On Storytelling

First of all, happy two week birthday to my blog and website. This Sunday morning, as I wait for the coffee to take hold, I thought I'd write a little about storytelling.

There's a lot to say on the subject, but when I write a story, my goal is for it to hit three marks:

• Beautiful
• Hopeful
• Devastating

Like any good writer, I ripped off this idea big time. In 2011 I read an A.V. Club retrospective on the Star Trek: TNG episode, "The Inner Light." Zack Handlen was able to put into words what I had always felt about my favorite episode:

What possible memorial could serve for the lives lost, for the way of life forever destroyed? Perhaps nothing more than to let someone somewhere know that there was a place once, and the people in it loved and were loved, and then they died. The specifics aren't important. Sometimes, just knowing there was beauty, and that it is lost, is enough, and in the end, all that's left are some memories, and a flute, and a single line of melody. Also, the lesson that the most important time is the time we have, and our only true duty to ourselves and those we love is to make the most of it. "Light" is an expertly constructed episode, one that ably demonstrates the potential of genre fiction to astonish us and move us in equal measure. And it manages to be beautiful, hopeful, and devastating all in a single final scene.

Since then I've rewatched "The Inner Light" about once a year. The moment at the end when Picard grasps the flute with both hands gets me Every. Single. Time.

So yeah, one day I hope I can write something as good as "The Inner Light."