The Moral Viewpoint

Ten years ago, I dove into my storage unit with gloves, spider spray and clean boxes in which to repack the irreplaceable items for which I paid a monthly pound of flesh. To my surprise, I discovered boxes and boxes of half finished short stories. Over two hundred of them.

Why did these stories remain incomplete? What truth could I cull from their water spotted, and sometimes moldy, pages?

The problem wasn’t the writing. All humility aside, I write well. That’s why my fulltime freelance status as an editor and ghostwriter thrives. It wasn’t the topic or the characters or the “world building” skills. These were well done, if not finished. The problem was my moral viewpoint.

The moral viewpoint is the rhyme and reason for the story, itself. The purpose driving the tale. If you don’t have passion for the truth at the core of your story, you won’t be able to finish it. Or, if you do finish it, it will lack power and conviction.

Tim O’Brien said, “A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth.”

Your quest as an author is to reveal truth as you experience it, whether in a throbbing heartbeat or a flash of insight, a slow revelation or a lifetime of dedicated study. When your moral viewpoint is on course, your story has a sure compass. Follow this compass and the passion that drives your story will carry you through to...

The End!