Humans have been telling stories for as long we know. Whether it’s around campfires, through ancient myths, or TikToks and Twitter threads, the things that make us feel something—joy, sadness, laughter, rage—are most of all stories. In a way, a story is a pretty magical device for getting ideas and feelings from my head into yours. There’s a reason stories can make us feel less alone.

Think about a story you tell to a friend or family, or the kind of story you might tell to impress someone or to catch the eye of a crush. What do you do to capture their attention? To keep them listening? When you’re writing, you’re using all the same tricks. You’re charming your reader through the ear. So it’s good to pay attention to what tricks you already know how to use.

All stories, at their most basic, are made of two things:

Anecdote
Reflection

Anecdote is the “this happened, then this happened, then this happened” of storytelling. It’s actions happening in sequence.

Reflection is when you, the storyteller, interrupt that action to explain something. It could be what a character is thinking, or a bit of background that’s important for understanding what’s going on.

Here’s a quick example, so you can see how the two things—anecdote and reflection—work in an actual story:

I woke up and looked at my phone, and like everyone else that morning I learned that a giant portal had ripped open the space-time continuum at Lolita’s in Chula Vista. The only thing was, my mom worked at that Lolita’s. I stumbled down the hallway, rubbing my hand along the rough wall. The lights were off in the living room. I sniffed, hoping to catch the smell of pancakes or coffee in the kitchen, or maybe some of that perfumed lotion she uses. I called out, “Mom?” No reply. I called louder. “Mom! Mom! Mooommmm!!”
A voice answered back. It was not my mother’s voice.

What’s the reflection in this short section? The only time the narrator (or the person telling the story) interrupts the action is to tell us an important part of the backstory, something about the world that isn’t in the action in the present. There’s a giant portal. It’s at Lolita’s. It’s probably a tragedy, and not just because losing Lolita’s would be a culinary loss. The narrator’s mom works there.

That means everything else is anecdote. Notice how all of those pieces take us, step by step, through what the narrator did and how they use multiple senses—sight and smell and sound.

Isn’t it interesting how there’s a sense of suspense that builds just by the narrator taking us one step at a time? We’re trained to know that a story like that is building—that we’re being told all of this detail for a reason. And here the reason is the reveal of a possibly creepy, possibly alien not-Mom is in the kitchen.

But as an experiment, try taking out the reflection. What happens if we don’t know that the narrator’s mom works at Lolita’s. The anecdote alone still creates some suspense, but without that personal connection it isn’t as heightened, is it? So by playing with different ways of getting anecdote and reflection working together, you can create all kinds of wonderful storytelling effects—from suspense and surprise to hilarity and heartbreak.

If I had to guess, Alyssa’s story may have started from a couple places. One might have been being excited about writing as if personal gods were real and physical and lived with you. But she also might have some personal experience with being jealous of someone—a family member who has more or gets more attention. A lot of us can relate to that. There’s something personally meaningful, I’d guess, behind this story—and it helps her write about it in a way that we feel those feelings, that tension, that drama.

Alyssa used those two things—an idea about an alternate world and probably some personal or emotional connection—to tell a story about a character who has a conflict and makes a profound choice. We’ll focus more on these—character, conflict, and choice—in the next section, but notice how Alyssa creates all of that through a simple movement between anecdote—talking to Hyeon, lifting the cleaver, cracking her god’s shell with it—and anecdote—telling us that Hyeon is a god, a powerful being, explaining that she’d gotten a weak god, and importantly reflecting on her family and how much they seem to love Jinny more.

Anecdote and reflection can set up expectations. After this happens, what will happen next? It gets us leaning into a story, on the edge of our seats. This is suspense.

They can also get us asking questions. What kind of situation are we in? Why is Caroline doing this? We read on because we’re curious and we want to get answers to those questions we’re asking.

Knowing what expectations your reader is beginning to have and what questions they’re asking allows you, the writer, to either meet those expectations or to play games with those hopes, giving the reader something unexpected or surprising.

All great stories—fantasies and science fiction and horror but also more “realistic” ones like Toni Morrison and Jane Austen and the all the rest—run on this. It’s one of the engines of storytelling.

Exercise 1.2

You’re going to write 1-3 pages. I want you to think of the kind of story you’d be desperate to tell a friend or at a party—something you know will entertain or shock or astound them. It can be something from your life, a story you heard about someone else, or a complete invention. But think about the last time you were chomping at the bit to tell someone some juicy anecdote, and then don’t think about literariness or plot or craft and just get that down, the way you would tell it at that party when you’re trying to impress that attractive new so-and-so or show up your nemesis who just charmed the group with a story about a trip to Kenya. Or the kind of story you ask a friend to step away from the group to tell, maybe in a corner of backyard that’s quiet and not so well-lit. Or when you’re meeting someone new.

Take five minutes. Read back through what you’ve just written. Underline everything that is anecdote (this happened, and she said, and then…). Put everything that is reflection (evaluating the action, thoughts, the present perspective on the past) in bold.

Fantastical stories of all kinds—from “realistic” near-future science fiction to adventures in an ancient magical kingdom of mermaids—start with a twist on our world. And not just “our” general world, but the world the writer knows. So YOUR world.

They start with a big “what if”—or many what ifs—that create the world of the story.

What if there’s a secret kingdom in Africa led by a superhero king? That’s the “what if” of “Black Panther.”

What if the government made kids fight to the death to suppress society? That’s the what if of The Hunger Games.”

What if you were secretly a wizard? That’s the “what if” of Harry Potter.

But underneath that fantastical what if are everyday lives and emotions. In Black Panther, T’Challa struggles with how to best help the community he has suddenly been called to lead. For Harry Potter, we love him and feel for him as he goes from neglected orphan to finding a family at Hogwarts. We care about Katniss Everdeen because we see how she has to be strong for her mother, who’s been traumatized, and for her little sister. These are situations we may have some experience with, even if it isn’t in a totalitarian future state or a fantasy realm.

Some people talk about “inspiration”—what inspired a story, what gave you that idea, or where in your life it came from. It can be so helpful for stories that you’re trying to write to connect with your experiences, your worlds. But that can happen in so many ways. Mars might secretly resemble the neighborhood you grew up in. The ogre may sound suspiciously like your crotchety grandmother whose approval you always wanted.

But the fun and great thing about inspiration is that you don’t need to wait for it to come, and that you find it in new and unexpected places as you’re writing.

The fun part is that “what ifs” allows you to play. Creativity comes from playfulness, from curiosity and a willingness to try thing that are silly or strange or unexpected. Put two unexpected things together, and you might be surprised by what emerges—and that’s so, so fun, and exciting. That happens on a sentence level, like if you describe an alien creature as “a furry talking potato.” Those words don’t belong together in everyday conversation. But hey! Now you have a furry talking potato. What kinds of things would such a potato want? What kind of personality does it have? What will it do when it assumes control of the Infinity Gauntlet? You answer those questions in telling a story about our fun furry potato friend, and each choice you make in an opportunity for play and discovering new connections and new ideas about where the story is going.

Because most writers really don’t know where their stories are going to go. Not at first. Because imagination is a process that you use over and over and over again, sentence after sentence, note after note, as you’re figuring out the story you’re working on.

Writing science fiction and fantasy encourages us to be playful about other worlds and possible futures—to get out of the limitations of what is quote-unquote “real” and thing about how things might be different than the way they are.