By Rachel Slaiman, President
Getting started is the hardest thing to do with anything. Putting that pen to paper to write, making a difficult phone call, or getting up early for mediation, yoga, or quiet time. So where do you start? How do you get off the ground and just go?
The Four Pillars of Purposeful Writing Workshop hosted by long-time member Sheila Lewis on January 29, 2025, took a look at four key elements to a story: plot, place, people, presence, and at the end participants had an opportunity share their writing. Without these elements, getting started to write a story would be much harder than anticipated.
The Plot Element: Earth
This element focuses on the structure and foundation of a story. It is the bare bones, an anecdote, with no details or direction right away.
The Place/Setting Element: Water
This element focuses on the flow and pace of a story. Here is where the action and the meat of the story come alive. This is achieved by the characters developing their roles in different scenes.
The People Element: Fire
This element focuses on developing characters who embody more than just their physical traits. They need to be dynamic and show growth throughout the story to keep the reader engaged and look forward to their outcome. Moving the story along with real character interaction is key.
The Presence Element: Air
This air element fuels the fire to spark ideas that bring the other elements into harmony. These include earth (plot/structure), water (place/setting), and fire (character), creating a stunning story.
The key takeaway for me was: What is my purpose for writing this piece? As writers, we tend to explore many different styles of free writing before we focus on an essay style piece, a short story for a writing competition, an excerpt/chapter of a book we are writing. This profession is a craft in it of itself and it leaves the curious mind to want more.
“For more information about Sheila’s classes, visitsheilaklewis@gmail.comand follow her on://www.instagram.com/creatingwritenow/
*All photos courtesy of Sheila Lewis
