Sam Feldstein's Notebook
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Storytelling

What makes stories work?

Stories work when we care about the characters.

Talent

We see evidence of talent in things like rhythm and ear and all of that. But the real evidence of talent is that feeling we get, when reading a wonderful writer, that we are in good and wise hands – in the presence of an unusual mind.

George Saunders

Process

The goal is to entertain. Always to entertain. To work the levers of emotion to get the reaction I want.

Copy other writers, don't worry about people finding out. If you're truly paying attention, the story can't help but become unique.

Detachment does not mean you don’t care what happens. It just means you don’t care whether a specific thing happens or not.

Henrik Karlsson, Everything That Turned Out Well in My Life Followed the Same Design Process

To find a good relationship, you do not start by saying, “I want a relationship that looks like this.” That would be starting in the wrong end. Instead you say, “I’m just going to pay attention to what happens when I hang out with various people and iterate toward something that feels alive.”

Ibid

A book is better - it reads better, it’s more fun to read - when we let it go its own way. It starts throwing off sparks of happiness whenever we honor its intentions.

George Saunders

Structure

Stories have macro-beats and micro-beats. Macro-beats are like a skeleton. They lend a story shape and structure. Micro-beats are everything that covers the skeleton: muscles, ligaments, blood. They are what make the skeleton interesting. As Stephen Sondheim says, "God is in the details."

Think of music. Think of the first notes of the Lord of the Rings theme. The skeleton of the measure is: D C D. (The notes could be wrong. I don't play music.) On it's own, not unpleasant, but a little boring. Now add the staccato notes: D C DD C. Open GarageBand and try it. Instantly more interesting. The three notes on their own show potential, but don't have the sound of a finished thing. They are the bones. Adding the second D brings the piece to life.

So with story. Many short stories feel like summaries of longer stories because the author tried to cram a novel into ten pages. Only the bones would fit, and so the piece feels lifeless.

Symmetries

Two opposing forces buttress each other. That's called symmetry.

Character

Characters are defined by their relationships to each other. The protagonist is the opposite of the antagonist. The antagonist is the opposite of the protagonist. It is the fundamental buttressing symmetry.

Story tropes