Giving your Story a Purpose

"Every story needs an inciting incident."

While I do personally discourage strictly sticking to this sentiment when producing a plot, a creator should absolutely have an objective behind their story. A driving force that overrides any sense of motivation or lack thereof. Something rigid and reliable, that is able to withstand the abrasion of scrutiny, entirely unscathed by it's attempts at laceration. A concept that gives your narrative an inner being.

The premise behind this is simple; stories need a spirit to bind it. In our conscious excitement to tell narratives, the very essence of it's intention has to be conveyed to the listener. They must be able to derive substance from a story in a meaningfully significant manner, allowing them to perceive the ideas it contains at it's core. For this to occur, we must know the purpose for why our story exists.

First and foremost, why should you care about your story? If you don't care about it, you can't expect that anyone else will. So we must justify to ourselves why we should continually put effort into our storyline. A good purpose can justify why our story exists. A great purpose justifies why our story exists and establishes why we should share our story with others. Great purpose, then, is what we must desire for our stories.

What does one first require to give their story a great purpose? To determine this, we must recognise our intentions behind telling our narrative. What encouraged us to want to tell our story in the first place? Perhaps it was simple inspiration that sparked innovation. Maybe a challenge presented itself and tickled our fantasy. It could be that our story was weighing on our conscious, waiting to be told. Whatever the reason, the intention is the best place to approach the formation of purpose, as that will provide the perspective needed for us to create it.

After this has been contemplated and we are able to procure a perspective, we must then consider what our story wants to remark about itself. How should it present itself to the listener? This is a crucial step, because it is this moment where we separate our story from ourselves. It is important that we understand that a told story no longer belongs to us alone, but to all those that it is shared with. This doesn't mean that we lose control over our story as an intellectual property or as creator, but our intention behind it will be lost. The ideas that formulate our story will take a life of their own; it's beating heart the audience that perceives it. What we planned for the story can't be conveyed, leaving only what the story declares to the audience in it's place. In order to prepare for the inevitable, we as the creator must understand what it has to say for itself and adjust it according to our tastes.

It is within these adjustments that purpose begins to take shape. As we marry our intentions with what we want our story to present, we are able to extract purpose from it. Therefore to create great purpose, we must marry great intention with a great sense of self. We treat our story as novel, an interesting new, brimming with potential and waiting to be grafted into the masterwork that it should be. We should not deprive it of anything that drains the life force from it, to ensure that as much of our intention is able to be retained when it is presented to others.

With that said, we should always be striving to create stories with great purpose. So trigger that inciting incident. Give your story great purpose. Whatever you intend, ensure that it is quintessential, so that your intention can be reflected in it's appearance.