I’m not a great cook, but I am a master of the one-pot meal.
My go-to technique in the kitchen is to chuck a bunch of ingredients into a pot, cover it with broth, and simmer until it’s ready to eat. Think soups, stews, and chilis; but also salsas and salads. If the recipe says, “combine and serve,” it’s right up my alley.
With this approach, I can usually make something palatable — to me, at least — even if all I’ve got is a turnip, a bag of frozen peas, half a roast chicken, and some couscous. Thankfully, I don’t have any picky eaters in my household.
Of course, my one-pot approach doesn’t work for everything. I wouldn’t add a can of tuna to a chicken and veggie stew. And obviously, a banana doesn’t belong in a three-bean chili. That would make the kind of dog’s breakfast that not even the dog would want.
So, why do I try to do the same thing with my writing?
I’ve talked about my tendency to hoard ideas before. (See my writing about “the story graveyard.”) When I’m starting a new project, I’ll open up my idea folder and see if there’s something I can use, like a half-imagined setting, an intriguing character, or a line of dialogue.
“Ooh, I can definitely work that sketch of a woman stuck at the train station into my new story,” I’ll say, and try to cram it in. “And the man with the ducks can be part of a dream sequence.”
That’s not a story. It’s like adding tuna to chicken soup. It’s a recipe for disaster.
I have a theory that my “combine and serve” approach to writing is based on fear. That fear has a few dimensions.
First, I’m afraid I won’t have the creative energy to write more than One Big Thing in my life, so I need to find a way to include all my good ideas.
Second, I’m afraid that once I get started on the One Big Thing, it won’t actually be that good, and I’ll have to pad the recipe with whatever other ideas are lying around.
And third, I’m afraid that none of my individual ideas are good enough to stand on their own — but by mashing them together, I will somehow create something that’s greater than the sum of its parts.
But so far, these attempts haven’t turned out well. Inevitably, I’ll spend weeks struggling to fold a random idea into a story and make it work, and then I’ll get frustrated when it doesn’t. It happened just this past week, as I revisited a novel I started writing nearly 10 years ago. The novel started out as a short story about an elderly woman with dementia who used to be a dancer. To that original story, I added a character from another story, a setting from somewhere else, a premise from yet another source, and forced the whole mishmash into the genre I thought I was writing in. It wasn’t working.
As I re-read what I’d written so far, I came to the grudging realization that adding all those random ideas into the story was exactly why it wasn’t working. I had to go back to the original storyline, before I tried to cram in those other bits and pieces. I had to go back to the elderly woman who used to be a dancer. What’s her story?
When I focused back in on that original idea — the main dish, so to speak — things got more clear. There’s something there, on its own, that I’m excited to write.
That’s not to say the fear has gone away. I’m still anxious that it won’t be any good, or that I’ll run out of steam as I get further in, but I’m learning to trust that my creativity will kick in when I need it. I don’t need to rely on or use up an existing idea, as if it were an ingredient in my fridge that’s about to go bad. Fresh ideas will keep pouring in.
As Maya Angelou said, “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”
I’m still a stalwart defender of the one-pot meal. And maybe there is a story where the woman at the train station and the man with the ducks will both play a role. Or maybe they’ll each get their own story.
For now, I’m focusing on the woman who used to be a dancer, and the story she’s leading me to tell.
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Maria Hypponen 