Thanks to PBS, I’ve changed my mind on the whole “do I outline a story before I start writing it or do I just start writing and let it happen” argument.

I ran across a really fascinating piece on the Documentary Channel recently on industrial design titled “Objectified”. It’s a piece that the filmmakers describes as a look at…”

“…our complex relationship with manufactured objects and, by extension, the people who design them. It’s a look at the creativity at work behind everything from toothbrushes to tech gadgets. It’s about the designers who re-examine, re-evaluate and re-invent our manufactured environment on a daily basis. It’s about personal expression, identity, consumerism, and sustainability.”

It was really quite good, especially the interview with Jonathan Ive, Apple’s head designer who brought them into the company’s design lab. Something he said has stuck with me this week. He was talking about the iPhone and how the design team’s aim was to create something that was so well designed and intuitive that it felt inevitable, undesigned, something people would hold in their hand and say, “Well, of course that’s the way it should have been designed. Why would you do it any other way?”

His comments especially set me thinking about the implications of design for storytelling, because it certainly exists in that world, too. Just like furniture, computers, and music, stories are designed. They are thought through, worked out, and produced (for lack of a better word) with an end “user” in mind.

Ever finished a book and thought, “I totally could have written that story” because the author made it look…easy? Or, have you ever been swept away by a story’s characters, pace, and suspense to the point that it felt real? Maybe more so than your own life. Both of those are examples of design executed well enough that you don’t notice the design or the designer at work behind the scenes.

I had a long conversation about this with Ted Dekker recently and he echoed what I was thinking. The best stories are the ones seem to unfold effortlessly as if, like Jonathan Ives said, feel “inevitable”. They are the ones that make you say, “Of course that’s the way it would’ve ended” (even if the twist shocked you).

But, make no mistake about it. Pulling this off is something of a small miracle each time it happens. As I thought about it, I scratched down some notes. Maybe these will help clarify the picture a bit more.

How do you create an “inevitable story”?

Let the story settle then emerge on its own. Most stories gestate over the course of years as writers dream, think about, and piece seemingly unconnected scenes together in their mind. At some point, it feels right to begin. The story feels ready to come out. I have a friend right now who just hit that point with a novel he’s beginning. Don’t rush it.

Give it bones. Framework is important. Humans aren’t just muscle, neither are we just bone, spirit or soul. We’re all of it, but without our framework, our bones, we don’t get around very well. Same goes for stories. They all need structure and that means laying it out. Call it outlining, if you want, or whatever. Either way, it’s essential.

Give it time. This is where most people quit because the process is brutal and wrought with banging your head against the wall, coming up with new ideas, scrapping the ideas, starting over. Again and again and again. But that’s part of the deal. If you have 15 minutes, check out this Wired article about the making of the iPhone. It’s an interesting look at what it takes.

My friend, John Farkas, invited me to join a small book discussion group that’s going through The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the New World, by Lewis Hyde. The book is about the value of creativity among a culture built on consumption and commodities.

Hyde lays out a case that has got me thinking more about the tension artists feel every day, especially those who want to make a living through their craft. I’m a man who lives in the two economies, creative and commerce, that is publishing so I’m always asking questions like Which is it? Commodity or art? Is it both? Can it be both? Do any real artists do both well?

Someone stop my head from spinning, please.

Occasionally, I catch a glimpse of the answer and run across an artist who seems to have figured out how to live in the thin space between the two economies like some sort of creative squatter. And I find them in the most unlikely places. Places like June Taylor’s kitchen.  What can a jam maker teach me about doing what I love and surviving without compromising? Apparently, a lot.