The 5 Books That Revolutionized My Storytelling

When I was 20, I was ready to produce my first film. Well...I thought I was ready. I got lucky and connected with a producer in Chicago that was interested in hearing my idea.

I felt like I was really winning him over with my passion as I described scenes and concepts. Then he says, "This all sounds great, Richard. I'd love to look at a script."

I froze.

Up until then, my ideas had all been just that: ideas. I didn't have anything on paper, save for a few notes on scrap paper and napkins I'd collected over the years. But I didn't have a script. Worse still, I didn't even know where to begin writing a screenplay. My overconfidence gave people the impression that I knew what I was doing.

I made up an excuse about how I was having trouble formatting the script properly, and asked if the producer could recommend books to help. He did. And I read them all.

Years later, however, I still didn't have a script. The books taught me a lot, and yet I wasn't able to write anything that worked. My ideas were still unorganized and incoherent.

It took longer than I thought to convert my idea into a screenplay and, sadly, the connection with the producer faded as my story stayed in the draft bin. What was it about these book recommendations that just didn't work for me? Why couldn't I complete a viable script?

I thought maybe I just didn't have what it took. The more I thought about my barrier to writing, the more I realized there was a fundamental problem with how the books I was reading approached creative writing.

Part of the problem was that these books were predominantly analyses of scripts that had already been written - not how to start from scratch. I needed something to guide me through the story design process without oversimplifying my ideas, depending too much on formula, or making the process so rigid that it stifled my creativity. So I sought out better resources.

I eventually found several books that helped me finish stories that sold and were produced, and I want to share these titles with you - along with some key takeaways I gleaned from them.

1. The Anatomy of Story

Many "practical" guides to writing are mostly one person's opinions and philosophical wanderings that don't offer much tactical help. In the case of infamous books like Save the Cat, following the inflexible suggestions from the author's arbitrary framework only results in stories that are trite and laughably predictable.

John Truby, however, gives an open-ended framework that helps you build out the underlying structure of your story. It's like a questionnaire: it doesn't tell you how to write your story, but it asks essential questions that, if you don't have sufficient answers, will spell disaster for your finished product.

By going through his story dimensions, you can quickly check your work to ensure you're on the right track. The biggest benefit to my work was that, when I got stuck, I could quickly reference his framework and ask if I had adequately filled out that dimension.

For example, Truby talks about the concept of the Designing Principle, which is the grand metaphor of your story. Cormac McCarthy's The Road uses the linear travel of father and son as a metaphor for life. Lots of storytellers skip this step, and that hurts their work. By thinking about my own metaphors, I could strengthen the power of my story. Truby doesn't tell me how to write my story, but he asks questions that get me to dive deeper into the world - which ultimately makes my work more personal and more interesting.

2. Beyond the Screenplay

What does Hegelian dialects have to do with writing a screenplay full of compelling drama? A lot, apparently. In this book, Zachariah Rush knocks down common misunderstandings that writing "gurus" continue to perpetuate - at the detriment of students around the globe.

The most significant takeaway for me was Rush's expansion on the work of an earlier dramatist, Lajos Egri. Egri's book, The Art of Dramatic Writing, introduced the concept of the Dramatic Premise: the underlying moral that a story aims to prove - what your story is really about.

Just like an Aesop fable, all stories have an underlying moral. Rush provides a simplified way to construct your own Dramatic Premise so that you never lose sight of what your story is about. Rush's central point is a comparison between Hegel's dialect of "thesis - antithesis - synthesis" with story development. A character (thesis) interacts with an antagonist (antithesis), and the resulting conflict creates either growth or death of our character (synthesis).

It's a bit of a heady read, but well worth the investment. I continually refer to it whenever I'm feeling stuck. If nothing else, you get some excellent film recommendations for titles you've likely never heard of before.

3. The Peregrine

By far, the greatest nonfiction prose I've ever read. No other book transformed how I wrote more than this one. Merely reading it is a masterclass in how to use all of one's senses to transport readers into your story world.

J.A. Baker, an eclectic man with a mysterious background, writes his observations of various peregrine hawks around parts of northern England. The way he uses language transcends nature writing and becomes absolute poetry.

Don't get me wrong, they are fascinating creatures in their own right. They are obsessive bathers, always needing at least two inches of water. Play almost always precedes hunting. And they are the fastest animals in the world. When they stoop, they dive down toward their prey from 1000 feet in the air - at speeds nearing 200 miles per hour, they strike their target and instantly kill it.

But the sheer zeal of Baker's words deifies these birds. They are majestic and godlike. You celebrate their vicious beauty with him. That's the real power of a capable writer. Take this passage, for example, where he describes a tercel (a male hawk) clearing a hill full of pigeons by stooping at them:

He mounted like a rocket, curved over in splendid parabola, dived down through cumulus of pigeons. One bird fell back, gashed dead, looking astonished, like a man falling out of a tree.

The ground came up and crushed it.

Incredible, right? The entire book is filled with gems like this.

My only, final offering for how to approach this book is to do so with a truly open mind and heart. There isn't a narrative. There's no real story. There doesn't need to be. Simply revel in the stark landscape, the somber sunsets, and the dreary night skies that Baker paints for you. It will leave a lasting impression on you.

4. The Beggar King and the Secret of Happiness

This fantastic true account is a story made for lovers of storytelling. It was written by a professional storyteller - suffering a fate that is the stuff of fairytales. Joel ben Izzy was paid to tell stories. Then one day, he lost his voice. Literally.

The book is incredible, often reconfiguring familiar stories you think you've heard a thousand times so that they surprise and inspire. It remains unpredictable and touching. You will walk away with a full heart after reading it.

The main takeaway for me was that stories grow with you. Great stories hit differently at different points in your life. So it's worth re-reading stories you've read earlier in life - looking at them through the lens of their cumulative life experiences.

I've applied this to movies I've written for corporate learning. I think to myself, "How would someone interpret this story in their 20s versus their 30s, 40s, or 50s? What would someone in their 80s glean from my story? Does it speak to the things that are important to them?" I then try to include elements that would speak to a wide range of audience intelligences and levels of maturity.

5. Lessons with Kiarostami

Kiarostami was an eminent Iranian filmmaker who made critically acclaimed films like Where Is The Friend's Home? (1987) and Close-Up (1990). [If you haven't seen these, rent them today. Both are available through the Criterion Channel.]

For several years, he ran international workshops to teach filmmakers how to make movies. This book transcribes some of the notes and interactions where he helped students make short films within five days.

Reading it, I felt he was speaking directly to me.

One of the lessons that most profoundly impacted my writing was that he encouraged his students to speak about their films in terms of the actions and images. Too often, novice writers describe what their characters think and feel, rather than what they do. But moviemaking is about turning psychology into behavior. Watching Kiarostami's coaching in the real-time environment of his seminar reinforced the importance of changing one's language when describing a story intended for film or video. As I read, I could feel how his students were struggling with this concept.

One assignment required that the students include an elevator in their film. They had to make it part of their story in some way. One woman chose to make a film about an elderly lady who was scared of elevators. Kiarostami asked, "How do we know she is afraid? Does she wear a medical badge with her affliction?" The woman says, "Well, usually there's a doorman to help her up because she's afraid, but he isn't there this time." Kiarostami presses her further: "How do we show that he's usually there and isn't now?" The point isn't getting across, and she continues to make excuses without speaking in terms of actions or images. I begin to feel his frustration emanating from the page.

When talking to filmmakers who were struggling with their ideas, I noticed they'd often shift their language away from what characters do (and action that's visible) to what characters think (which is impossible to visualize). Guiding them back to speaking the language of action and images helped them recalibrate and reconnect with their material. Once they accepted the shift, they always had breakthroughs and could finish their stories.

Bonus Book: A Story as Sharp as a Knife

The Haida tribe are indigenous to the Victoria Islands in the Pacific Northwest. They are master storytellers; many of their tales were adapted to Hans Christian Andersen stories like "The Swan Princess." (Their version was called "Goose Food," and it's a perfectly symmetrical story.)

This book is a summary of the work of John Swanton, an ethnographer obsessed with their oral tradition. Although Swanton tirelessly worked to collect as many stories as he could, nothing was done with his work until decades later. This book describes the historical context of his visit to the Haida Gwaii, as well as the performative nature of the tribe's stories that would have been lost without Swanton's fixation on recording them all.

Reading their stories is like looking over a beautifully crafted mosaic - the tiles brilliantly laid out with expert precision. Even though you don't get the full effect of the performances - where stories would take hours to tell - you get the impression that something magical was happening here.

I would highly recommend this book because it teaches you what fully perfecting one's craft looks like. Although they don't get as much press as storytellers like Homer or Faulkner, they actually stand at greater heights and deserve representation.

The main thing I took away from this book is that our brains look for patterns in the world. The universe is infinitely complex, and we try to order it in ways that make sense. We subconsciously do the same thing with stories. However, a lot of story designers ignore or undermine the importance of symmetry within their story structure.

Typically, storytellers (especially screenwriters) fixate on three-act structure. Yet, they fail to see the arbitrary nature of this structure. You can have as many "acts" as you want. They're simply a construct. Subscribing ONLY to three-act structure is like saying, "Oh, you can only have square tiles in your bathroom. No other shape is acceptable." While this pattern is fine, and may work in a lot of situations, there isn't an exclusive law that the design has to be this way. There are lots of interesting patterns when we look around.

Look at the complex patterns tilers have come up with. They still create patterns, but the level of intricacy is only limited by one's imagination and experimentation.

My takeaway was that, yes, patterns and symmetry is fundamentally important to your story, but you get to choose. The last film I wrote was written in four acts. The one before that was in five acts. The one before that only had two acts. All of them worked.

So don't stress about structure. Simply choose a pattern that you think will show off your mosaic in a beautiful way and commit to it.

Thanks for Reading!

I hope this list has been helpful for you. I'd love to hear your personal suggestions to story books that helped you with your craft. What are your top three?