Writing tools story craft

Writing Tools VS. Story Craft

In June I will again join the Ozark Creative Arts Academy for high schoolers to teach some writing tools and story craft seminars. This year I plan to shape my talk out of the overflow of a conversation I had last year with Dr. Giltner and Dr. Cirilla at the Niagra Falls retreat.

It goes something like this:

Writing is a technology.

Storytelling is the craft.

Or said in another way:

Writing tools can never compensate for bad story craft.

Writing is the means by which we convey and record the mind and body and spirit of thought through language.

Storytelling is that language – the unique syntax and vocab that show the poetry that births new thought, new narrative, new sympathy with those who rejoice and mourn.

Featured Download: free ebook of 36 unconventional articles on story craft.

As I’ve said elsewhere, I’ve grown tired of the word story due to the way it has been abused in recent years by the culture industry. Nevertheless, it serves the point here: the conveying of imaginative meaning that first demonstrates and then proves a point without explaining it, typically through the pursuit of some interior goal or change.

Writing, however, is the way we record all of that. You can write through the various hierarchy of memorization in oral traditions, through scrawling on walls with chalk and blood and on pottery with scratches, through parchment and quill, letterpress and typewriter, phonograph and cinemograph, digital camera and blog. Each of these has restrictions (oral tradition is the most reliable but the most time consuming to keep straight while blogs crank stuff out quickly yet are historically unreliable) and those restrictions make it possible for us to envision different ways to communicate the meaning of what could hypotehtically happen.

Fiction and myth, you see, isn’t lying at all. It’s hypothesizing. That’s why science fiction predicates all scientific breakthrough: we need imagination to move us forward first into the hypotheticall so that we can deal with the roots of what’s really real, and truly bpossible.

Which means that the best thing you could ever do for your writing career is to get rid of your computer, your pen, your blog, your typewriter, your letterpress (if you’re like my wife) and start over with thoughts and naratives, storyweaving and the pursuit of goals by characters who both represent great ideas and are deep people with real pasts.

Figure out what it means to truly have varied forces of antagonism.

Figure out how to escalate the problems and resistance that get in the way of that goal, that desire, that misbelief that needs changing by the end.

Figure out just how they will adapt.

Tell the story to yourself outloud. Tell it to your kids. Tell it to your best friend.

Then try longhand again.

Maybe a typewriter.

And maybe, just maybe, you can open your word processor and boot up that laser printer.

READ NEXT:  Internet Speculative Fiction Database

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Quick note from Lance about this post: when you choose to comment (or share this post with your friends) you help other readers just like you.

How?

Well, see, your comments & sharing whisper a few things to those who come after you:

The first is that this site is a safe place to speak up & stay curious. That it’s civil. That discussion is encouraged. That there’s no such thing as a stupid question (being a student of Socrates, I really and truly believe this). That talking to one another and growing together is more important than anything we could possibly publish. That the point is growing in virtue and growing together and growing wise. That discovery is invention, deference is originality, that we all can rise together. The only folks I’m going to take comments down from are obvious jerks who argue in bad faith, don’t stay curious, or actively make personal attacks. And, frankly, I’d rather we talk here than on some social media farm — I will never show ads and the only thing I’m selling anywhere on the site or my mailing list is just the stuff I make.

You’re also helping folks realize that anything you & they build together is far more important than anything you come to me to read. I take the things I write about seriously, but I don’t take myself seriously: I play the fool, I hate cults of personality, and I also don’t really like being the center of attention (believe it or not). I would much rather folks connect because of an introduction I’ve made or because they commented with one another back and forth and then build something beautiful together. My favorite contributions have been lifelong business and love partnerships from two people who have forgotten I introduced them. Some of my closest friends NOW I literally met on another blog’s comment section fifteen years ago. I would love for that to happen here — let two of you meet and let me fade into the background.

Last, you help me revise. I’m wrong. Often. I’m not embarrassed to admit it or worried about being cancelled or publicly shamed. I make a fool out of myself (that’s sort of the point). So as I get feedback, I can say, “I was wrong about that” and set a model for curious, consistent learning, and growing in wisdom. I’m blind to what I don’t know and as grows the island of my knowledge so grows the shoreline of my ignorance. It’s the recovery of innocence on the far end of experience: a child is in a permanent state of wonder. So are the wise: they aren’t afraid of saying, “I don’t know. That’s new: please teach me.” That’s my goal, comments help. And I read all reviews: my skin’s tough, but that’s not license to be needlessly cruel. We teach one another our habits and there’s a way to civilly demolish an idea without demolishing another person: just because I personally can take the world’s meanest 1-star review doesn’t mean we should teach one another how to be crueler on the internet.

For three magical reasons — your brave curiosity, your community, & my ignorance:

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