the outlier №242 - writing and release

how rate of revelation is THE key storytelling skill

As promised in last week’s Outlier, I had some fun writing a piece about a recent book deal that’s caused a fuss online.

I don’t love the idea of being too topical, I’d rather aim at timeless than timely, but it felt interesting enough thematically to do and people seem to have enjoyed it. Read it here (or at least check out the meme-like thumbnail as I’m quite pleased with it).

Otherwise, I had an author interview cancel this week which is a shame but in working on making the clips from previous chats more accessible to everyone, I might have stumbled on a way to share this letter more widely on social. For now though, you can check out the previous conversations on here, YouTube or Spotify.

recent bookish adventures

revelation rate

Part of the Luke Bateman problem is the speed it happened.

The audience just found out who he was, got to like him, then suddenly it turns out he’s already got a book deal and is perhaps the product of some behind the scenes publicity machinations. Book publicist

Kelly PIke

commented on my piece,

I think announcing the book so quickly is a bit of an own goal, and I think lots of the audience do feel a bit played

It’s all happened too fast and it feels like if they’d waited a few more months, everyone would be much more pleased for him.

The more I think about it, rate of information release is the key storytelling skill. If a story is too slow, we stop, if it’s too fast we feel disoriented.

When I read A Court Of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR), I was intrigued by the world it set up but the pace of the book was completely wrong. I knew nothing until 3/4 of the way through, then I was told everything, ruining any kind of revelation from the inevitable victory slog in the last 1/4.

Playing around with my own fiction ideas, I’ve become more and more convinced about the importance of this rate of revelation and this week, I found a video on exactly this topic. It even uses work from one of my favourite creatives to demonstrate, Alex Garland.

Ex Machina is extremely well-paced, as well as thematically fascinating, and the video explains why it works so well, using a framework from an American screenwirter called John Truby.

In Anatomy of Story, Truby recommends the following:

The order of your revelations must be logical;

Each reveal must be roughly more intense than the last;

As the story progresses, the reveals must increase in pace, and;

Save the most shocking type of reveal (the reversal) until the end.

These are the kinds of points you sort of know, as someone said to me yesterday, ‘we all tell stories’, but the increase in pace and intensity are really useful as a sense check. When you’re telling a story, are those two things happening? If they’re not, then perhaps it’s time to edit yourself.

book launches

I’ve been to a few book launches recently. Here’s how to make them good.

• pick a room with a view or a history – The Churchill War Rooms for Damien Lewis was very cool.

• provide a couple of high quality refreshments, like oft-poured pink champagne at historian

  Helen Carr
  ’s Hatchards event.

• make cake (well done Unthink).

• open a window! All the brains

Helen Carr, me and England 7s chaps Tom Mitchell and James Bailey and the Unthink book cake

a book

I got handed previous Booker nominee The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid last week and read it in a day or so. Thinking I’d stumbled on a niche novel, I posted it on my socials where I discovered it’s a common pick for syllabi worldwide so I’m not as intrepid as I thought.

Anyway, it’s an interesting book, told solely from the perspective of a high-achieving immigrant to the US who becomes increasingly disillusioned with his life there in the wake of 9-11. It definitely follows a few of the rate of revelation tips from above and if you’re after something a bit mysterious and questioning, this short, tense book will do it for you. amazon / independents

a listen

A nice song.

a quote

‘What kills an idea is people’s urge to express their opinion.’

– Jony Ive

lastly

Thanks for reading! My work is made possible by you so if you’d like to support me you can buy my books, hire me to do something or you can become a paid subscriber using the button below.

If you want to help me out for free, you can share this letter with someone who might enjoy it, either on social media or by directly sending it to them using the button.

I’ll see you next time.