The Power and Promise of Stories

Hello and welcome! How do you do? Whether you clicked on a link or stumbled across this post by happenstance, I’m delighted that you’re here!

This is the first ever newsletter posted on the website, so I figured I’d give you a heads-up for what you can expect in the future.

In my opinion, newsletters are the sort of thing a company sends out at the end of the month or financial quarter, letting their shareholders know how they did, what new projects they started, and what they can look for in the next month or quarter. (If the picture in my head isn’t what newsletters are, I apologize and stand corrected.) Several author and storytelling blogs and websites that I personally follow do something similar each month. Some even do it weekly.

And there’s nothing wrong with that!

(On a former, now mercifully retired website of mine, I did weekly writing project updates.)

However, as I thought about this website and what I wanted to do with it, I couldn’t justify putting out a weekly “project update” newsletter—or even a monthly one.

For one thing, I don’t have the writing progress worth mentioning in updates. I get stuff done, but not that quickly.

For another thing, I don’t think that’s something that many people would want to read. I don’t think even that’s the sort of newsletter I would want to read—and I’d be the one writing it!

I mean, what would that sort of update even look like?

“Hello, it’s weekly update time! I’ve stared at a blank screen for several hours, wrote a couple of paragraphs that I’ll probably end up deleting, and didn’t make any real progress on any of my projects. Looking back on the week, I feel unaccomplished and defeated. I typed up several drafts of this update before giving up and finally settling on announcing that I’ll be retiring from the writing business because it looks like I can make more money flipping burgers at a fast-food chain…”

-Anonymous Author (Definitely not me)

That’s bleakly sarcastic, but you get the idea.

However, I will use this newsletter to announce when I’ve finished a writing project and it’s ready to share—or if I have a blog series starting up. In the meantime, I doubt you really want to hear about how I wrote another 1k words of a rough draft for a story you won’t read for another year or so. 😊

So, if weekly and monthly project updates are out, what does this newsletter become?

I think it becomes whatever it wants to be—just like stories.

It’s a chance for me to write about one of the things I love: Stories. Some months I’ll write about stories in general, other months I might write about a specific story that I’m particularly fond of. If you’ve read this far, this newsletter will be a chance for you to read about something you love as well. (Because if you have read this far, I’m guessing that you enjoy stories too. You and I might find that we enjoy similar things about them.)

If that’s true, pull up a chair, get cozy, and let’s talk about stories.

Stories are doorways to other worlds. (That’s not an original thought, other writers and storytellers far better than I have said similar things.) I think that’s one of the things we as people love about them.

Stories can take us from our normal, ordinary, everyday lives and transport us to another time and place—even to other worlds that have never existed anywhere besides the storyteller’s and the reader’s mind. We meet people with whom we connect, identify, and empathize—dear friends who travel with us through the years, inspiring and comforting us in our darkest, loneliest moments.

The open story door stands there, just waiting for us to walk through, and no one knows where we’ll go or how long we’ll be gone. The journey starts when we turn the first page.

That’s the power stories possess.

Furthering that, I think another thing we love about stories is that they’re not only a doorway to other worlds, but they are also an invitation—a warm welcome to be a part of something larger than ourselves.

You don’t have to look far to see that longing in the world we live in. Relationally built and driven, people want to be a part of something larger than us. A stadium full of people goes wild when their team scores a touchdown or wins the game. A theatre full of fans bursts into applause when they witness a cinematic masterpiece or the hero saves the day. A child with a book laughs aloud at a funny scene they just read or weeps when a beloved character dies.

(That last one can’t just be me.)

I could keep listing examples all day. The point being, I’m willing to bet that you’ve experienced that sort of energy—that sort of magic—in one way or another. A story is being told in such moments, a story that people get to be a part of.

Stories speak to the longing of wanting to be a part of something larger than us. The waiting book on the shelf is an open door—an invitation to would-be readers, whispering that if they walk through, they’ll be a part of something incredible taking place, and they won’t be disappointed.

That’s the promise stories possess.

We all have favorite stories we know and love and keep reading over and over again, and there are new stories out there that we haven’t yet read, just waiting to draw us into something larger than ourselves. So, enough from me—go read a book! It’s what I’m going to do.

In February, in addition to a newsletter at the end of the month, watch for the first hopefully humorous post of my new series, Poking Fun at Classic Fantasy Tropes.

Until next time,

Al