Daemon Voices: Essays on Storytelling
We understand a story’s meaning, in part, by tracking its causality, and a story’s power stems from our sense that its causality is truthful, which is to say, that its internal logic is solid.
George Saunders • A Swim in a Pond in the Rain
the author will actively pursue a specific goal (the point they are trying to make), positing a theory, exploring it and coming to a conclusion.
John Yorke • Into The Woods: How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them
You begin to string words together like beads to tell a story. You are desperate to communicate, to edify or entertain, to preserve moments of grace or joy or transcendence, to make real or imagined events come alive. But you cannot will this to happen. It is a matter of persistence and faith and hard work. So you might as well just go ahead and ge... See more
Anne Lamott • Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
As we’ve been saying, the story form is ruthlessly efficient. Everything in a story should be to purpose. Our working assumption is that nothing exists in a story by chance or merely to serve some documentary function. Every element should be a little poem, freighted with subtle meaning that is in connection with the story’s purpose. Honoring this
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