This book was really cool, the story examples were quite enjoyable, I liked that one was kind of a downer and the other was ridiculously uplifting. The tips help me realize how important small details are in narrative. Smells, sounds, people’s characteristics and mannerisms, all add flavor to your narrative and make it connectable, which is the ultimate goal.
Also the importance of a theme that is kind of silhouetted throughout the whole story, like the beep-beep-beeping of the heart monitor in Mrs. Kelly’s Monster, and the repetition of the phrase ‘Keep on keeping on,’ in The Ballad of Old Man Peters.
Something else that I already knew but was good to have reinforced since I don’t apply it that often is the outline. The amount of detail and just pure stuff in these stories is overwhelming, and it would be incoherent without a premeditated structure.
Also the notion the deceptive simplicity is elegance really stuck with me. The technique that boils down complicated ideas and stories into cohesive language is the most daunting challenge of the book, but also the most important.
It’s also interesting that all stories have conflict and complications, but also a story can be about damn near anything in our lives, so it dawned on me how much of our lives deals with conflict and complications.
Your response to the book makes me hate Franklin a little less, you bring up some of his best points. The end, I think is especially important. Everything has some sort of conflict, and it all depends on whether you can spice it up enough to make it a story.
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