My A-Z of Writing Tips: Zippers and Writing

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When you do up a zipper, the teeth must fit together correctly so the slider can travel along them and fasten the chain properly. Simple, when you break down all its elements, but something that must seem like magic to someone who’s never seen a zipper before.

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In the same way, all the different parts of our writing need to come together in order to make a complete and publishable story. Characters, voice, grammar, scenes, vocabulary, plot, themes, and so on, and so on. Once all these elements are in place, the zipper can be “done up,” and out pops a perfect story.

Or does it?

When you break writing down to its different elements, each seems (reasonably) simple. You can work on each of them until you’ve mastered (to your satisfaction) that component. Problem is, you can’t then hold your breath and conjure up a complete and publishable story just because you’ve mastered all the components. Something needs to hold all the components together, something indefinable. Something magic.

So I think, anyway.

Not everyone has that magic, though it is something we can work at, in the hope we may one day find—or create—our own little pot of fairy dust.

How about you: Do you think writing requires a pinch of magic? Or is it just a bunch of technical components that anyone can weld together to make a complete and publishable story?





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