The unavoidable heart of the matter

Dig deep into the heart of situations you have found yourself in in the past. A story lies not in the infinite mix of details that beget a scene, but in the one unavoidable fact that alone necessitates action from the character. A bank teller is robbed by the kid she used to babysit. A man believes his wife has secretly terminated her pregnancy. Etc. When deciding to recreate a story on paper, you must distill it to the one element that keeps it from going in any other direction and work outward from there. If there´s no *one* element, it may not be the story you want to tell.