Story Eggs

Someone asked me to explain what cracking the story egg means.

For me, each story feels as if it already exists and my job is to discover it and then unearth it, not unlike an archaeologist. But I have also found that each story has its own key for being discovered. For some it might be an particular insight to the main character that cracks the whole thing wide open so that I suddenly see the story. Sometimes it’s tied to the antagonist—that is who is key to understanding the story and “cracking” it open. For Theo Four, it was simply remembering to see the world through her eyes. For the first Beastologist, it was the gremlin Greasle who cracked things wide open for me.

When the story spring to life and begins to spark, then the story egg has been cracked.