On Writing Books

How did you learn to tell stories?

Legit question, how did you learn to tell stories? Do you even know? Let's face it, stories are baked into our deepest history. So it seems odd to try and quantify how one learns to do something so innate to how we move through the world, how we engage with one another.

And yet, I'd be lying if I said that all of my skills in storytelling were innate, discovered more than constructed. This is a skill, and I had to learn it. Now that raises a question; is that a me thing or a storytelling thing? Chances are it's both, but let's assume I'm talking about my lived experience and not the grand tradition of telling stories.

First time I remember writing a story was for my third grade class. We were tasked with writing a ghost story for Halloween and building a diorama to match. The story that developed was, to my memory, two pages long, and detailed a group of kids sleeping over in a haunted house, only to be driven out by the spirit of an evil witch who attacked them with disembodied hands. If only I still had a copy.

Now, if I compare any of my early work that survives to work I'm doing now, I feel pretty confident that there is a marked improvement. Which means I must have learned something in the last twenty-two years.

This summer I embarked on a educational blitzkrieg. I was going to read all (most) of the writing books on my shelf and take notes on each of them. Thus far I've made it through a fair sample.

• "The Elements of Eloquence" by Mark Forsyth

• "Writing 21st Century Fiction" by Donald Mass

• "Damn Fine Story" by Chuck Wendig

• "The Emotional Craft of Fiction" by Donald Mass

• "The Playwright's Guidebook" by Stuart Spencer

• "Consider This" by Chuck Palahniuk

• "The Anatomy of Story" by John Truby

• "On Writing" by Stephen King

• "Steering the Craft" by Ursula K. Le Guin

And believe me when I say that barely scratches the surface of my collection. Which may hint at an entirely different problem. What's the work? Tsundoku? We'll burn that bridge when we come to it.

Until then, my intention was to go through my notes and create a kind of study guide, if only for myself, as reference for whatever writing projects I tackle in the future. So maybe you'd enjoy coming on that journey with me?

All best

Shane