You’re gonna get stuck. There will always be a point where you don’t know where the story is really at. You’ll bash your head against the brick wall of your story for awhile and then, if you’re most people, you’ll give up. You gotta come at this process with some cheats. Shifting perspective is one of the easiest.
I was on a Lyft ride in Los Angeles recently, talking to my driver. He lived a peaceful life. He was retired, his kids were out of the house and doing well. Every day, he went to the gym, then drove for Lyft for a couple of hours, then he’d go home for lunch and a nap, after which he’d take a walk and then drive a bit more. He drove with patience, a little under the speed limit.
Recently, he told me, there’d been a big accident on the 105 freeway. A car was speeding, weaving in and out of traffic, and it collided with a fuel tanker truck. The tanker truck burst into flames, killing both drivers and causing a fire that shut down the freeway for hours. The westbound lanes, those headed toward the Los Angeles Airport, were closed for more than fourteen hours. Even the Metro lines were affected. The tanker truck had to burn itself out. The gas spills were cleaned by a hazmat team.
“A lot of people missed their flights that day,” my driver concluded.
This struck me. Why, in a story full of crashes and fireballs and hazmat suits, was this the story for him?
Because he’s a Lyft driver.
Every story has a thousand perspectives. For instance, one of the stuck vehicles on the freeway that day was a food truck that served breakfast to other stranded motorists. People stepped into hazmat suits; others inspected burned bodies, and their lives will never be the same.
And, as my driver pointed out, hundreds of people didn’t make their flights. Each one of them has a story. Some of them had to spend an extra day on vacation in Los Angeles; maybe one of them met the love of their life that night. One of them didn’t make it to an important interview. Another missed her own surgery. Someone didn’t make it to his father’s bedside before he passed away.
If you’re stuck, don’t stop working, and don’t bash your head against the wall. Cheat. Change perspective and keep writing.