Warning: I don’t usually post this type of thing. The simple idea of giving advice on writing to other people makes me cringe. But I was thinking about this stuff today – probably because I’m not writing the story I was supposed to be re-writing, which usually prompts me to write something else. And here it is: another trip into this writer’s mind.

"Don't think. Write!"

Ray Bradbury

Storytelling, for me, revolves around "summoning the voice." It doesn't matter how detailed an outline is or the inordinate amount of research I've done for a story; if the voice isn't there, it simply won't work. 

Strangely enough, it might even work for other readers – it has happened, more than once – but it will mean nothing for *this* reader. Because all of that other work is purely rational, whereas summoning the voice isn't. 

It's a sort of weird exercise in empathy for a person who doesn't exist in this plane. Not yet. I suppose it may be close to what shamans feel when they listen to the voice of the wind, or the trees, or the white water rushing downstream. 

Only this is about listening to the voice of someone you've never met before: a man, a woman, a cat, a dog, or a tree riding a bicycle while carefully holding a nest of startled azurine magpies.

When that man/woman/cat/dog/tree arrives, you will know it's there. They will become a person. With a voice. The voice.  

The voice will then tell you a story. Even if you have done all the research and spent hours perfecting an outline, it will be their story now.

Not yours anymore. Theirs.

And all you can do is be loyal to the voice and transcribe what he/she/it is saying to the best of your abilities.

In other words, when this happens, when you've finally managed to summon the voice: 

"Don't think. Write!"

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© 2026 CE 

Pic: Photofunia 

86.2 #vss365 #nonfiction [90-second read]