Something new is entering the world

An announcement

I have an announcement to make. A rather exciting announcement.

Normally I would save such a thing for the end of the post. Build anticipation and all that. Make my main point about some other writing concept I want to discuss, then tempt you with a little something at the end.

But in this case, it actually provides a decent segue into the meat of today’s post, so I suppose we should just get it out of the way.

I wrote a writing book.

You know what I’m talking about. A craft book. A writing manual. A writing guide. The sort of thing I’ve read way too many of, instead of actually writing. I haven’t counted the exact number…but if you include all the books, videos, podcasts, and blog articles, I’m sure I’ve spent hundreds of hours studying the craft. Time that could have been spent writing, yes. But time I enjoyed none the less.

I’m not sure how many people reading my blog are even interested in such a thing. You’re probably not all freaks like I am.

But given that my content tends to be centered around the question of “How do we tell better stories?” there’s a good chance you are. Or at least could be, if I made a good enough pitch.

So here’s the pitch:

Stop thinking like a writer.

That’s it. That’s the pitch.

Let me explain.

Most writing books talk about “story” in a weird way. As if it’s fundamentally other. As if it’s a visitor from another planet that has landed in your lap and needs to be cared for.

Actually, Superman is a great example of what I mean.

Your story is Superman. You didn’t ask for him, but he showed up anyway. He looks human and he acts mostly human, but he’s definitely not human. You feed him normal food—just more of it than you’d like—and you teach him about life, until eventually he breaks out his super strength and laser eyes and flies away to fight evil. You may have poured your heart and soul into him, but at no point did you truly understand him.

That’s how they talk about story. They give you lenses and angles and tips and tricks, like a mechanic facing a particularly rusty bolt, or a scientist reading strange signals from an instrument. But these things only serve to increase the distance between you and the story.

Stories should be near and dear to our hearts. They should flow from us like breath, like love. Instead, “story” becomes its own little artifact that can be crafted, polished, and put on a pedestal, like the bust of a famous man. Our goal becomes writing a better story.

And I’ve come to realize this is a grave mistake. We’ve been doing it all wrong.

Over the last several months I’ve been in a period of intense questioning. This isn’t particularly unusual for me since I have a curious mind and I’m always learning. The most recent thing I learned was how to make gluten-free flour from scratch, using my new grain mill. (You grind up white rice, brown rice, sorghum, potato starch, and corn starch in a 1:1:1:1:1 proportion. You stir them all together. And it makes AMAZING muffins.)

But what is strange is that over the last several months I was questioning not just one aspect of storytelling, but the basis of story itself. Or, more precisely, the idea of “narrative drive.”

What is narrative drive?

Think of it this way. Anyone can tell you about their day. For most people, it will be a pretty boring tale that only holds interest if you’re married to them. They got up, they walked the dog, they took a shower, they went to work, they ate supper, they went to bed. It’s a status update, not a thriller.

But a good storyteller, or an exquisitely unlucky fool, always lives a life worth hearing about. The difference isn’t necessarily substance but style. (Except in the case of the fool, whose goings-on may just be too juicy to ignore).

At the heart of all this lies one very important question: Why do we like stories? What makes us stop whatever we’re doing and listen to them?

There are all sorts of tempting throwaway answers. “Conflict,” one might say. “Emotion.” “Escapism.” “Ideological conformity.”

But none of those are the real answer, because for each one I can come up with a good counterargument.

Conflict is not a necessary component, despite what you’ve heard. Have you heard of cozy novels? What about pageants and mythologies? Sure, some myths are full of conflict, like The Odyssey. But some are just a recounting of creation, like how Ra travels the sky in a chariot and brings light to all people (according to the ancient Egyptians, who were quite fond of their chariots. As they should be.) Those myths have explanatory power, not dramatic power.

Same with emotion. Not all stories use much of this. Hard sci-fi is about scientific inquiry and puzzle solving. Mystery novels often have surprisingly little emotion. There might be bursts of anger or despair, but it’s not the main engine of the story.

And escapism? It’s very much a “Your mileage may vary” situation. I personally love it, I think it’s one of the primary reasons I read at all—and certainly why fantasy is my favorite genre. But plenty of authors don’t prioritize this in their work, and might instead lean on realism or familiarity.

When it comes to ideological conformity, it’s true that many books succeed because they tell people what they wanted to hear. But plenty of other books do the exact opposite, and are often just as successful. 1984, Brave New World, Lolita, Animal Farm… All of these are provocative, non-conformist, often cautionary tales. And they’re now considered classics.

At the end of the day, I wasn’t satisfied with any of the answers I received from traditional writing institutions. The craft books I’d read oodles of had never quite gotten around to answering this fundamental question. Why do we love stories? What makes us keep reading? (Those are really the same question, if you think about it.)

But even if those books had, I’m not sure it would have helped. I’m not looking for an answer in the abstract. I don’t want some perfect concept to roll around in my head like an ice cube in a now-empty tumbler that smells slightly of whiskey old fashioneds. I want answers. The kind of answers that need to be written in bold—or at the very least italics—because they’re just that tight.

And you know what? I found them. I found the answers. After many months of searching, which was really just me crossing the mental finish line after years of nasty writer’s block, I discovered a theory that makes everything fall into place.

• It explains why we read fiction

• What makes stories gripping

• Why plot-heavy thrillers and cozy romance both work—sometimes for the same reader

• Why styles have changed over time

• Why classic novels feel slow

• Why modern novels feel shallow

• Why none of the rules hold true in all cases

So now you’re wondering about the secret. What did I discover?

I discovered that it’s all about decoding.

(There are some italics for you. I would’ve used bold, but I’m not greedy.)

Which begs another question. What is decoding?

That’s a really good question. And it’s a question I can respond to…but it will take a whole book to do it. It’s a big question with a big answer to match.

That is why I wrote the book. I don’t have a publication date yet, but it will be later this year.

And have no fear. I plan to spill the beans a bit more in the upcoming weeks and months. I’ll give you little glimpses and tastes. I’ll drop a few sample pages. Maybe do a cover reveal. I will generally try to entice you to buy my book.

Why? Because I want money.

But more than that, because I think it’s truly something new. Something you haven’t heard before. And because it has a non-zero chance of rocking your world. I make this claim from a place of experience. It happened to me.

That actually relates to what I came here to say in the first place. I was going to briefly mention the book only as a preamble to the real topic, which is that I’m working on my fantasy novel again, and it has me thinking about main characters and why we root for them.

But that post will have to wait for another day. Throwing around a few brief words now would just be disrespectful, don’t you think?

That settles it. We’ll talk about protagonists another day.

But for today, suffice it to say that I am working on a writing book (a writing manual, a writing guide…you know what I mean). It comes at storytelling from the opposite side of most guides. It teaches you to think like a reader.

After all, a book is nothing without a reader. The reader always comes first.

(That one was worth the bold.)

I think it’s the book we need right now. And I can’t wait to tell you more about it.

Soon. Very soon. I promise.