On Storytelling

People are good at storytelling when they have a story to tell. When they are trying to contrive ‘story’, not so much.

It’s remarkable how terrible people are at creative writing when they are just starting out, or are having some kind of struggle with it as an art form. Meanwhile, these same people are posting on forums, writing Facebook updates, e-mails, and telling their friends about their lives. When they are trying to communicate something sincerely without trying too hard to embellish the facts with sensational quality, their attempts are usually successful, and resoundingly so.

There is already a lot of material about this topic, call it filtering, or whatever else. I just want to commentate on it in my own words.

Take an example.

1. Something amazing happened to me the other week. It’ll really shock you, what happened––once you hear this you won’t believe it. I don’t normally share this kind of thing with people, but trust me, this is an exception.

2. The other week, I was involved in a motor vehicle collision. Three lives were claimed, including that of a four-year-old child. The police determined that I was at fault. 

In (1), I’m simply trying to sell you on why you should be interested in what I’m talking about. In (2), I’m telling you about something, and it’s up to you to decide whether it is sensational or not. Either the content warrants merit, or it doesn’t. In (1), there’s the insinuation that the content I want to tell you about isn’t sensational enough on its own, which would explain why I’m trying to sell you on the idea of getting excited about it even though the content might not merit excitement. In (2), the content hits so hard that it doesn’t require the storyteller to further sensationalize it.

I’m a writer of fictional literature. One of the worst things I’ve seen myself doing is to write in a way that substitutes meaning and content with misplaced technique, filler material, and fluff––false sensationalism. My only consolation is that so many other writers are doing it even more than I am. Then I look back at the forums and social media posts and occasionally see non-writers imparting a matter-of-fact story that works so much more efficiently and elegantly than a piece of creative writing that has been laboured over by a dedicated author. 

This subject isn’t really ‘about’ overuse of adverbs, dialog tags, or purple prose. Writers should actually keep those things in their arsenal. It’s about the fact that: if you can tell someone a casual and verbal story, or post a concise but interesting anecdote on the internet, and if it is more interesting and readable to others than your creative writing is, then you need to need to go back and take another look at your writing style.