This Will Make You a Better Storyteller

Here are today’s Wonderful Words:

Joe drives a small, somewhat beat-up Mitsubishi pickup, a vehicle longer on character than inspection worthiness: no bumpers to speak of, smashed tail lights, Grateful Dead decals on the cab window, and the name of his daughter—Shannon Marie—painted across the front of the hood.

A Place of My Own, Michael Pollan, page 110

Background

A Place of My Own is a book about Pollan—a writer—building himself a writing room on his property. This sentence describes Joe, the rough-and-tumble carpenter Pollan hired to help him with the project.

What makes it wonderful?

This description is more meaningful because it comes halfway through the book, after the reader already knows Joe.

Joe despises architects. He’s probably started a bar fight or two. He distrusts the government and is prone to digressions on the second amendment. The description of Joe’s truck is beautiful imagery, but it goes deeper. At this point in the book, the reader realizes the truck is the personification of Joe.

Hell, it’s really a personification of all independent contractors. Take my aunt and uncle’s contractor, for example. He goes by a single name—Farley. I don’t know if that’s his first name, his last name, or his nickname.

Farley has big earrings and a tool belt full of catch phrases. My favorite catch phrase comes at the end of every story about his other customers…people fucking suck.

Farley isn’t unique. Neither is Joe.

Homeowners across America all have “a guy.” He can lay subway tiles like an NYC artisan. He can hang cabinets like Tiger hits golf balls. He can remodel your bathroom like he invented HGTV.

But you know what he can’t do?

He can’t work for the man.

He’s too quirky. He’s too ornery. He’s longer on character than he is on inspection worthiness. Just like Joe’s truck. Just like Joe. Just like Farley.

These words are wonderful for one big reason: they’re so damn relatable.

Let's get technical

We could talk about a few things here. I could tell you about imagery, but I’ve done that before. I could talk about personification, but we’ve covered that too.

What I’d rather talk about isn’t a literary technique but a writing strategy. It’s a trick you can use to write vivid descriptions like Pollan did here.

That strategy is keeping a story log. I first heard about this from Nathan Baugh, but it’s something I was doing long before he gave it a name. Basically all you do is keep a note in your phone. Every day, write down the date and one thing you observed that day.

It could be the dude you saw walking his iguana in the park.

It could be the homeless man you saw hop into a $50,000 truck.

It could be the kid you saw in the weight room who tipped over backwards while trying to power clean too much weight.

Or it could be the conversation you had with your contractor.

The best writing is the stuff that’s relatable. Seinfeld and The Office were both popular because they shared situations you could see yourself in.

The key to relatable writing is taking note of the world around you. Interesting events happen before your eyes every day. All you have to do is write them down.

If your storytelling stinks, or you're writing descriptions that lack some luster, start a story log. It’s a simple cheat code to take your writing from dull to distinguished.

Happy writing,

Joe