WHERE STORIES TAKE FLIGHT: The Quote That Set Me Free as a Writer

by Jennifer Lynn Alvarez

I've wanted to write well since I was a child. I used to think that meant composing perfect prose, but what is perfect prose anyway? Is it poetic, minimalist, descriptive, flowery, or rhythmic? Books do not hold any clues. Great novels utilize many different writing styles. Popular books can be well-written or poorly written and enjoy equal success.

Then I read the following quote. It answered my question and freed me at the same time.

"Bad writing can be forgiven with a good story. A bad story with the most beautiful writing cannot."
--Bestselling author, Steve Berry

I had been shopping my YA novel to agents at the time I read this quote, and I was being soundly rejected. My own agent (who wasn't my agent yet) rejected it with a personal note explaining that my story lacked the tension to carry a reader through to the end. This book had been professionally edited, and I'd written about ten drafts of it. The sentences were fine, the story was not.

Then I got a note from a second agent. She also kindly rejected me and wrote this:

"Projects must have stellar world building, characters that leap off the page, pacing that is relentless, and a story that entices the reader to take its journey with the characters. I know that’s a tall order, but if your writing is lacking in any of those areas, I must pass on it."

Between the two agents' advice and the quote by Steve Berry, I had my "Aha" moment. AUTHORS ARE STORYTELLERS FIRST AND WRITERS SECOND. After years of agonizing over sentence structure and word choice (without ever achieving what I considered perfect prose), I stopped thinking of myself as a writer and started thinking of myself as a storyteller. This doesn't mean the writing isn't important, it just means you have to have a story to tell first. If you can also write it well, then more power to you!

This change in my mindset--from writer to storyteller--opened up a new door in my brain and guess what flew in? It was a special winged horse with a story to tell! I sat at my computer and for the first time in my life, a book wrote me. All I had to do was keep up.

I wrote, STARFIRE, book #1 of The Guardian Herd series, in 20 days, revised it, and submitted it. The agent who rejected my YA novel because it lacked tension, signed me as a client within days of reading my query.

What happens next with our stories is not up to us. It is only our job to write them and to get them published. Then, like our children, they will find their own way.

No matter what happens with STARFIRE, writing it has been one of the most fantastic experiences of my life, and it's my fifth book. It was never about the sentences. It was always about the story. I just needed someone to tell me that. Thank you agents and thank you Steve Berry!

***Update. My agent, Jacqueline Flynn, brokered the sale of THE GUARDIAN HERD series to HarperCollins Childrens Books in a four-book deal. Book one, STARFIRE, released on 09/23/14.

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