Riddles require you to make up the context of the scene and find what fits. Stories build that piece by piece. There’s no cathartic emotional revelation in having the context given like this. There’s no story. There’s no value placed on this information. There’s no tension other than trying to solve the riddle. Stories require that the information we need – hopefully – comes right when we need it in order to make sense of what has happened.
There was a point while he was writing Fight Club where Chuck Palahniuk came to realise that the two characters – the narrator and Tyler – were the same. It wasn’t a twist he’d thought of before writing. It wasn’t a gimmick to string the reader along. He was writing a damning commentary on masculinity as he saw it in the mid-1990s.
The power of your story depends on clearly locating your inciting incident.
The fundamentals of this are often misunderstood.
Story is about transformation. A story is in how a character changes. This change does not come easily but there is something that pushes the character out of their comfort to begin the journey.
Writing is a process that uncovers what you’re saying. There are times to do it quickly but there must also be moments of revision, reflection, rewriting. And this is slow, sometimes painfully slow.
But that process is worth doing. It uncovers more layers of the beauty around your story, your concept, your idea.
Steve Albini – ““When I talk about recording an acoustic instrument, what I really mean is recreating the sense memory of having heard an acoustic instrument. I say that because acoustic instruments have an extremely long tradition. Every part of the world uses some form of acoustic stringed instruments, and we all have engrained in us personal and cultural memory of these instruments. So when I say I’m trying to make an accurate recording of an acoustic instrument, what I mean is I’m trying to evoke the sensation of having heard that instrument in life.””
Aristotle opens Poetics by describing poetry as a species of imitation. There are different ways to do that, different mediums and different ways. Painting, too, is imitation, Aristotle points out.
In our stories, that’s what we do. We imitate to recreate sense memory.
Brian Eno has a card in his Oblique Strategies set suggesting: Whatever worked last time, never do it again.
That might be more extreme than we always need but the sentiment is a good one. Just because it worked last time doesn’t mean it would work again. And just because a client has one idea in mind with their story, it doesn’t mean that’s the best way to narrate their own journey.
Trusting the writing the process and following it where it goes takes strength and dedication. Finishing the song, putting it down to the record, then turning to the next tune is a cycle that meant they learnt so much in their process, and were open to new ideas to weave into the songs the next time around.
John Swartzwelder is a reclusive writer best known for writing a huge amount of the strongest early Simpsons episodes. He also wrote for Saturday Night Live. Now he writes novels. His writing process involves getting the idea out quick. Finish the first draft as fast as possible. Then work deeper in the rewrite.
People read to connect with a story. Or they read to learn. They talk about the story with friends because it connects with them. They see themselves in the text. Or they’ve learnt something important from reading it.
Rarely has someone sat down with a friend over coffee and gushed over complicated sentences they couldn’t understand.
