Whatever Worked Last Time...

Brian Eno has a card in his Oblique Strategies set suggesting: Whatever worked last time, never do it again.

That might be more extreme than we always need but the sentiment is a good one. Just because it worked last time doesn’t mean it would work again. And just because a client has one idea in mind with their story, it doesn’t mean that’s the best way to narrate their own journey.

Each story needs a new approach, and to be looked at on its own merits. It’s the only way to create the story honestly.

I was working on a book but couldn’t get the story to line up with the author’s idea. The aim of the book was similar to other titles I’d worked on. The background of the author was similar to other clients. But none of the strategies I’d used on the previous titles brought me any closer to where the manuscript needed to go.

Only when I stepped back to reassess what the author was telling me in the interviews could I see what was the actual journey this author was on. In the interviews, she kept returning to an idea that was important to her but not one that was central to the book. It wasn’t part of the story she was telling, she thought. But with this at the core, there was something to hold all the other paths in her story together.

I explained this to her – The book wasn’t working… but if we put this other idea at the centre of her story then it was clearer. She was surprised to find out that her book wasn’t about her first concept. The new idea excited her.

Once I pulled the book apart and rewrote it with this new knowledge of the story we were telling, the terrain we were crossing, the story was much tighter. The writing was much more pleasurable. It flowed.

Each story and each book has its own core. There are strategies to find it. Those are useful. But writing one story using the directions and equipment from another story can have you scaling a mountain when you’re meant to be sailing an ocean.

Whatever worked last time, reconsider if it is worth doing this time.