Write What’s Interesting, Not What’s Happening
“,,, so anyway, I was flying and there were all these turtles…”
Perhaps one of the most disconcerting things one human can say to another is the phrase “Let me tell you about this interesting dream I had.” For me at least, it is a statement that creates an immediate, visceral reaction akin to someone wanting to convince me about their COVID/ flat earth/political conspiracy theories or call about my car’s extended warranty. I would like nothing more than to change into my dragon form and engulf them with an all-consuming fireball, or at least jump out the nearest window and run toward freedom in the Alaskan wilderness.
Why? Why don’t we want to hear what happened in someone else’s dream? They said it was interesting. Shouldn’t we all be pulling up chairs and mugs of cocoa around a roaring fire to hear about the amazing exploits of this person’s nocturne adventures? I have the feeling you already know the answer to this. The reason, of course, is that their dream is in fact not interesting at all. It’s a free-association incoherent string of random events that the person experiencing them was a part of, but were not held together by any structure or meaning, ultimately leaving us emptier than when we’d first begun and costing us precious minutes of our life that we’ll never, ever, ever get back. I’m not saying that telling someone your dream should be a crime, but stealing someone’s life away like that maybe shouldn’t go without consequence.
I’m joking of course. Or am I?
But this brings me to the topic of discussion for this post. Why do people say their dreams are interesting but in the explanation, they’re anything but? I say it's all in the details. Humans love telling each other stories. We have entire industries dedicated to it. And there’s really not a huge difference between stories and dreams– imaginary worlds, with characters and events that play out in our brains.
The key difference is that there’s no narrative to dreams. They’re chaotic and random. Often the person telling you what is happening, tells you every little detail– which, don’t get me wrong, details are cool and add specificity which makes a story feel real— but the other side to that is figuring out what actually matters. Not every detail does. But that’s often what we get when someone tells us about a dream.
“There was a rock and it was shaped like a frog. And my mom was there in the backyard but it wasn’t actually my house.”
Shoot me now. This is maddening because none of the things they’re talking about matter to the narrative. The same goes true as we write. To paraphrase the great Alfred Hitchcock: “Drama is life with the boring bits cut out.” That’s exactly how we should write.
Consider that as you’re putting words down on the page. Is this character/moment/event/detail important to the story? And more importantly, think about it from the reader’s perspective. Does this matter to the story they are reading? Novelists sometimes like to stretch out and luxuriate over a long page count. They want to describe a scene or a person in such vivid detail that the readers see it how you intend. But that won’t matter if your book is long and tedious with nothing interesting happening. Who cares that you created an intricate magic system based on legumes, or thought through each day and event of a 37-year fantasy calendar cycle, or know how many copper doubloons equal an archduke’s tungsten shilling? Those are fine things for you to know and care about but be very cautious about bogging down your story with things that most readers will just be like “shrug”.
Recently, I read a book that was a story about a road trip from the perspective of a disgraced hitman who had lost his daughter and was seeking redemption by performing one last job across the border in Mexico. It sounds interesting, but in fact the story was actually really dull– truly unfortunate for such a promising premise. How could you not be invested in a grieving father who just wanted to get money so he could win back his estranged wife? But in fact it wasted long passages on not much happening as they traveled. They win a one-sided fight where they beat up some paper-thin racist baddies. They have dull conversations between characters that went nowhere. The main character gets specially escorted through the dangerous world of the Mexican cartels without any challenge. And by the end, everything seemed to work out exactly as the author seemed to telegraph and therefore as the reader expected. What’s the point of even telling this story?
I think there are four ‘spices’ you can add to the bubbling pot of your story to give it more flavor for you and your reader:
Conflict - The true heart of any story is conflict. Without it there would be no point to the adventure at all. It’s the question that is core to our hero– will they overcome their challenges and be victorious. That’s the big conflict, but if you truly look at the stories you love, you’ll notice there’s not just one big one, but hundreds and thousands of little conflicts along the way. These are actually really important– because it mirrors our lives. Every day we’re faced with conflict in the conversations we have and the things we do. Anytime we don’t instantly get what we want, there is conflict– and that’s good because we’d all become monsters or life would get very boring if there wasn’t. Use conflict to keep your characters pushing forward.
Struggle - Similar to conflict, but not quite the same thing is struggle. To me, struggle has to do with working towards achieving a goal. The harder you have to work for it, the more satisfying the achievement is. Do we want to read about a person who walked to the end of their driveway or climbed a mountain? Make your characters (both protagonist and antagonist) really struggle for what they want. Give them a workout.
Reversal - Reversal is when you’re expecting one thing to happen and it gets flipped around entirely. The good guys go into the building expecting it to be empty and there’s 50 guards waiting. Or you think the good guy fell off the cliff to his death, but actually he grabbed on at the last moment. Reversals can go either way. It’s a great method to change the power dynamic or momentum of a scene and add excitement where otherwise it feels perfunctory, unnecessary, or boring.
Surprise - Surprise is when something completely unexpected happens. An event or character jumps in from out of nowhere and flips the narrative tables. This is a great technique to keep your readers on their toes and guessing what will happen next. Now, I would argue that nearly all storytelling surprises aren’t totally out of the blue. They’re often set up subtly with foreshadowing or other clues which readers don’t often see initially, but become more apparent on a second go through. And also, overusing the surprise reduces its effectiveness, so make sure you’re applying this judiciously.
Hopefully, I’ve given you some things to think about as you’re telling your own stories. Don’t just write about what the characters are going through like the dull details of someone’s dream, but share the most important compelling bits. That’s the difference between what’s happening and what’s interesting.
