Make It Easy On Them
I was once in a meeting with a large group of people with varying backgrounds and levels of technical expertise. The meeting topic turned to navigation, and the instructor asked for someone in the group to explain how a sextant worked.
Two hands went up, mine and another gentleman’s. The instructor chose the other man, and he spoke for a few minutes, describing a sextant’s operation and limitations.
Satisfied with the answer, the instructor then turned to me and said, “And you?”
I sat up and responded in a respectful tone,
“He is correct.”
The room burst out in laughter. The people in attendance may have forgotten how a sextant worked, but they remembered my simple affirmation.
The most powerful and influential communications are often given with few words. How many library wings are filled with books inspired by the following thoughts:
“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, many are strong at the broken places.”
– A Farewell to Arms, Earnest Hemingway
“It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget life.”
– Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, J.K. Rowling
“There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.”
– The Song of the Lark, Willa Cather
“Who controls the past controls the future.”
– 1984, George Orwell
“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly;
what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
– The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
“Love is or it ain’t. Thin love ain’t love at all.”
– Beloved, Toni Morrison
"You've got to roll with the punches and get to what's real."
– Jump, Van Halen
“Time moves slowly, but passes quickly.”
– The Color Purple, Alice Walker
“Nowadays people know the price of everything
and the value of nothing.”
– The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."
– Genesis 1:1
Elegance
Complexity isn't what sinks into readers' hearts. Twelve characters in your story are usually no better than six. Four plot twists are not necessarily better than one.
Instead, what do our readers want in your stories between the twists and gut-wrenches? I believe what they want is elegance. What is elegance?
Elegance:
Simple beauty.
What is beauty?
Beauty:
A visual scene that inspires wonder.
Van Gogh painted a simple scene he titled "Wheat Field with Cypresses." Van Gogh compared the tall cypresses to Egyptian obelisks, and he saw wheat fields as a representation of the natural cycle of life, growth, and death. While the wheat and the sky swayed and swirled, the cypresses provided constancy and stability.
What rich meanings do your stories provide?
Elegance is what we need in many areas of our lives, not just in our writing: to be clear and straightforward, yet effective, complete, and whole.
The elegant plot
People going on first dates are often anxious and agitated, trying to impress, when what their dates want is someone who is calm, natural, clear, and pleasant.
It’s the same with stories. What is the simplest, ideal story?
It starts with a character. What follows is the person's transformation throughout the story. What matters less, or even at all, is the plot.
The character must have a goal. Something she wants. The deeper the need, the better, from beginning to end.
That’s about it!
You don’t believe me? Here's a list of famous novels that have the simplest plots. The stories aren’t famous because of their plots, but because of what happens to their characters:
The Old Man and the Sea: An old fisherman catches a giant marlin after a long struggle at sea, then tries to bring it home.
Animal Farm: Farm animals overthrow their human owner and create their own society, but the pigs gradually become tyrants.
The Great Gatsby: A wealthy man throws extravagant parties in hopes of winning back the woman he once loved.
Frankenstein: A scientist creates a living creature but then rejects it, setting off a tragic chain of events.
The Picture of Dorian Gray: A handsome young man remains physically young while a portrait of him reflects his soul's corruption.
The Catcher in the Rye: A teenage boy leaves his school and wanders around New York City as he struggles with growing up.
Lord of the Flies: A group of schoolboys becomes stranded on an island and attempts to govern themselves, but their society descends into violence.
A Christmas Carol: A miserly old man is visited by three spirits who show him his past, present, and possible future.
The War of the Worlds: Martians invade Earth, and a man struggles to survive the destruction.
The Invisible Man: A scientist discovers how to make himself invisible but becomes increasingly dangerous and isolated.
"But these are old stories!" you say.
Here are some modern ones:
The Road (2006, Cormac McCarthy): A father and his young son travel across a devastated landscape, trying to survive.
A Man Called Ove (2012, Fredrik Backman): A grumpy widower's carefully ordered life is disrupted when a new family moves in next door.
What You Are Looking for is in the Library (2020, Michiko Aoyama): Different people visit a librarian who recommends books that help them reconsider their lives.
The Details (2022, Ia Genberg): While sick in bed, a woman thinks about four people who have shaped her life.
The Book of Goose (2022, Yiyun Li): Two girls in postwar rural France create a book together, but their friendship changes as one becomes famous.
Really Good, Actually (2023, Monica Heisey): A young woman navigates life after her marriage ends, trying to rebuild her identity and social life.
Tom Lake (2023, Ann Patchett): A mother working on her family's cherry farm tells her three daughters about a youthful romance she once had with a famous actor.
Worry (2024, Alexandra Tanner): Two sisters share an apartment in New York, where their everyday routines expose their anxieties and dependence on each other.
The Most (2024, Jessica Anthony): On a hot summer day in 1957, a man floats in his backyard swimming pool while his wife goes about her day and considers their marriage.
The Husbands (2024, Holly Gramazio): A single woman discovers that new husbands keep appearing in her attic, giving her endless opportunities to try different marriages.
What about stories with complex plots?
Write them after you’re an accomplished author, after you know the 1,000 other things you must do correctly to be successful.
The following link discusses movies that have been spoiled, or at least could have been wrecked, because of overly complex plots (one was directed by Hitchcock, so the movie wasn’t wreckable).
It’s understandable that budding authors may try to stuff more events into stories than necessary, but moviemakers who spend $200 million on a tale have no business causing such screwups.
There you have it
Now you know. A friend told me years ago that I could write a story about rocks, and it would be interesting. This is how we should write.
Trust that your simple story is enough. Instead of making it grandiose, make it your best simple story. Read Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart," a simple but famous story that has endured for over 180 years.
Life is already complex and bewildering. Let’s not make it more so by overwhelming our readers who only want to be taken away from their lives and placed in a world they can understand. Let’s give them that pleasure.
Comments