The giant was beside himself.

Oh no!’ he cried. ‘Oh mince my maggots! Oh swipe my swoggles!’

‘What’s the matter?’ Sophie asked.

‘It’s a trogglehumper!’ he shouted. His voice was filled with fury and anguish. ‘Oh, save our solos!’ he cried. ‘Deliver us from weasels! The devil is dancing on my dibbler!’

+++

That little passage from Roald Dahl’s The BFG, which Spielberg recently made into a movie, had my nine-year-old son and me in stitches the other night.

And it points up a key to writing books that sell and sell and sell. That key is, in a word, narrative.

Examples

Let me give you another example. I just finished reading the New York Times bestseller The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. It’s a business book. I don’t know if you’re accustomed to thinking of business books as story books, but that is exactly what The Power of Habit is—a story book. It’s just one story after another—and quite good ones too. Stories about how to break bad habits, how to start good ones, how new habits are possible in times of crisis, and so on.

Want a third example? Malcolm Gladwell. Everything he’s written is filled with narratives. I’m serious. If you took all the stories out of Blink! or Outliers or The Tipping Point, you’d be left with about five pages. And he uses the same style in his recently released Revisionist History podcast too, which by the way I highly recommend.

What’s my point? Tell stories. If you want a chance at writing a book that sells and sells and sells, tell stories. Lots of them. And do interesting things with them. Weave several stories to make a point. Use a story to open a chapter and bring us to a cliffhanger, then break to something else, and come back to that same story to satisfy our appetites. Start each chapter with a great story.

What Stories Do

Here’s the thing about stories. They take you somewhere. You’re lifted out of wherever you are, and you’re dropped into this really fascinating place. That’s why my son pesters me to no end to read him The BFG. Never mind it’s a half hour past his bedtime. Never mind he’ll be dragging his little rump around the playground tomorrow. Never mind sleep. “Read!” he says to me.

That’s what a good story does. You’d rather be in the story than sleep.

I know you have something you want people to do. I know you have information that is really important for them to understand. I know you want to change their perspective. I know, I know. But you don’t get to decide how people’s minds work. That’s above your pay grade. So to make them do that thing or get that information or change their perspective, you’ll have to find some good stories to get them there.

A word of caution. Try not to be contrived. Honestly I fall into this trap sometimes. I can end up using stories gratuitously. You get to the end of one of my stories, read the following point, and go, “Um. That story doesn’t really suit that point.” I’m trying to get better at that, and so should you.

The Practical Part

One last thing. Don’t miss the practical part. Sometimes I read through a book and while I loved it, I’m not sure what to do with it. I’m not sure what action to take.

So land the plane. Tell me what to do with what you’re giving me. You can overdo this, of course. Your book can become a workbook. There’s a place for workbooks, but I doubt you want to write a workbook. Still, give me enough practical takeaways that I know how to build your message into my life.

Speaking of practical let me give you some story-related questions to ask as you think about your current or upcoming writing project:

• Is there one overarching story for your whole book? A framing story?
• What’s the perfect story for each of your planned chapters?
• Is there a certain category of stories you should focus on, historical or personal or scientific or medical or what have you?
• If you’re writing memoir, what’s the main story you’re telling? You can’t write about everything that happened in your life, you have to narrow the focus. So what’s the main story?

Here’s another practical takeaway. Start capturing your stories. When something terrific happens or when this scene reminds you of that principle, capture it. Use Evernote or a moleskin or a camera. Doesn’t matter. What matters is grabbing the thing so you have it later.

They’re worth the trouble, stories. The craft of storytelling and using stories to pull readers through to your larger points—to the information or the perspective or the life change—that’s good honest work. Keep at it.