I’m a huge fan of the Japanese cleaning-up legend Marie Kondo and her philosophy about “tidying up” your home and life.
In fact, seeing her made me wonder if it was possible to apply her idea about “sparking joy” into story-writing as well.
As it turns out, yes, it is not only possible, but it works great!
During the last stream, we used Marie Kondo’s method of tidying up to edit a story.
Going from 1st draft to 2nd draft (or to 3rd/5th/18th draft) can be hard. Like we’ve said before, you have to do two things: (1) clean it up and (2) make it more fun. “Cleaning it up” is pretty self explanatory, but “making it more fun” is a bit harder.
But now, with Marie Kondo’s “spark joy” philosophy, there’s an easy way to tell if your story is fun enough or not.
You can see the exercise here,
or scroll down for the quick outline.
Here’s the three steps to making sure your story “sparks joy.”
1) Finish writing your story. (The entire first draft, beginning to end.)
2) Go through every sentence of your story. Yes, EVERY sentence!
3) For each sentence ask yourself, “Does this spark joy?” If yes, great. If not, then delete it or change it so that it does spark joy.
Having every sentence spark joy may seem like a lot, but honestly it’s not a lot to ask of a good story.
Ideally you shouldn’t have too many sentences in your story that just exist to convey information. The vast majority of sentences should be either fun to read, hit the reader emotionally, be exciting in some way, or a combination. Too many neutral/boring sentences in a row will make people stop reading.
We applied that to this quick story I wrote, asking if each sentence “sparks joy.”
Here’s the beginning (full story in the video):
Lucky-B had been Bobby’s water bottle for a very long time. Ever since he scored that touchdown the first night for his high school team to win the championship and him to be promoted to quarterback, Bobby and Lucky-B were inseparable for every game. Bobby insisted to have his thirst quenched by no other bottle than Lucky-B.
After holding up each sentence and asking ourselves “does this spark joy?” our honest answer was “no.”
It took a long time to edit and rewrite in a way such that nearly every sentence did spark joy, but I think it was worth it. Here’s what our story changed into:
Ten seconds left on the clock. Bobby unscrewed my cap and chugged down my water through his football helmet. Three giant gulps later, he held me in front of his sweaty eyes.
“If you help me get through this,” he said to me in heavy breaths, “you will be my lucky water bottle. I need all the help I can get.”
Bobby slammed me on the table by the side of the field, and headed back into the last moments of the game. I stayed on the sidelines surrounded by cheering fans, hot bright lights against the dark night, and the other empty water bottles.
Even though I knew I would never see Bobby again, I still cheered him on as best I could. He’d chosen to drink me. He was my human. Even if he didn’t know that, and even if he couldn’t hear my cheers, I still loved him.
Nine seconds and thirty yards.
I watched the ball soar through the air, right into Bobby’s arms. Condensation dripped down my plastic surface as I felt the stress of the big moment.
Six seconds. Twenty yards. A hulking bull of a man moved in for the tackle, but Bobby dashed around him.
Two and ten. A defender dove in desperation, clutching at his feet, but Bobby pushed on.
The coaches, the players, the fans and me — we all screamed in unison.
One second. One yard.
Bobby stretched out his arm, and the football crossed into the end zone.
Touchdown.
Amid all the cheers and hugs and high-fives from his teammates and family and fans and cheerleaders, Bobby came over to me, little old me, and wrapped his hand around me, hoisting me into the air.
“This is my lucky water bottle, y’all!” he announced to everyone. “Good old Lucky-B, I’ll never go to a game without you.”
From then on, we were a team. I was Bobby’s lucky water bottle, accompanying him to every game.
Bobby had saved me from the trash bin. As far as I was concerned, he was my lucky human too.
I don’t know about you, but this opening is a lot more exciting and fun to read than the last one. And the way we got to it was by rewriting until we got something that “sparked joy.”
Unlike Marie Kondo’s cleaning methods, sometimes your story will end up long/thicker than it was before in order to spark joy. That’s fine. The goal isn’t to end up with the shortest possible story; it’s to end up with the most fun one. And using her methods can definitely help get you there!
After that, viewer/subscriber Lewis Reach chose that we write a a story based on this image prompt: me as a princess.
Here’s what we came up with:
Scott had trained his entire life in the way of the ninja. Wielding blades sharp as the kitsune’s wit, throwing shuriken to pierce the air like the beak of the crane, scaling thatched roofs silent as the cherry blossom on the breeze. But now, he had his greatest challenge yet: dressing up as a princess.
A ninja must blend in with their surroundings, and tonight was the formal soirée at the Miyamoto Imperial castle. This was Scott’s chance to finally steal the great Kyoto Treasure that had been the imperial family’s heirloom for a thousand generations. By the end of tonight, it would be his.
Scott dashed to the entrance grounds of the castle. It was lit up like never before. Lanterns danced in the sky, all warm colors of yellow, orange and red, shaking to the beats of the taiko drums banging in the gardens. A constant flow of lords in long black robes, shogun in their finest lacquer uniforms, and Western diplomats in tuxedos and coattails. Each of them had a lady in arm, bobbing humbly at their side, wafting the summer air with sensu fans.
Behind them strolled an endless rainbow of kimonos and Western dresses — all the most beautiful young women in Japan, all vying to catch the eye of the young Emperor. He’d recently assumed the throne after his father passed away, and tonight he was supposed to find a bride. If everything went according to Scott’s plan, he would gain a wife and lose an inheritance.
Scott shuffled out from the shadows and flowed into the crowd of women, following them as they daintily inched their way through the stone pathway into the castle.
If the outside of the castle was splendid, then inside was doubly so. The hall was filled with musicians playing bamboo flutes, stringed koto, and biwa lutes. Massive scrolls of black and red calligraphy hung from the walls alongside portraits of Miyamoto ancestors. The smell of freshly warmed matcha tea emminiated through the air, alongside grilled fish and boar.
It took all of Scott’s ninja training to resist the temptations. While the other guests indulged in the exquisite tastes and sounds, Scott slipped away. He’d spent the past month memorizing the plans for the castle, the plans that his clan had slowly crafted over years of careful infiltration and observation. The plans had been paid for in blood, and now it was time for Scott to collect the reparations.
The hallways were guarded by men with spears and Western guns, but Scott had no intention of fighting them. With a quick look in either direction to make sure he was alone, he leaped up with the force of a toad, clasped onto a small opening in the the ceiling, and shimmied up through it just as two guards came marching past.
Crawling on all four as silent as falling snow, Scott crept forward through the dusty crawlspace above the ceiling tiles. The dress made it slightly harder to move than he was used to, but it would all be worth it in the end.
Counting off each step, listening as the conversations grew and faded from room to room, he navigated through the darkness like a bat at night, until he stopped right above the hole that peered into the treasure room.
Catlike, he fell through to the floor, landing silently on all fours. Surrounding him was a horde of gold, silver and jade marvels, but Scott only had eyes for one of them. It stood encased in glass on top of the crimson cushion, shining brighter than any diamond. The Miyamoto family’s legendary heirloom.
The Super Mushroom.
Its red and white shiitake body glistened like blood splattered on snow after a glorious samurai duel, while two black eyes in the center stared off into the eternal beyond, contemplating the mysteries of the universe that mere humans could never hope to comprehend. Scott had to have it. He stepped up to it, and clasped his hands around its glass encasing.
“What are you doing here?” came a voice from behind.
Scott froze in his position, but only for a second. His training instincts kicked in. With the mushroom under one arm, he ripped the shuriken out from under his dress with the other, and threw them at the voice, ending in four sharp thuds as they penetrated into the wall, pinning the stranger’s sleeves so he couldn’t budge.
Scott ran up to him and clasped his fingers around the stranger’s throat, ready to choke him to death and make his escape. But then he saw the man’s flowing imperial cloak covered in chrysanthemum insignia, his black sokutai hat draped in gold tassels, and of course, his bright smile and eyes that were legendary throughout the kingdom.
This was no stranger. This was the young Emperor himself, Shigeru!
Scott felt the strength fall from his limbs. He let go of the Emperor’s throat, and barely held onto the encased Mushroom. He’d been prepared to steal it in secret, but now confronted by its owner, he didn’t know what to do.
“It’s you then,” Shigeru whispered.
Scott was so bewildered, he merely narrowed his eyes and shook his head. “What are you talking about?”
Shigeru, still stuck to the wall, eyed Scott’s pink-dress body up and down with a grin.
“I always come in here when I’m nervous,” Shigeru explained. “And tonight was the most nerve-racking of my life. I’m supposed to find a bride, but I don’t know the first thing about that! So prayed to the gods to give me a sign for which woman I should choose… and then you descended from above! So I choose you.”
Scott’s mouth fell open and closed several times before he found he could speak again.
“Listen, Emperor Miyamoto—”
“Please,” the Emperor said. ‘Call me Shigeru.”
“Okay. Shigeru. I’m flattered, but if I’m being perfectly honest, I’m a man.” With his free hand he tugged at his pink dress and lifted it up to show off his hairy legs. “I only wore this to sneak into the castle and steal your Mushroom.”
To Scott’s surprise, Shigeru only smiled. “The Mushroom will be yours when you marry me. And I don’t care if you’re a man. Love is love, my sweet.”
Shigeru puckered up his lips and closed his eyes. Scott looked back and forth between the Emperor’s kissy face and the Mushroom under his arm, trying to decide what to do.
Two seconds later, he made his choice.
Scott slammed the glass encasing around the Mushroom against Shigeru’s head, knocking him unconscious.
“Sorry,” he said as he ran out of the chamber. “But your princess is in another castle!”
If you want to join us and help write a story by trolling in chat, or share your own writing for feedback, then we’d love to have you. We stream on Twitch every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday at 6:30pm-10:30pm (U.S. Eastern Standard Time).
And you missed the stream, you can still watch them on the YouTube channel or watch the full stream reruns.
Hope to see you next time, friend!
Scott Wilson is the author of the novel Metl: The ANGEL Weapon,
forthcoming March 2019.
Featured image: Wikimedia Commons (Edited by me)
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