Removing More

There’s a lot that goes into telling a good story. Structure, arc, character development, etc. But the ultimate challenge of telling a good story is not what to keep in the final draft, but what to take out.

I recently watched two short videos. One was about a farmer in Ireland. The other was about a nomadic chef. Six minutes total. I don’t know for sure, but I would guess the producer had to make the difficult decision to cut out 98%—173 minutes of good footage—to capture two, three minute stories.

Good stories are like the good life: the more we remove, with intentionality, with purpose, with goals in mind and principles in tact, with direction and aesthetic attention, the more beautiful our story becomes.

It was the simplicity of those two stories that was so profound. I got the impression that the characters, not crowded by meaningless chatter, an over-saturated social life, and endless to-dos, could go deeper—in their work, in their relationships, in their own self-awareness.

People like us, unwilling to continue with the way things are, want that. We want profundity. Depth. Meaning.

What, dear friends, can we begin removing?