Thanks for sharing that. I love this article and as a product designer I completely agree Jonathan. Elegance in products make them less of a something that was “made” and more like something that just “is”. Many products now are “over featured” meaning that they have too many buttons and gadgets that just makes them hard to use. If you interested in a product innovation book, “IDEO: The art of innovation” takes you through the mental process of a product design.

K

When I first started writing fiction, questions always threatened me.

Am I beginning this story right? Should the main character be the exact opposite of who he is? Why is this point of view character the POV character? Is the antagonist a person, a force, the main character himself? What about theme? What in the world IS theme?

As a few years have gone by, however, I feel like my storytelling is gradually morphing from a chaotic mess into a cohesive playbook—like the ideas you jotted down at the end of this post.

At first, see, I saw my stories as a bunch of Xs and Os. I questioned every word I wrote, thinking one wrong move would result in a TNT effect, blowing my story to smithereens. In other words, I wrote with fear. And, as I was reminded while covering state football, fear kills a team’s shot at a championship. So—pardon the football analogy—now I strive to look at Xs and Os like a coach would, making it my goal to 1) draw a strong play; 2) wait for the snap; and 3) leave the rest to the players.

Does the quarterback’s (main character) instinct tell him to run the ball because a hole opened on the left? Does he stay in the pocket, wait to throw? Does he scramble and run, or scramble and pass?

The storyteller may call for a 50-yard pass, only to hear his linemen tell him during the huddle that it’s time to run the ball. There are so many ways a story can go, from the sentence level, to the paragraph level, to the chapter level and so on—and none of them are wrong.

For if the QB gets sacked, chances are he won’t be making the same mistake again anytime soon. That’s a positive. And if the QB gains five yards, he might find the defense’s linebackers and safeties cheating forward on the next play, in turn giving him a better shot at completing a pass. That’s another positive.

I think we as storytellers need to write up our Xs and Os, adjust accordingly to how our players are faring, and, for powerful storytelling’s sake, boot our fear out of the stadium. One of the best things about football, sports and storytelling is unpredictability. Once the clock starts running, and once that first page starts hooking, anything can happen.

And questions get answered.