Starting this Story

I went to hear Donald Miller speak this week. Good stuff. I came away with some things that have continued to be thought provoking.

To give you the gist, he talked about what makes a good story. He started by telling the story of how some people approached him about making a movie out of his book Blue Like Jazz (one of my favorites). The thing is though, Blue Like Jazz isn't really the type of book that would make a good movie, mostly because it doesn't really have a plot. It's kind of a series of introspective essays... which, I'm no film maker, but even I know that a movie basically needs a plot. So these movie producers essentially tell Don that his real life is too boring, so for the movie, they need to spice it up a little. Don, who admitted that after the success of his book he sat around watching Oprah and eating ice cream for a year, was motivated by these producers to find out what makes a good story so that he could, in turn, make his life a good story. Not so that he could make a movie out of it, but so that he could live a more enjoyable and more fulfilling life.

Here is Don's definition of a good story: There is a character who wants something, and is willing to overcome conflict in order to get it.

Now, this may seem obvious to you. But Don went on to say that if we want our lives to be a good story, then we have to fit this mold. That irked me a bit. "So Don, what you're telling me is, that if I want my life to be interesting, then the only thing I have to do is want something and then try to get it?" I immediately flashed to earlier in the day when I had spent approximately 45 minutes on apple.com looking at all of the features of a mac book and wondering if it was possible for me to conjure up $1000 so that I could get one. I thought, "I want a mac. They are shiny and awesome and if I had one, I could make videos like this." But of course, I never would make videos like that. I would probably find uses for all of those features, but the irony is that while I was on that web site, I was using my perfectly functional, mostly attractive PC, whose name is Akiba, and who I actually have no problem with. So the mac is what I want, and I am willing to overcome conflict to get it and then my life will be more interesting? Doubtful.

Don went on to tell me that in fact, for the story to be good, you have to want something interesting. Duh. No one is going to read a story about a college girl who overcomes the obstacle of working extra hours in retail to put enough money in savings to buy a shiny computer. So why is it that I am willing to admit that I want things that are uninteresting, but am afraid to admit the things that I really want? Example: It is easy for me to tell you that right now, I want a mac, and a peppermint patty, and for my feet to be one size smaller, and a new camera, and for all of my homework to go away. It is hard for me to tell you what I really want because if I admit what I really want, and then I never get it, maybe that means that I failed, or something.

Maybe life is boring because I'm not going after the things that I really want. And maybe that's because there have to be so many steps between here and there. Like, one thing I really want is to be a missionary. And what am I doing about that now? Sure, I'm doing some things... like reading a lot of web sites, and even talking to some people. But mostly, right now, I'm going to school, getting completely sucked up in it, and occasionally wasting 45 minutes on apple.com. Oh gosh, how many things do I do in a day that have no purpose whatsoever. I do so many things that are neither functional, nor do they bring me joy. Why? What kind of story does that make? A boring one. At one point Don said, "If I were to play some sounds of a jackhammer, birds, and a truck backing up, you would say that is noise, not music. But if I were to play Beethoven, you would call that music... There is a difference between random events and story. The mind engages stories, not random information. A story is music. Random information is noise." And lately, I feel like I'm living a jumble of random information, rather than living a story. So, I'm going on a quest to find the music, and the story. I don't know how fruitful a quest it will be. I know that no matter what happens next year, it will someday be a good story. But I'd like to have some stories in the mean time.