The other week, I pulled a sentence at random out of John
Crowley’s classic Little, Big. I used it to illustrate a point
about narrative voice, but a couple of days later I had an
epiphany: the same sentence can also illuminate pacing and a
story’s emotional flow. Legos Tell Stories When I was a kid, I
spent just about every waking moment building adventures out of
Legos. Back then (despite my fiancée’s assertions, dinosaurs did
not roam the earth), Legos lacked variety. There were blocks…and
blocks. A handful of different sizes, and that was about it. But
despite their limited palette, I could tell just about any story
my five year old self could imagine using those blocks. I built
castles, and spaceships, and horses, and windmills. Fantasy,
science fiction, monsters: I was only limited by my imagination.
Fast forward a few years, and you’ll still find me playing with
building blocks. Only now, I use words, sentences, and
paragraphs to tell stories instead of little plastic bricks. At
its most basic, a story