Why Writers Resist Measuring Their Craft (And Why You Shouldn’t)

What we get wrong about creativity—and the truth that will make your writing and editing so much more effective.

Do you know how great stories work?

Scratch that. Let’s start with an easier question. Do you know how your stories work?

Not all writers do. Even published authors often struggle to articulate how they created the books their readers love. They rely on intuition, following gut feelings to shape their stories.

But while your intuition can guide you to create a commercially successful novel . . .

. . . I believe there’s a better way. An easier way. A less confusing and chaotic, more reliable and repeatable way.

And that’s what this episode is all about.

In it, you’ll learn:

• What we get wrong about our own creativity
• The truth about writing and art that exceptionally successful writers (probably) don’t want you to know
• What I find most amazing about traditional publishing (seriously, I think this is bonkers)
• And more!

Your intuition is a powerful storytelling tool. But it’s not your only tool.

And in this episode, I’ll show you why that’s such wonderful news.

Links mentioned in the episode:

• Ep. 36: Your Story Has Deep Meaning. Do You Know What It Is?
• Ep. 42: The 6 Essential Elements of Every Novel, Act, and Scene

P.S. What do you get when an editor and a nuclear physicist walk into a swing dance? Powerful truths about jazz music and storytelling, it turns out. Check out the episode to see what I mean.

Transcript

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You don't have to Intuit your way through stories because we have figured out how to make the subjective objective. People who study stories have identified the patterns that great stories share. And knowing those patterns and using them in your writing in no way, takes away from the beauty of storytelling. It only empowers you to write more effective stories more quickly and easily. Welcome to your next draft. Recently, I went to a book festival. It was this two day festival with tons of authors who were all signing books and hanging out with readers, which was really cool. The part I was most excited for though, was the panels. They had a lot of panels where authors were discussing topics related to their books and craft tips on how they created their books. Many of these authors or authors whose books I've read and enjoyed. And I was really excited to hear them talk about their writing. Plus the majority of these writers, maybe all of them are traditionally published. And I don't work within a traditional publishing company, so I don't have a ton of opportunities to mingle with a lot of traditionally published authors. So I was really excited to hear their perspectives on writing, coming specifically from the trad pup world. So I go to this festival. And it was an absolutely fascinating experience. The first thing that I realized is I have spent a lot of time in the writing education space. In the last many years, I've taken the courses and I've gotten involved in communities of editors and book coaches and writers. Who are thinking very, very, very hard about how to write stories. And not only how to write stories, but how to edit stories and how to teach people how to write and edit stories. I am just immersed in the space where we are constantly exploring what it takes to craft an absolutely amazing story. And also how to communicate what it takes to other people in ways that are useful and effective. One of the things that I like to say here on the podcast is that I love to make the subjective. Objective. I aim to take the subjective experience of story and turn it into objective systems and practices and procedures that you can learn and implement in your own writing. I have not spent a lot of time at book festivals. And book festivals. It turns out are a very different beast. I came ready to take notes, excited to get a different perspective on how to tell amazing stories and even thinking that I might write a podcast episode or two for you, based on the things that I learned at this festival. And I guess that is in fact what I am doing. But this episode is very different from the episode that I was originally imagining. So I go to this festival. And I have this whole lineup of panels that I'm excited to watch. And there were many people who ask great questions, questions where I really enjoyed hearing the variety of perspectives. But here's what I found so fascinating. There were a lot of questions and I mean, a huge number of questions. We're writers we're asked about their creative processes. They were asked how they made decisions about the content of their books, their plots, major elements of character development, which pieces of story they chose to show on the page and which ones they decided not to include. And they really didn't have answers to those questions. I mean. They did. Whenever someone asked an author a question, they always responded. But their responses weren't anywhere near the scope or depth that I was anticipating. One answer in particular, came up again and again and again, so many times that I really wanted to make a game out of it. If I had taken a sip of water every time that someone gave this answer, I would have been so hydrated. I would have been running to the bathroom constantly. Here's the answer. I just listened to my characters. I let my characters tell me what they think is going to be best for the story. That's it. That's how these writers solve major, major questions about the content and scope and plot and arcs of their story. They asked their characters. The thing is this answer isn't wrong? I would never tell a writer not to listen to your characters. I think knowing your characters and listening to them is absolutely important. But this answer is so limited. It's so theorial intangible, unspecific. It is sets squarely in the world of subjective writing strategies. There's nothing objective here. No replicable process, no system, no metric for assessing what's working and what's not no measure of a story success outside of personal gut feelings. And when you're faced with major writing challenges. Challenges that have a huge impact on your story's plot and purpose and impact on your readers and even on the access that your ideal readers might have to your book. Personal gut feelings. Just feel like a really difficult way to navigate those challenges. I mean. One of the questions that was asked was how do you decide whether to have an open door or closed door sex scene in your why a novel. That is a huge question. That is a big deal. That will have an enormous impact on your plot and your characters and your readers and the level of gatekeeping that will stand in between your book and your readers. That is not something to be taken lightly. And yes, the answer that was given to this question was I asked my characters and I find out what they want. But you don't just have to feel your way through this. You don't just have to gauge your gut feeling lean on your intuition and hope that your muse is steering you in the right direction. This is what making the subjective objective is all about. I study story in order to find ways to transform that gut feeling into objective measurable strategies that you can use to give you something more concrete and clear to rely on than just whether your characters told you they wanted you to close the door on your way out. To give you an example of what that looks like. Here are the questions that I would ask In order to figure out whether the Yia sex scene should be open or closed door. First. What's the purpose of this book. Why are you writing it? Second. Who exactly are you writing this book for? Imagine one person, one specific individual. Who's going to read the story and absolutely love it and feel better equipped to navigate their own life because they've read your story. What do you want to communicate to that reader? What do you want them to take away from your story after they've read it? Third. Ask your editor. Does your editor think that an open or closed door sex scene is a good fit for the story? Forth look at your genre. Will this scene satisfy any genre conventions? Is it the best way to satisfy those Shaundra conventions or is there another way that would be more effective? Fifth. Look at your story structure. Will this scene move the plot forward in an important way. Why is there a sex scene in the story at all? What does it meant to accomplish? Sixth. I think I'm losing count here. I have a lot of questions. Think about your publishing route And especially if you're in traditional publishing, talk with your editor about your audience's expectations and the distribution of your book. What gatekeepers is your book going to face? How can you best ensure that the heart of your story, the idea that you most want to communicate to your ideal reader reaches that reader. To be clear. I'm not saying find out what the gatekeepers wants and write that. I'm saying figure out what's most important about your story. And be uncompromising in getting that core on the page. Not because your characters told you to, but because you know what your story is about and why you're writing it and what essentials it absolutely must include in order to communicate your meaning to your ideal readers. And there are so many tools you can use to help you do that. There are so many questions you can ask to help you solve the big story challenges you face. You don't just have to rely on intuition, which is what asking your characters amounts to. And to be clear. Asking your characters isn't wrong because all the factors that I just listed, ultimately feed into what your characters will do. If you're really in tune with your characters, if they're really well aligned with your purpose, for your story and the way that you want it to impact your readers, then all of that is going to come out in your character's actions. But focusing only on what your characters tell you, they want means relying exclusively on your intuition with no objective tools or strategies to help you. And to me as someone who has spent years studying story and learning how to make the subjective objective. That just sounds really hard way harder than it has to be. Honestly, as I sat in these panels of that book festival. I was astonished. Maybe I shouldn't have been, but I was, I was astonished that all of these writers could write all these excellent books that readers love and build entire careers around doing that again. And again, for book after book and yet not be able to articulate to other people or even to themselves, how they do that. I was reminded that the story principles that are second nature to me after years of study and practice. Are not clear or obvious to the average person be they reader or writer. I was struck with how absolutely bonkers. The publishing industry can be. That you can be struck by lightning. Get a publishing deal, get your book published, share it with readers and build a career around your ability to create more books that your readers will love again. And again. And fly by the seat of your pants the whole time with no clarity about how to reliably create the product that you're selling. I mean seriously, if you're building a career around your ability to create a product and make no mistake, that is what you're doing. If you're aiming to build a career as an author, Don't you want to be able to articulate a reliable way to produce that product? I just get so worked up here because I'm just so amazed that we can get so far in the publishing industry and still not understand how we create the things that we create. Which. I'm glad that the stories are wonderful. It just seems like we're making our lives harder than they need to be. I do want to pause here and say that I don't say any of this to critique the authors at that festival or the festival itself. It was a wonderful gathering of people who love books and who loves sharing that love with each other. And it was a fascinating snapshot of what writing can look like in the traditional publishing world. My real point is you can Intuit your way through the entire writing, editing, and publishing process. You can let your intuition and gut feeling Lead you through your entire creation of your books. That's how probably almost every writer has begun and many, many writers stay in that space forever and they do very well for themselves and craft stories that readers love. But you don't have to do that. It's not the only way. There are ways to communicate in tangible, subjective story concepts in tangible, practical, objective ways. There are processes and systems and tools for understanding stories, for writing stories, for editing stories. There are principles that people who understand story have studied and codified In order to make your writing and editing life easier. That's what this entire podcast is about. I am here to make the subjective objective. Now in the past, I have absolutely heard pushback against this. I don't hear a lot of pushback at this point in my career because most of the people who follow me long enough to engage with my editing content and form opinions about me have kind of self-selected in. The writers who listened to this podcast, listen, because you really want these objective editing tools. But in the past, I have definitely heard pushback against the idea of creating objective frameworks to define story. Writers would encounter the idea of the six elements of story, the inciting incident through resolution. And they'd say that sounds formulaic. Or they'd hear about genre conventions, these core elements that are specific to each genre And they'd say that sounds even more formulaic. Like you'd be locked into a trap of boring and derivative stories. They'd hold up. This idea of innate creative genius of the superiority of their unbridled imagination. They treat story theory as an enemy, a limitation, a stifling of their creativity. They treat that intuitive approach to writing the one where you ask your characters, how to solve your major story challenges. As an ideal to aspire to the sort of truest and best form of creativity. Really. I think that that comes from our kind of collective imagination of what it means to be creative. I think that there's a public perception that writing is intuitive. That writing is subjective, that great writing is based on an innate genius for storytelling that you either have, or you don't have that. There are no rules for writing. No rules for creativity and that if anyone ever suggests a rule for writing they're wrong, because writing is about tapping into your innate genius and letting that genius shine through on the page. I think there's a broad public perception that that's how creativity works. And I think that that seeps into the way that writers approach their writing. I think that it shapes what they believe about their own ability to create. And honestly, I don't believe a word of that. I rejected entirely. I do not believe that great writing comes from an innate genius that you either have, or don't have. I believe that writing is a skill that can be practiced and learned. I don't believe that writing is exclusively intuitive or subjective. I believe that writing involves patterns and those patterns can be observed and measured and taught and learned and consciously applied. A few months ago. I went to a swing dance event. We're talking a massive event. We're over a thousand swing dancers. Fill the dance hall. And for a week we danced to a world-class jazz music played by these incredible musicians in a 16 piece, big band. And I was talking about the dance and the music with one of my friends. Who's a fellow dancer and also a nuclear physicist. And yes, I promise there's a reason why I'm talking about jazz music and swing dancing and nuclear physics on a writing podcast. So my friend and I were talking about what makes jazz, jazz and what makes swing swing. Like any art form they can be done well or done poorly there's jazz music that moves you. And there's jazz music that falls flat. And like any art form, many of the things that make jazz music wonderful or swing dancing, wonderful feel intangible and undefinable. It's more than just playing the right notes at the right time or stepping on the beat. Truly amazing music and dancing goes beyond technical accuracy to touch its audience in ways that are difficult to articulate. And as we debated what exactly those intangible inarticulable elements are, my friend said this. The universe is not less beautiful because it can be measured. As soon as he said that, I said, hold up, I have to write that down and share it here on the podcast because that's it. That's the truth. Here it is again. The universe is not less beautiful because it can be measured. In the context of jazz music, my friends meant that those intangible in articulable elements are in fact knowable. We can identify them, we can study them, we can practice and learn them and use them intentionally. And the best of the best jazz musicians have done this. They know what makes jazz, jazz and their music is better for it. Measuring the part of jazz that seems like intangible magic in no way, takes away from the beauty of jazz. In fact it only empowers expert musicians to create more excellent music. The universe is not less beautiful because it can be measured. In the context of writing. I mean that the principles that make a great stories work are knowable. We can identify them, we can study them. We can practice and learn them and use them intentionally. You don't have to Intuit your way through stories because we have figured out how to make the subjective objective. People who study stories have identified the patterns that great stories share. And knowing those patterns and using them in your writing in no way, takes away from the beauty of storytelling. It only empowers you to write more effective stories more quickly and easily. The universe is not less beautiful because it can be measured. No one loses. When we understand how art does, what it does. No one loses when we measure the universe. And on the flip side, almost no one gains by not measuring the universe. The only people who benefit from not measuring the universe are the creators who have already achieved an enormous amount of success. And to profit off the idea that the art that they create is scarce, derived from a genius that only they possess it replicable by any other creator, JK Rowling and all the many people who profit off of JK Rowling's writing fall into this category. She would claim that there are no rules to writing. And she has a vested interest in making her readership believe that she is the only one who can write such magical stories as hers. That hers is a unique genius, not a craft that anyone can learn and practice and master. And to be clear. When I say that she benefits from not measuring the universe. I mean, only that if she treats writing as a zero sum game, she wins by presenting her writing as it replicable. I don't mean that her actual writing is improved because she has not measured the universe. The benefit is purely a financial one. It's based on perpetuating the myth that writing is limited to a few inherent geniuses. Because if the truth got out, That this is learnable. That this is objective. That this is measurable. That this is something that we can break down and understand if that truth got out, then everyone would have the capacity to tell their own stories and the scarcity would disappear. And of course. The secret that I imagined JK Rowling doesn't want you to know is that's the truth. This is measurable. This is knowable and everyone, including you, has the capacity to learn it and tell your own stories. The reality is. Everyone benefits when we measure the universe. Even all of those authors at the festival, the ones who have published multiple books to great success, but can't articulate how they create their art. They have come so far in their writing. They've written and published wonderful books and can fill festival halls with signing lines that wind around the room. I just think how much farther could they go if they could leverage the knowable objective principles of story along the way. How much easier could writing be. If writers could combine their intuition and gut feeling with intellectual tools and processes. How much more repeatable would it feel to create more books? If writers treated creativity, not as an intuitive magic. But as an objective process that can be studied and learned and practiced and optimized. Clearly those authors at the festival have the capacity to tell amazing stories. They're already doing it and are very successful at it. And their art is no less beautiful because it can be measured. In fact, I believe that measuring it only empowers us to increase the beauty and create it more consistently. So here's my bottom line. The takeaway from what is in many ways, kind of a very long rant about how we imagine creativity. You do not need to study the objective principles that underpin great writing in order to achieve commercial success. There are many, many authors who have achieved great commercial success. And who's writing is so intuitive that they struggled to articulate how they create their art. But the principles that underpin great writing can be studied. Story is not an impenetrable mystery story is knowable. And knowing it doesn't deprive it of its artistic beauty. The universe is not less beautiful because it can be measured. In fact, if you want to improve your writing, you will benefit the most from measuring the universe. You will improve your writing the most by treating, writing as a skill, which can be learned. You will improve your writing the most by making the subjective objective. You will improve your writing the most by learning the patterns that people who study stories have observed. You will improve your writing the most by practicing the tools that enable you to apply those patterns to your own writing. You will improve your writing the most by measuring the universe. And you will actually make your writing easier along the way. Because you will have so much more to rely on beyond your intuition. As an editor and book, coach, This is my approach to the writing and editing process. And here on the podcast, it's my goal to make the subjective objective so you can leverage it and your own writing and editing. Now you get the bonus treat of knowing that when you listen to this podcast, when you study story like this You're learning story principles that most people, even many published authors. don't know. Thanks for sticking with me as we measure the universe together. Happy editing.