The thing I appreciate most about Donald Miller's writing is the way he makes you feel like you are his friend. You read what he has to say as if the two of you are sitting at Starbucks with a pumpkin spice latte just having a conversation about life. I'm in the middle of his newest book right now and it's really speaking to me.
The premise is that he is working on writing a screenplay based on his memoir Blue Like Jazz. The writers he is working with are coaching him in what makes a good story, and how he needs to edit the events of his life to create one. All of this leads Don to start critically thinking about living a better story. He talks about life in literary terms, using words like "protagonist," "inciting incidents," and "positive turns."
The book is doing its job in that it is making me think about the kind of story I'm living. One thing I'm afraid of is living a boring story - and I kind of feel like I'm there right now. I don't have a clear cut ambition. I'm not overcoming anything major. I'm too comfortable. I'm in pretty desperate need of an inciting incident, but I'm too nervous to ask for one. In the literary sense, an inciting incident is one that forces the protagonist into a change that they would not have otherwise made. It moves the character from comfortable to uncomfortable, from complacency to conflict. The character doesn't get to choose their inciting incident either. It could be something downright terrible. I don't want anything terrible to happen, but I do need to start living a more exciting story.
This leads me to think of ways I can sort of create my own inciting incident. I guess last July I did so by enrolling in grad school, but even that has fallen into a comfortable rhythm that I can control. I need a goal to work toward, one that is not easy to back out of once I start. I'll have to do some brainstorming. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to finish hanging out with Don Miller via his book.
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