The Mys­tery of Storytelling

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Humans love stories. Maybe that is because for thousands of years, stories were the way information was preserved and passed on to others, to the next generations. Maybe because they create community and collective culture. Maybe because they capture our imagination and speak to our fears and our dreams.

Maybe that’s why you will find a lot of stories in the writing on this site. My reply to Jeremy a few days ago – opens with a story. My post about Frank Miller challenging others and himself – opens with a story. My note about Brian Eno and his playful approach to making ambient music – opens with a story. My piece about violinist Augustin Hadelich and that careful attention to detail that changes the way you experience the world – opens with a story. They are everywhere. And even this post opens with a story about storytelling.

Stories come in all forms and sizes. From short anecdotes to full-blown sagas with a hero going on a journey, fighting monsters, transforming himself and a plethora of characters along the way, ultimately throwing a golden ring into a volcano, defeating evil for good. They say that a good story has to have a who, a what, a where and when, and a why. But some stories also don’t follow that rule and still work well. Some stories also are very obviously a story, like the hero’s journey following a classical story arc with a three-act structure and one of the six basic plots. Others are barely noticeable as a story, like subtle interactions and micro animations embedded in a website’s design. Good storytelling is an art and you can spend a lot of time thinking about your story and the right way to tell it.

Here’s legendary comic book artist Frank Miller (again) on storytelling:

“My method­ol­o­gy has changed over time. It used to be more rigid. I used to real­ly believe there was a way. I was seek­ing the way to do it. Now I do believe in let­ting a sto­ry nudge you in anoth­er direc­tion. Now I believe in trust­ing the mus­es more than I used to.[…]

The thing is to come in and think of your­self of being the gen­er­a­tor of the sto­ry, sure­ly. And say­ing that these are the pieces of clay, and this is what I wan­na do with them. But: to real­ize that the artis­tic process is not at its best when it’s an ego­ma­ni­a­cal process. And some­times, the char­ac­ters talk back. And some­times, they know more than you do. 

And always be aware that there will be just that flash. That thing that hap­pens, where, all of a sud­den, you’re in a dif­fer­ent sto­ry and you real­ize that ​‘no, this isn’t the one I was look­ing for but this is the one where I wan­na be.’

I don’t know, to me it’s sor­ta like being a space explor­er and being ready for things. And know­ing the whole job is to fig­ure out what to ignore and what to follow. 

I like the mys­tery of sto­ry­telling more than the pow­er I used to see in it.”

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This is post 24 of Blogtober 2025.

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8 Webmentions

  1. Watson

    A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders
    The spell of words … a wonderful book in which a Booker prizewinner explains what makes classic short stories work so well. Rules for good writing. This book is a delight, and it’s about delight too. How necessary, at our particular moment. Novelist and short story writer George Saunders has been teaching creative writing at Syracuse University in the US for the last 20 years, including a course in the 19th-...
  2. Photo of Watson Watson
    @matthiasott The Frank Miller's quote spontaneously reminds me of this Milan Kundera's speech: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1985/06/13/man-thinks-god-laughs/. ‘Man Thinks, God Laughs’

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