Ask Yourself This Before You Continue
Segun Iwasanmi@iwasanmisegun212159
9 days ago
© Segun Iwasanmi
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Two days ago while traveling home, I watched a man arguing with a bus driver like the driver personally offended his ancestors. He was confused. "Oga, are you going to Lagos or not?" The driver kept saying yes, but somehow the bus was already heading towards Okitipupa. By the time we got to Mobil filling station at Ore, it was clear the driver had been replying absentmindedly the whole time. The man's face ehn, I can't explain it.
But I reflected on it because the problem wasn't speed. The bus was moving fine. The problem was direction. And once direction is off, movement just becomes energy wasted on the wrong road.
Writing does the exact same thing. Someone opens a document, writes two chapters, even five, then everything starts feeling heavy. Not because they are lazy, but because somewhere along the way the direction shifted. One chapter sounds like motivation, the next turns into a story, the one after starts teaching something else entirely. Like a bus changing route without telling the passengers.
I'll tell you this for free (don't mention 😀), when a manuscript starts feeling like that, one question fixes more than any editing session. "Why should anybody care when this is done?" That question has a way of cutting through the noise fast. When I sit with someone's work and I ask the writer, things become clear quickly. What to remove shows itself. What to keep raises its hand. What needs more room speaks up. The writing gets lighter because it finally knows where it's going.
Sometimes what people bring to me is not even a bad draft. It's just a story that has been moving without direction for too long and needs someone to ask it the right question.
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© Segun Iwasanmi | ™The Man With The Story.
Book Writer | Screen and Scriptwriter | Creative Fiction writer | Book Editor.
I help people turn rough ideas into bold stories that work
