Humans don’t just make stuff. In fact, I heard it described recently as this: humans are makers of lines. Bridges, roads, gardening, supermarkets, paintings, even words… they’re all made of lines.
In one sense, that’s how stories are made too. Drawing connections between events, characters and feelings. That line is the story.
This insight came to me pretty much verbatim from A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by the brilliant George Saunders. In it, he uses classic Russian short stories to explain how short story writing (and by extension, good storytelling) actually works.
The importance of editing out and editing in in storytelling
In a good story, everything earns its place. If something doesn’t contribute to the whole, it gets edited out. If it has earned its place, it stays.
Even if how it earns its place doesn’t seem neat or obvious.
However, once we start making these connections between the items, we get excited and we find meaning. That’s part of the fun.
For example, if I walked into an antique shop and bought an umbrella, a grandfather clock, and a taxidermied falcon, then drove off in a 1936 Edsel, you’d immediately be curious. And no doubt, the more connections you were able to draw between me and the objects, the clearer the story that would emerge.
And if I were a character in a short story, and the grandfather clock didn’t tell you anything, you’d simply remove it. Fewer lines, more meaning.
Speaking of drawing lines, let’s connect 2025 to 2026.
2025 was the year of Dashwell; 2026 is my year of alignment
In 2025, I launched Dashwell – my coaching, consulting, and training company – as a way of bringing together my 25+ years as a performer, facilitator, writer and creator, and aligning it with my extensive professional communications experience.
As word gets out, I’m fascinated by how the work finds me – clients who like how I talk online, or who an algorithm decided to point my way. I also love that I’m getting opportunities to create work that is really only something I would do, like organizing a workshop around an extended sailing metaphor or creating an interactive card game about space travel negotiation for international food standard negotiators in Brussels.
The macro-level pattern showing up across the different contexts is: people can end up stuck because their current line-making doesn’t serve them anymore. It may have gotten them to where they are now, but it’s not right to get them where they want to go. So they need to edit out what doesn’t serve them anymore.
And I’m doing the same, I’m drawing deliberate lines so that work and my creative projects start telling the same story. About who I am, what I care about, and what I do.
Hip-hop storytelling and a short story collection
Here are a couple of things I’m excited about for next year
I’m putting together Belated Heyday – a hip-hop storytelling show about finding your rhythm late in life. It’s a Fringe-type show that shares DNA with the tradition of Dutch cabaret, but also unlike anything I know out there.
I’m also publishing The Department of Unfortunate Outcomes, a collection of dystopian short stories that’s heading into editing and pre-production.
And alongside all of this, I’ll continue working with a small number of coaching and training clients – work that challenges me and challenges the client to do exciting – even breathtaking work – that gets them unstuck and pushes them in the direction they’ve long wanted to go.
So, in short, there’s lots of work ahead, and lots for me to be excited about. I hope you’ve got a nice mix of the two as well.
