This is my term (as far as I know): Creative Anchor. I use that term to describe the first time an idea pops in my head which will “anchor” or force a story along. It’s a crucial creative idea which will make or break a chapter, sometimes even a story. Once you plop an anchor down, you either are stuck with it or will be forced to do a major re-write, in effect, ripping the creative anchor out of the ground and causing all kinds of headaches for your story. Sometimes, obviously, it still needs to be done.

So how do you choose creative anchors? I suppose the ways of choosing them are as varied as authors themselves. Let’s look at an example.

Whisked away somewhere. Where will it be? Antarctica? Punxatawney Pennsylvania? Cochem, Germany?  Each choice brings its own rewards and pitfalls. Once your character travels to any specific place, he or she is bound to the reality of those places and the baggage they carry with them.

This is why writers must choose the anchors carefully. NOT!

That sounds like the right thing to say, but I can attest in my own writing, that is not remotely how I do things. I do not think about those three destinations above and try to anticipate or brainstorm what each would mean for the story. Not at all! Never. That sounds horrible. I could never do that.

So how can you choose? Or better yet, how do I choose?

I just choose one. I wrote a story where I knew the character would travel and so I randomly chose a deserted island, not that I knew what was going to happen on that island or how that island would feed into the story. I chose it simply to find out what would happen. No other reason.

Obviously, what you choose is vitally important, but there is no way to know whether a different choice would be better – other than to re-write it with the different choice. You can certainly do that if you like, I don’t. Or rarely, I should say. I believe (and it could be a foolish belief) that I can write myself out of any situation I write myself into. That, to me, is one of the most enjoyable parts of the creative process.

So my advice to young writers would be not to get too caught up in your ideas and wonder which direction you should go. Just go! Do! Create. Discover. Give yourself a challenge and force yourself of a creative way out of it.

To me, that’s what writing is all about.