The more I write, the more I come to think of storytelling as building a machine.
The basic formula for story is a character who wants something and must confront an obstacle in the pursuit of that desire. But there are other parts to the machine as well, with metaphors, images, and tricks of language used to evoke a specific function.
Every word serves a larger purpose, working together with other words to create something larger than the sum of its parts, almost like building a mousetrap…
joshua chamberlain 