When I was a boy in the little town of Sumner, Illinois, many families had backyard vegetable gardens. I’m talking about the sixties and seventies, times that weren’t too distant from the Great Depression and World War II, those times of subsistence and victory gardens. My own father was sixteen when the stock market crashed in 1929. I grew up under the influence of his experience with frugality and want. He was always putting something aside for any rainy day that might be on the horizon. When it came to our gardens, he made it certain we’d never have reason to lack food. The shelves of our pantry were fully stocked with jars of fruits and vegetables my mother had canned. What couldn’t be canned she froze and stored away in our deep freeze. We were very good at using what we had at hand. If something needed a repair, my father figured out how to do it. Only rarely did he have to pay someone to do the work.

Like many teenagers, I resented having to spend my summer days working in our garden, but now I see how my parents’ resourcefulness indirectly prepared me for being a writer. I’m working on the first draft of a new novel now. I keep going a little at a time now that I’m a caretaker for my wife, Cathy, during her cancer treatment. I don’t live in the world of my novel as much as I generally would simply because other more important things require my attention. I give it freely.

Still, when I come back to the writing of the novel, I must reacquaint myself with my characters and the world through which they’re moving. I keep track of all the problems I know I’ll eventually have to address. No one else can do it. I’m on my own, and the only tools I have at my disposal come from what I know about technique. Structure, detail, point of view, characterization, language—I’ll work in those areas until I have everything as right as I possibly can. My years of experience tell me anyone can learn to make technical fixes in pieces of writing. The more difficult thing is to address this question: Why does this story matter to me?

We spend so much time writing, especially when we’re working on a novel. Shouldn’t we have a compelling reason to do so? Here, then, are a few more questions to help you explore the one about why the story matters to you:

Where are you in the story?

What’s at stake for you in the telling?

What is it about the story that makes your heart beat faster, or makes you squirm in your writing chair?

Why is the story personal to you?

I ask you to consider these questions to help you make your work more resonant. If it matters to you, there’s a greater likelihood that it’ll matter to readers. Entertaining plots are a welcome thing, but something deeper makes for a memorable story or novel, something only the writer can know.