Take Heart
Updated: 1 hour ago
If you’ve worked for years writing rich, thoughtful stories and no one seems to care, then take heart.
The greatest stories ever written come from deep within authors’ hearts. Today, such stories seem to be increasingly ignored unless they sparkle like a disco ball or roar like a Mustang GTD. But don’t get discouraged because the world is becoming increasingly dissatisfied with things flashy. Action hero movies are on the decline, while quiet, earnest, and heartfelt stories are on the rise. Audiobook sales rose 15% in 2024 and 9% in 2025.
Ink (2009)
You need to know about an unusual movie called Ink. It was made for $250,000. That seems like a lot of money, but it’s only 1% of the cost of the typical modern blockbuster. The movie is so strange that the world should have tossed it minutes after its release. Yet it still deeply impacts those who watch it.
As the show progresses, you become aware that something bigger is happening. The movie's deep, emotional message about redemption, fatherhood, and the constant swirl of good and evil around the characters outweighs its chintzy visuals. If you don’t cry during the movie, then you’re a heartless brute and a horrible person.
It’s depth and attention that matter
It turns out that what’s important and long-lasting isn't what appears on the surface, but what lies beneath it. Are the writing and thoughts in your story genuine and fully expressed? No subject is inherently trivial. But no plotline, no matter how glitzy, won't be embraced by the world if it’s starved of humanity.
Publishers claim they’re looking for fresh new story ideas. They say this until an emotionally thorough, introspective story that's been given the attention it deserves lands on their desk.
Here is where you come in. You have as much genuine and rich humanity within you as James Patterson, Stephen King, and Margaret Atwood.
Writing like the greatest authors
Before you believe your story is finished, you must consider the following:
Does your story express true, vulnerable feelings? Not just fear, but why the fear? Why is Alicia afraid of the night?
Why do your story’s events make characters angry or ashamed? It’s not enough to write, “The route to Evan’s house confused her.” Readers want to know why.
Have you explained how Zane waits before answering a difficult question? What does he do during that time?
Have you described how your characters feel more than one emotion at once? Can Enid mourn her father’s death while simultaneously feeling relief? Have you shown how she does this without using the words “mourn” and “relief”?
Have you written about feelings from within you that you don’t want anyone to know about?
Has your story attacked those feelings and shown them as irrelevant and foolish?
Don’t write sentences that you want admired. Don’t try to make characters likable. Don’t try to create a moment that makes readers cry. All of those will happen on their own if your writing is truthful. Instead, pretend that someone has given you a truth serum that forces you to express your deepest feelings. Apply those feelings to what your characters are going through.
How would you honestly feel if you were on a small boat hunting a shark, and the shark turns out to be much larger than you expected?
The Worm
Imagine a story about a worm. What is the worm feeling?
What am I doing here?
I don’t know where to go.
Everywhere is just the same.
Is there something better for me?
Is anyone else within miles of me?
Should I be doing something else?
Dying would be the simplest thing to do.
When I eat, I just get hungry again. I don’t even like what I eat.
I cannot remember anything different than what’s happening to me right now.
Notice that the example above doesn’t use the words helplessness, loneliness, isolation, emptiness, dissatisfaction, longing, self-doubt, or boredom. Make sure your story does the same.
The Catcher in the Rye
I must admit I haven’t read The Catcher in the Rye. The novel is famous for its portrayal of adolescent alienation and its casual, unfiltered first-person voice. The novel includes more introspection than is typical and focuses more on what the main character thinks about what happens to him than on what actually happens.
In other words, it’s brutally honest.
How to be brutally honest?
There are many ways to learn how to express your emotions purely and freely. One method is to put a voice recording app on the home screen of your cellphone so that when you wake up from a dream, you can reach for the button and speak, describing wholly and fully how you feel.
Guilty?
Abused?
Popular?
Useless?
Rejected?
Resentful?
Unreliable?
Neglected?
Successful?
Speak immediately upon waking up. Don’t turn on a light or even stretch. Don’t think, filter, fix your wording, or judge. If you’re mumbling, then mumble. If your grammar is awful, so what? Spew your feelings, no matter whether they’re silly, unreasonable, stupid, or nonsensical.
That recording is fictional gold, the Holy Grail of storytelling. Don’t confuse emotions with plot. The events of your dreams are irrelevant. It’s how you feel during your dreams that matters.
Make sure that the story you’re writing includes those feelings.
Then you must do a hundred other things before your story is publishable. But at least you can know you’ve done what matters most! Everything else is glitz and glamour.
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