Writing Longevity, Part One

The play that just broke a sales record, is based on a fifty nine year old book. To Kill A Mockingbird was published in 1960, and it’s adaptation is a broadway hit. While you’re project may or may not rise to that level, you want it to have longevity.

In a practical sense, you want this, not for fame or fortune, but for it to be relevant. One way of doing this, is to take steps to prevent your story from being dated. References, and cultural inside jokes are good for today, but you must ask yourself if people will get the joke 50 years from now.

It’s not that the story should be dateless. Many of our great works are set in a specific era, but because of relevance are timeless. Be careful of props that would cause you’re writing to fall when the crutch wears out.

You also want your project to live because of helping others. Even fiction can be therapeutic to someone if written well. A children’s story helped a very close loved one through a hard persona time.

No one can predict whether or not your book or idea will rise to the level of Harper Lee, but it doesn’t have to, to be impactful. If your story, project, or novel helps one person, it has value. It’s helping you to write it, so it is valuable.

I encourage you to write it so that, it will give hope to others. Pour out your despair in the middle chapters, but give them hope in the end. Show them that there is a path out of their problem. Inspire them the way you hope others will inspire you. This will not only give longer life to your writing, it will help others to live their life to its fullest.

Let’s talk more about this tomorrow.