
“If you think your writing is good enough, you’re an amateur.”
-- Steven Pressfield
I was recently describing the plot of one of my stories to a coworker when he leaned back, arms waving exuberantly, and said, “You should make a video of you describing your novel to someone.”
Unfortunately, cameras don’t like me. But his suggestion reminded me that people worldwide have been wanting to hear stories long before there were radios and televisions. Storytellers across the world have been called everything from bards and minstrels to griots, maggids, pingshu, and dastangoi.
There’s something appealing about hearing a good story.
Back in 2021, I wrote a blog post claiming that readers will obsess over your stories if they are,
Relatable
Clear
Attractive
Immersive
I have since learned that you can possess your readers just as effectively by mastering only one technique. This technique may be the great secret authors have longed for since the beginning of time.
The technique is as follows:
Write like you talk.
The kind of “talk” referred to here is idealized talk, in the same way that dialogue in fiction is idealized dialogue, without the gaps, stutters, “um’s,” and “uh’s.”
I have provided the following excerpts from famous novels to demonstrate this technique. Ask yourself if they don’t make you feel like you’re sitting at a campfire late at night with the author, hearing her tell you her story:
The cellar-door flew open with a booming sound, and then he heard the noise much louder, on the floors below; then coming up the stairs; then coming straight towards his door.
A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
She was so overcome by the splendour of his achievement she took him into the closet and selected a choice apple, and delivered it to him, along with an improving lecture upon the added value and flavour a treat took to itself when it came without sin through virtuous effort. And while she closed with a happy Scriptural flourish, he ‘hooked’ a doughnut.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain
There was once an old castle that stood in the middle of a deep gloomy wood, and in the castle lived an old fairy. Now this fairy could take any shape she pleased. All the day long she flew about in the form of an owl, or crept about the country like a cat; but at night she always became an old woman again. When any young man came within a hundred paces of her castle, he became quite fixed, and could not move a step till she came and set him free, which she would not do till he had given her his word never to come there again. But when any pretty maiden came within that space she was changed into a bird, and the fairy put her into a cage, and hung her up in a chamber in the castle. There were seven hundred of these cages hanging in the castle, and all with beautiful birds in them.
Grimm’s Fairy Tales, The Brother’s Grimm
For some reason or other we did not begin that game of dominoes. We felt meditative, and fit for nothing but placid staring. The day was ending in a serenity of still and exquisite brilliance. The water shone pacifically; the sky, without a speck, was a benign immensity of unstained light.
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
Gale won’t have any trouble finding a wife. He’s good-looking, he’s strong enough to handle the work in the mines, and he can hunt. You can tell by the way the girls whisper about him when he walks by in school that they want him. It makes me jealous but not for the reason people would think. Good hunting partners are hard to find.
The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
Books bombarded his shoulder, his arms, his upturned face. A book lit, almost obediently, like a white pigeon, in his hands, wings fluttering. In the dim, wavering light, a page hung open and it was like a snowy feather, the words delicately painted thereon. In all the rush and fervor, Montage had only an instant to read a line, but it blazed in his mind for the next minute as if stamped there with fiery steel. “Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine.” He dropped the book. Immediately, another fell into his arms.
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
At the first howl the horses began to strain and rear, but the driver spoke to them soothingly, and they quieted down, but shivered and sweated as though after a runaway from sudden fright. Then, far off in the distance, from the mountains on each side of us began a louder and a sharper howling, that of wolves, which affected both the horses and myself in the same way. For I was minded to jump from the caleche and run whilst they reared again and plunged so madly the driver had to use all his great strength to keep them from bolting.
Dracula, Bram Stoker
Jem condescended to take me to school the first day, a job usually done by one’s parents, but Atticus had said Jem would be delighted to show me where my room was. I think some money changed hands in this transaction, for as we trotted around the corner past the Radley Place I heard an unfamiliar jingle in Jem’s pockets. When we slowed to a walk at the edge of the schoolyard, Jem was careful to explain that during school hours I was not to bother him, I was not to approach him with requests to enact a chapter of Tarzan and the Ant Men, to embarrass him with references to his private life, or tag along behind him at recess and noon. I was to stick with the first grade and he would stick with the fifth. In short, I was to leave him alone.
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
Readers want a relaxing experience
Imagine the typical apprehensions during a first date. Wouldn’t you want your date to speak clearly and attractively? Wouldn’t you want to do the same?
This is what the readers of your stories want. While they read your creations, they want,
To be relaxed
To be entertained
To be taken to a faraway place
Readers submit to your stories just as people in relationships submit themselves to each other. To do this, you must allow your readers to feel comfortable with you, just as psychologists have their clients lie on those long couches.
Going on walks
When I'm writing and come to a point in a story where I’m not sure where it’s going, I leave my computer and go on a walk. On these walks (with pen and paper), I say aloud possible solutions to the obstacles in my stories. I promise myself not to return home until I know how the story will proceed. Besides improving my health, these walks help my mind hear one voice at a time (my own) instead of the dozens of voices in my head when sitting in front of my computer.
It’s easier to discern the attractiveness and clarity of only one voice at a time. Hearing my stories is as powerful to me as it is to our readers.
I go on walks at night when my neighbors can’t see a strange man in the dark talking to himself. And yes, the walks work every time, and always within one hour.
I’m going to be so healthy!
A friend of mine pointed out to me a short story by Ray Bradbury called The Pedestrian. The poor man gets in trouble for simply walking at night. Check out the first sentence of the story. Ray Bradbury was a genius because no one else wrote like him:
To enter out into that silence that was the city at eight o'clock of a misty evening in November, to put your feet upon that buckling concrete walk, to step over grassy seams and make your way, hands in pockets, through the silences, that was what Mr. Leonard Mead most dearly loved to do.
The Pedestrian, Ray Bradbury
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