That Smashing Sound

It's my deadline.

DEAR FRIGGIN’ WRITER,

I did it. It’s done. I finished the How Story Works book and it’s in edits now and OH MY GOD IT’S DONE.

So, this week, I’m gonna cheat. Instead of writing a Dear Writer, I’m going to share with you my final (and very short) chapter, Magic and Craft.

I’ll be back next week, don’t worry. But right now… I’m gonna take a nap.

Everything,

L

CHAPTER SEVEN: MAGIC AND CRAFT

That’s it, y’all. Those are the basics of how story works. There’s loads more to learn and understand, but in this book, you have everything you need to be able to start building basic stories that work.

But we’re not quite done, because there’s one more thing you need to understand. This is going to be the shortest chapter in this book, but it’s possibly the most important, so listen up.

What I’ve taught you is craft. It’s the structure and the plot and the character building and the conflict that keeps everything in the air. And that’s all important. Clearly I think so, as I’ve dedicated my life to understanding it and teaching it to you.

But it’s not the whole game.

It’s not even most of the game.

Magic is the game, and craft lives in service to magic.

What is magic? It’s like spirituality; it can be hard to describe, but you know it when you feel it. In the simplest terms, magic is the part of you that nestles into your stories and gives them life. Magic is how you see the universe. What you believe to be true. What you believe to be worthwhile. Magic is how you use a string of lies to tell the truth, and magic is what you believe the truth to be.

Magic is your sense of humor, your philosophical perspective, your take on right and wrong. Magic is what delights you, what scares you, what excites you, what breaks your heart.

It’s what you care about, and what your readers care about.

It’s what it all means.

And it’s why the craft exists, to make your magic come through loud and clear.

Alignment

Some writers are aligned toward craft, and some are aligned toward magic.

For magic-aligned writers, craft is the boring part. In order for the play in their head to go on, a stage needs to be built, but they are not interested in the stage. Craft is predictable and boring. It’s trade work. It’s union dues. It’s drudgery.

Magic-aligned writers want to get right to the magic, and so they say, “If magic is the good stuff, the important part, why do I have to bother with all this craft, building the stage to code or whatever? That’s not fun.”

I’d argue that it can be fun, that it indeed is fun, but it’s also hard work, and it doesn’t come naturally to everyone. For some writers, their very nature resists it. Even for craft-aligned writers, who absolutely love having something to put their backs up against when dealing with the terrifying everything that is creation, it’s a lot of work.

Believe it or not, I’m a magic-aligned writer. I have never really enjoyed the craft part. That’s why, when I sold a two-book contract to Warner Books in 2003 off a book I wrote entirely fueled by magic and I had no idea how story actually worked, I dedicated myself to learning how it worked.

And that’s how we got here.

But back to the craft-aligned writers. For them, craft is the whole game. It’s rules, it’s reason, it’s a thing they can rationally understand when they’re scared or panicked. Magic has nothing to do with rationality or reason, and it’s terrifying for some writers. Craft is not vulnerable; it’s math. You can show your work and see where you went wrong and know what needs fixing. If you focus on craft, there’s a plan. If it’s broken, you can just go back to the blueprint and fix it.

Magic is vulnerability; not your character’s, but yours. Magic reveals who you are, what you think, how you see the world, and some people might not like it. It is you, and if they don’t like your magic, they don’t like you.

It’s goddamned terrifying.

That said, I would argue that if you’re doing your magic right, some people shouldn’t like it. If everyone likes what you do, chances are, it’s not genuine, brave or interesting. Everyone might like it, but very few will love it. Few will be passionate about it. And personally, I’d rather have some people be passionate about what I do, and others not get it or even actively dislike it, than do stuff that never goes into the territory of messy or brave.

Messy and brave is where the good work, the bold work, the interesting work happens. And if we’re not in the game to be interesting, then we’re just passing time, waiting for death.

(Wow, that was dramatic. I don’t care. I’m leaving it in. Deal.)

Also, it’s not a bad thing to be scared when you’re doing creative work. Just do as Elizabeth Gilbert says in her book Big Magic; allow fear to come with you on this journey. To be honest, you can hardly prevent it from coming along. It will throw itself through the passenger side window if you try to peel out of the driveway without it. Just make sure it’s in the back seat with a coloring book and crayons. You do not want to let fear drive the car. It will take you straight to the safe, boring places, and no one learns anything there.

Wherever you fall on the spectrum of magic-aligned to craft-aligned, it doesn’t matter. One is not better than the other; they’re just different. You’re fine right where you are. You will always look somewhere else on the spectrum and think you might be a better writer over there, but it’s not true. You are exactly where you are supposed to be.

That doesn’t mean that if you’re craft-aligned, you don’t need to engage with magic. Or, that if you’re magic-aligned, you can get along without craft. It just means that there’s nothing wrong with you where you are. You’ll still have to limber up and reach outside of your comfort zone to pull the part of your story that comes from the space where you are less aligned.

As I did. Took almost twenty years. I stopped writing fiction for about six of them. And I’m sharing what I’ve learned with you so that you don’t have to stop.

But it’s important that you understand why craft, what I’ve taught you in this book, matters. Yes, it exists in service to magic, but it doesn’t make craft any less important. Is Ginger Rogers any less important than Fred Astaire? No.

They’re different. They work together. And together, they’re a miracle.

Think of it like a performance. Magic is the main act, but if it doesn’t have a stage to dance upon, the only people who will see it and understand what it’s doing will be in the front. And that’s great, but it screws over the rest of your audience that would also like to enjoy the show but can’t because no one considered their perspective when designing the experience.

Imagine being at a show without a stage, in a space where the performance is level with the floor and the seats don’t rise up on an incline to give everyone equal access.

Do you want to be in that audience? Knowing this amazing show is happening, but you don’t have access to it? No. You’re gonna leave that show a few minutes in. Because if you don’t have access to what’s happening, then you might as well get the grocery shopping done, right?

Conversely, do you, as an audience member, want to be in a theater where the stage is beautifully crafted, could hold up a whole line of stomping elephants, and all the seats rise on a perfect incline, but no one is doing anything? The company of players come out and they all point at the stage and say, “Will you look at that craftsmanship?” and you’re like, “Great. So what?” You’re leaving that theater, too, probably quicker than the one with the great performance you can’t see or hear.

This is what the How Story Works method is about. I’m teaching you how to build the stage so that you can make your dance visible, accessible, and captivating to the largest audience possible.

You might be asking yourself, “If craft is in service to magic and magic is the most important thing, why aren’t you teaching me that?”

And the answer is… I can’t. Not yet. That’s not the expertise I’ve built up. I know my magic and I know what magic is when I see it in others, but your magic is so individual to you that I don’t think I can teach you that. To help you gain access to your own magic, I recommend Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic and Neil Gaiman’s Masterclass, The Art of Storytelling; I think they do some of the best work in accessing and understanding magic that I’ve ever seen.

But me? I’ve just spent nineteen years figuring out how to build the stage, and now that I know how it works, and I’ve shared that with you, I’m going to spend the next little while getting back into the performance arena.

See you there.