How to Read a Story

I came across an Instagram Reel of a young woman detailing her process for reading John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. Having recently read the book, I was curious about her method, and to my surprise, it was rather elaborate. The highlighting, the marginalia, and the underlining along with the meticulous notetaking system took me back to my college years as a philosophy major trying to figure out what the hell Heidegger was on about—I’m still unsure. What I was sure about was that her elaborate process was due to a reading assignment that would culminate in a term paper, but I was wrong. Her reasoning for such a detailed system was that she simply wanted to get the most out of the story. 

As it happens with content you find interesting, you begin to see it more often, and thanks to my intimate relationship with the algorithm, I found another elaborate process. This time for The Iliad. The post explained in strenuous detail what The Iliad was “actually” about. Video after video, I continued to find that many people had elaborate processes to help them get the most out of the stories they were reading. This got me thinking about how often I would try to control my reading experience to maximize comprehension, ensuring that I too would get the most out of the story. But really underneath all the secondary research on a book, the analysis, and the detailed-notetaking was the desire for a “true” interpretation of the text which often led me to insert my personal ideology, and in doing so I ended up with a pillow of ideas and philosophies that muffle the story to death. 

I’ve over-interpreted my fair share of stories. It’s hard to turn off that part of the brain that wants to relate, synthesize, and attach meaning to the reading. I’m not entirely sure that I know how or that it’s even possible. After all, analysis is part of daily life and it’s useful especially as a storyteller. What worries me is the many articles, videos, and books presenting themselves as storytelling craft but secretly disguised as more analysis. I think these books do novice storytellers more harm than good. And while I don’t wish to discourage anyone from their own reading process, I thought I’d share my own method that has helped me actually get the most out of the stories I read. This process is specifically geared for the reading of storytelling. I call it, how to read a story. It’s a simple framework requiring two questions: what is happening? And why is it happening? 

Before I continue, it is important to say that I’m not against analysis. I think it’s useful. I’m just against the analysis presented as a solution to our storytelling problems. One thing to keep in mind is that storytelling is not criticism and analysis and interpretation can lead us to think that performing surgery on a novel will lead to the discovery that helped the writer write the novel, but that’s not how storytelling works. While a close reading should always be encouraged, dissecting a piece of literature does not necessarily give you the blueprint to write your own.

Here is my framework for reading a story: the first question is to ask what is going on. The context of a story should help us to get a feel for the world. When a passage moves you, reflect and think about what you are experiencing. Let the emotions guide you. Reminding myself that something is happening helps me stay in the story far longer than playing a scavenger hunt for meaning. Meaning comes from the whole not the particulars. You don’t need to carefully examine the setting. For example, a scene in East of Eden, doesn’t need to be related to the moral and societal structures of late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century California for you to feel it. Lose yourself in the story. Yes, you can be inquisitive, this will help you remain active, but remember that the language is the medium by which the story is presented.

For many storytellers, much of the writing they have completed comes from their time in college. Shifting gears out of that process is easy once you know you’re in it. I remember how my English 101 professor told us to emulate Orwell, not academic writing, and what did we do? We emulated academic writing. Knowing you’re in the system is the hard part. Remind yourself that you don’t need to find the allegory in the subtext, simply feel what is happening. Find meaning through your emotions. Appreciate the story for what it is evoking in you, not because it meets all the necessary story beats but because it makes you feel something—and in the end that’s the purpose. Maybe you can’t put words to what you feel but what matters is that you feel it. 

The second part of the framework is to simply ask why things are happening. For this, let us take The Iliad as an example. Achilles is seething, angry, raging. But why does the story place us in the middle of an epic-long war and specifically with a raging Achilles? Why should we care about him? The second question of the framework helps you get deeper into the motivations of the characters. Character actions are the puzzle pieces that let us know what the story is actually about because they build on the unifying theme. Achille’s rage is evidence that something is clearly making him upset and it’s the fact that he’s been dishonored. Examples of dishonor are found throughout the epic countless times. For Achilles his rage is grounded on the fact that he’s the best of the Achaeans and everyone knows this. If he’s the best, why does he not get the lion’s share? Why does that go to Agamemnon? We relate to the character’s struggle. We understand it, we may not agree with it but we can surely feel that conflict that’s driving them. When we ask why things are happening in a story we start to notice patterns and we see how it’s not just Achilles that is being dishonored but everyone. Even Hector, glorious Hector with his shining helmet, meets a brutal and bloody dishonor. And if everyone is being dishonored, then naturally we should ask—why? The reason we see it is because the actions the characters are taking are driven by the pursuit of glory. We can now answer what is driving the story—the characters’ desire for glory. Seeking to become deathless like the immortal Gods of Olympus and honored for their glorious feats in battle. So, when someone is dishonored in the story, it’s usually as a way to take away all the character cares about. The storyteller traps them in a corner and they reveal their nature—rage, shame, fear. This is what war is all about.    

When it comes to reading a story properly, it is important to elicit the senses. Sometimes, especially as writers, we can fall into a trap of trying to decipher the hidden truth underneath the story. I try to stop myself from thinking there’s a secret to be found when reading good stories. The idea that if only I could find how the writer pulled off this great story, I could then figure out how to write one myself, is dangerous thinking that directs you away from the actual storytelling. The point is to just read and become familiar with storytelling. Be attuned to the emotional ups and downs. Actively reading stories requires immersion (what is happening) and reason (why is it happening). If we see the patterns then we find the driving force behind each story—the soul that gives the story the life to live on the page, and that is all we need to read a story.