People see story writers (fiction/non-fiction) as magicians, but they are something far more. Story writing isn’t merely an exercise; it’s an ordination. A story writer is a divine entity endowed with the unnatural ability to give life to nothing. A story writer takes events, places, and names and sets them upon his work-table for inspection. In a process akin to that of the Prophet Ezekiel with the dry bones, he breathes life into them, and then, nothing transforms into something.
Intangible things or ideas that once lay dormant begin to wriggle with life, takes form, kick and bite, and assume human forms, with tastes and needs. That’s not all; they love and are loved and become as powerful as they are enchanting.
At this point, the writer has only fulfilled a portion of his purpose. He/she morphs into something else—a tour guide. With words that should be called portals, the writer takes you on a journey of experience. Not only do you meet the characters, but you also relate with their excitement and pains, however strange and outlandish. Now, you are where the writer wants you to be.
With this achieved, he/she morphs again, and this time to a matchmaker. The characters look like you—funny, loveable, and some so despicable and evil that you squander your hatred on them. You’re conquered by their foibles and idiosyncrasies. You’ve helplessly fallen in love with fragments of another’s imagination. You can’t get them out of your mind. The match is made; you are bought and sold. The writer’s work is done.
Or is it?
No true writer is satisfied with you just experiencing his work; he/she wants it to be immortalized in your mind. By a stroke of genius, he crafts his words to be mobile, so they don’t remain of the paper. They are lifted from the pages and then planted within the chambers of your soul, becoming to you something of a daily reality.
The story has become a vibration within your spirit; then, the writer takes a bow.
Are you a storyteller?
Are you surprised at the power a storyteller can wield?
The secret is simple: stories are best told from the soul!
When the writer picks up a pen, he doesn’t just write, no! It isn’t a mechanical process of marrying events and characters; it is a spiritual art—a thing of depth. A story writer must reach deep within, to the deepest part of his person—the soul.
In essence, a story is not just an account of happenings, people and places but also an experience. Anything short of that is merely a description.
If you want to tell good stories, open up the bowel of your soul. Feel everything that you want your reader to feel, live out every character, go to every place you want to take your reader. You’re the tour guide, remember? All of this can be done in your soul. Yes! Your soul is that rich; it is the river of life from which you supply oxygen to dead things.
Make your story very real; let it be an experience in your soul.