Narrative-driven writing
In direct contrast to the data-driven approach to writing, there is a narrative-driven method, which requires me to ask why.
The starting statement is: A man sitting at the computer.
Why? He could be waiting for an important email. He’s expecting to hear from a job application. Or he could be an investment banker awaiting a report from a coworker. Better still, perhaps the man is writing an email to someone he’s never met in person but with whom he’s established a sort of friendship, a punctual digital correspondence that brings him to the computer daily.
Yeah, that sounds good to me. More why questions: why is it only a sort of friendship? Does he think virtual friendships are illusory? That’d be an interesting theme to explore. But I’m getting ahead of myself, maybe the man isn’t close to this person yet, the relationship could be just starting. I can imagine a first email:
From: gts@nsc-group.net (Grace T. Scheifler)
To: adamt@estantes.com
Subject: It arrived today
Date: 21 Jun 2009 20:57:08 GMT
Hi Adam-
I received the copy of Lazarillo earlier today.
I've spent the past few hours admiring the
illustrations. I really can't thank you enough
for parting with it. Are you on the lookout
for anything in particular?
If so, please don't hesitate to ask.
I'm sure I can help you find something nice.
Grace
Yeah, that’s interesting. The email itself doesn’t have to be part of the story, but now I’ve got something to work with. Now I know why the man is sitting at the computer. He’s writing an email to Grace, a woman who bought a book from him weeks ago. They’ve never met in person. But something has brought them together, otherwise they wouldn’t be friends. At this point the tree of possibilities begins to branch out.
By asking why, I force myself to come up with explanations, and if those make sense to me, I can reliably share them with the reader in the form of a story. In other words, I'd be a reliable narrator.