What I loved doing as a kid in the 1970s: riding my bike with no helmet, playing with Match Box cars and Barbie dolls, watching the Planet of the Apes. What I became obsessed with: Star Wars.
What I love doing as an adult in the 2000s: striving to write better. (It isn’t the only thing, but it is my focus.) I’ve taken workshops and read many books on how to be a better writer.
Some common pieces of advice from writing teachers and the writing books are 1) you have to read a lot, and 2) the more you write, the better you write.
Study the form. Practice the form. Although vague in nature and tedious in reality, it’s good advice.
The truth is, if you don’t know how to study the form, how can the practice follow?
Star Wars as lit teacher
When I was about 14 and had watched the original Star Wars trilogy 30-40 times, I unwittingly realized – I mean, I really got – that focusing on a microcosm is necessary to tell the story of a macrocosm. Star Wars is a story about an entire galaxy (the macrocosm) yet it’s a story focused on a handful of rebels (the microcosm).
I then understood, without the macrocosm, I couldn’t know what kind of world the little band of rebels – Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewie – existed in. Without the microcosm comprising the adventures of those four characters (apologies to C-3PO and R2-D2), I would have no one to relate to.
Nearly every story uses this storytelling element. Star Wars is just one example. Lord of the Rings is another, as is the His Majesty’s Dragon series. Dune. Game of Thrones. X-Men.
Science fiction and fantasy are easy examples because the writer must necessarily give a view of the macrocosm to readers: The setting is often an entirely made-up world, or one of the future or distant past. The microcosm is shown from the protagonist’s perspective, giving the reader the relatable factor.
From my understanding of macrocosm/microcosm, I understood a good story has elements (what I would later come to know as the building blocks of plot, setting, characterization, focus, perspective, etc.) that propel a story forward and make it compelling.
What reading a lot will (or won’t) get you
Fast-forward to 16 years later, and I’m in a writing workshop discussing short story plot analysis. The instructor, Barbara Shoup, an accomplished local writer, recommended choosing a story I admired, reading through it several times sequentially and taking notes regarding construction.
There’s a good reason for completing this exercise: Over multiple readings, I can parse out the storytelling elements the author used to tell the story. Shoup did this exercise herself with The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. Read through it a few times, and you’ll see stones clearly play a factor and provide a bit of foreshadowing (another element of storytelling) Jackson doles out to emphasize the importance of stones in the story, and even the story’s thematic reliance on stones.
The act of consuming a piece of content multiple times reveals plot points – some subtle, others more blatant – an author weaves into a story and which you might not notice until going through the piece again. And again. And again.
I stumbled into learning this as a kid who loved Star Wars so much I watched it repeatedly. I learned it again later, in a more concrete way, as an adult honing her writing skills.
Do or do not
Shoup is the only teacher who shared the read-a-lot advice with me in such a direct way. Read a lot, she said, but also, read the same thing repeatedly and pay attention to the details, to how the writer is using the elements of storytelling. She demonstrated how to build a detailed analysis by deconstructing a favorite story, a seemingly tedious undertaking that garners helpful insights but somehow doesn’t break the story.
Repeatedly consuming the content can indeed reveal wonders of the plot. I gain greater respect for my favorite storytellers when I can see the “wiring in the walls,” which I might not notice on a first read (or viewing).
I leave you with this challenge: Pick a story you really love, something you’re already interested in, and go through it multiple times to take it apart. Spend time studying the plot development and characterization, etc. Then do it again. Then maybe one more time. If you love it, taking it apart will not break its magic. If anything, you’re going to appreciate the storytelling even more.