Unwritten

By Nikki Wilson

The hardest part of being a writer is getting the right words to paper. You can have the best, most wonderful story, but if it remains unwritten, no one will ever know about it. I'm trying to change my writing ways and convert from being a pantser (flying by the seat of my pants while writing) to being an outliner. My outline is coming along and I'm getting so excited about this story. But it doesn't matter how wonderful my outline is, if I never write it, no one will know how wonderful it could have been.

My favorite example of this is the story of how Frankenstein came to be. Now I'm sure there are lots of rumors about how this went down and I'm not sure if any of them even come close to the true story, but I'm just going to summarize the story that my high school English teacher told me. It goes like this. Percy Shelley and his wife, Mary Shelley went with Lord Byron and Lord Byron's "pharmacist" to a summer castle of Lord Byron's. While there, they had a contest to see who could tell the scariest story. Mary Shelley's story won and she was urged very strongly to write it and that is how Frankenstein came to be. On the other hand, Lord Byron's "pharmacist's" story got second place but he never wrote it. Though the story went by word of mouth for some years and eventually the story of Dracula was born. But because the "pharmacist" never wrote it down, we will never know what his story truly was and we will probably never know his name.

Can you imagine what the world would be like without Frankenstein? Don't sit around wondering what the world will be like without your story. Write the books that only you can write. Let the world know who you are!