We often talk about the craft of writing as if the words on the page are the story. But that’s not quite true.

What you write isn’t the story, it’s the framework used to trigger an imaginative experience inside the reader’s mind. The real story happens inside the reader’s head.

Every reader brings their own experiences, biases, memories, and emotional context to your work. When two different people read the same story, they don’t actually experience the same story. One reader might see a character’s silence as deep introspection, another might read it as passive aggression. A setting described as “dusty and quiet” might evoke peaceful nostalgia for one reader and tension or dread for another.

It’s one of the challenges of storytelling. You have to structure what you write so that your readers fill in the blanks with their own intelligence and intuition in the way that provides the experience and emotion you intend.

This is where reading is very different from going to see a movie. When watching a movie, all of the images and sounds are pushed to us, predefined with little room for our own creative interpretation.  Because of this, the story inside the head of every member of the audience will be very similar.

When reading, a story only happens when a reader engages with your words and transforms them into sights, sounds, feelings, and meaning.

I subscribe to the theory that most of what we are trying to do when we tell a story is get people to feel. Emotion is what makes people care about what happens to the characters in the story and that keeps the pages turning.  

I also like to think of it in terms of writing to create an experience.

Be intentional, but not controlling. You can guide the experience, but you shouldn’t dictate every detail. The reader is your collaborator.

Embrace slight ambiguity. Sometimes, the most powerful moments are the ones left just a little open-ended, allowing the reader to land on their own truth. Be careful here, clarity is still king, don’t omit too much and leave the reader confused. Confusion makes the reader put down the story and walk away.

Revise with the reader’s interpretation in mind. Ask yourself: Will this paragraph spark the right images and emotions? Or am I over-explaining and closing down possibilities for the reader to work with my words to make the story their own?

A story only lives when someone interprets in within the context of themselves.

-James