Key for your writing:  Who LONGS for what?

You may be writing a novel, memoir, screenplay, short story, or poem. Illustrating LONGING is important.

Think about its importance, too, in songwriting where the singer is always longing for something or someone.

“Longing” sells.

Readers identify with it. Don’t we all long for something or someone at some moment in life? Scarlet O’Hara longed for something and someone in Gone With the Wind. Dorothy longed to get home in The Wizard of Oz.

When you pick up your next book or watch the next movie or series, ask:  Who longs for what? How did the writer turn that into a great plot? Great characters?

“Longing” is a key theme in my Fudge Shop Mystery Series. I built that series around characters who long for something important. Protagonist Ava Oosterling and her grandfather Gil always long for something better to happen for them and the good people of Door County and the village of Fishers’ Harbor.

In Mastering Plot Twists by Jane Cleland, I found essential advice about “longing” for memoirists and novelists. Three questions create a crucial triad:

1. Who longs for what? (Answer for all main characters)

2. What are those people willing to do to satisfy their longings?

3. Who or what opposes them? What do they long for?

I applied the exercise to one of my series’ books. Analyze your own plot along with my effort, or if you’re a reader think about the book you’re currently enjoying.

My homework from the Fudge Shop Mystery Series:

Protagonist Ava Oosterling LONGS for happiness for her grandparents, who live on the street next to her B&B Blue Heron Inn on the hill in Fishers’ Harbor, Wisconsin. Why that longing?

She returned from California to Door County on Lake Michigan after her grandma broke a leg and couldn’t help in Grandpa’s fishing gear shop. Grandpa moved things around and made room for a candy-and-fudge-making operation run by Ava. He LONGS to have the family back together in Door County, and he longs to keep Ava happy because he loves his only grandchild.

“Longing” created my plot and characterization “roots.”

Ava had secretly LONGED to return home after ten years away in California. She’s eager for success. She LONGS to do well for family and community.

Murders oppose Ava’s peaceful goals, therefore she’s MOTIVATED to leap into solving troubles so Fishers’ Harbor is a haven and the place where she “longs” to belong.

Look at your story, novel, script, or memoir idea.  

1) Who longs for what? Why? How?

2) What action did that longing motivate?

3) If a writer, can you use “longing” for more profound emotions?  

“Longing” examples in novels…

WIN by Harlan Coben, James by Percival Everett, Havoc by Christopher Bollen, Weepers by Nick Chiarkas, Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt.

“Longing” example in nonfiction: 

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

“Longing” example in memoir: 

How to Catch a Mole, and also Seed to Dust, and Spring Rain, all by Marc Hamer