Rules For Superior Stories

Todd Hoff's picture
Submitted by Todd Hoff on Thu, 09/17/2009 - 01:08

Charles Tilly in his book Why? distills down the rules for how Jared Diamond takes complicated ideas in books like Guns, Germ, and Steel and whittles them down to an essential yet still interesting essence:

  • Simplify the space in which your explanation operates.
  • Reduce the number of actions and actors.
  • Minimize references to incremental, indirect, reciprocal, simultaneous feedback effects.
  • Restrict your account--especially of causal mechanisms--to elements having explicit, defensible equivalents within the specialized discipline on why you are drawing.
  • Remember your audience: you will have to tell your superior story differently depending on the knowledge and motivation your listeners will bring to it. Think of your stories as relational work.