfluous wordage, is having to cull superfluous wordage that has wandered down entirely the wrong plot path. Rein it in! Assert your sense of story direction even in the earliest stages. Be firm with your story, as this is the difference between producing work and exercising your craft. 

Of course, there is a mysterious process that we all of us hope for, that can occur concurrently as you write. It's the quiet alchemy in which your ideas morph into something stranger and more beautiful than you imagined they would, as they grow into and assume their final form. But this occurs even when you exercise more discipline and restraint, and sometimes, paradoxically, because you exercise more discipline and restraint. It seems counterintuitive that this should be so. That the cautiously steered work could outshine the writing that pours forth in an effortless-seeming gush makes no sense at all. It is as if the creative ether is shaped better for having something solid to push against as it assumes its incarnation. 

And, like all things with writing, we learn this only by finding it out for ourselves. We write, often badly, and then learn to do it better in a slow but continuous process. But it need not be as difficult as we allow it to be. We can make writing easier by providing our stories with a gentle but firm scaffolding even in our early drafts. Set your plot points, write towards them. If you need to make variations to them, do so consciously. But whatever you do, do not let the heady rush of creative outpourings be your story's pathfinder. Taking control is kindest, both to your story and to yourself.