After all, similar to design, storytelling is the ritual of a hopeful society.

A good friend of mine introduced my to Dieter Rams’ “10 Principles of Good Design”. As soon as I read it, I started thinking about how this applied to storytelling.

So I switched out “design” and replaced it with “storytelling”. You can read more about it here.

Here are my thoughts on whether my storytelling in Toffy’s Divide, my first novel (Published: Oct 21, 2021), is good storytelling.

1. Good storytelling is innovative

• I used all the tools available to me to finish this story. My laptop, phone, the internet, dictate-transcription apps, collaborative editing tools, and complementary media — music and visual art. If the means of production of the story is innovative, then the storytelling is innovative in itself.

2. Good storytelling makes the truth/expression useful.

• That’s my hope. Time will really tell. I’m looking forward to your Amazon reviews to roll in.

3. Good storytelling is aesthetic

• I tried my best to make the storytelling aesthetically-pleasing. With the use of prose, sprinkled in with some visual elements, and poetry. I hope it’s pleasing to look at and read, enough for the reader to keep turning the page, all the way to the end.

4. Good storytelling makes the truth understandable:* it clarifies the truth’s structure. Better still, it can make the truth clearly express its function by making use of the experiencer’s intuition. At best, it is self-explanatory.*

• So far the few people that have read the book talk about how the story makes them reflect on where we are now in society and where we could be headed. This feedback from my editors and beta-reading community gave me more confidence that the message was cutting across as I refined the manuscript. Although I was trying to play with how the story moved through time, the structure and the important messages that I wanted to get across seemed easily understandable. But I’ll also wait for more readers to give their feedback to know how well I did on this point. So I’m looking forward to those amazon reviews ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ 😉

5. Good storytelling is unobtrusive

• Although it’s a 408-page book, I cut down words sentence by sentence to make sure there wasn’t anything obtrusive in there that didn’t need to be there. This was challenging but was one of my main tasks towards the end.

6. Good storytelling is honest

• As long as I was sticking to the process and keeping it playful while I wrote it, then It’s my honest story. Although influenced by so many others — books, music, movies. The way it is combined is full expression of what I hope to convey without any superfluous distractions.

7. Good storytelling is long lasting

• We’ll see what people think about the book in 2049

8. Good storytelling is thorough down to the last detail.

• A lot of research went into the details in the book, especially understanding the advancements of an automated and tech-enabled world of the future. Beyond the research, my attention to detail went as far as tiny pixel edits on my cover design. I’m publicly apologizing to my cover designers for numerous iterations on the book cover. 🙏🏾

9. Good storytelling is environmentally friendly: storytelling makes an important contribution to the preservation of the environment.

• This is a question I don’t have a clear answer on. I want to believe that my storytelling isn’t wasteful. I focused on making every page as impactful as possible so there aren’t any unnecessary pages being printed. That being said, with print-on-demand technology and ebooks, I want to believe that we are not just wasting paper that sits in a warehouse. But that being said, I’m not sure of the energy utilized to print a single book every-time someone orders it and how much energy a server uses to store, replicate, and distribute my ebook/audiobook every time it’s purchased. The jury is still out on this one.

10. Good storytelling is as little storytelling as possible. Less, but better — because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the truth is not burdened with non-essential. Back to purity, back to simplicity.

• I tried to keep it simple y’all. I really did.

Only time will really tell whether my storytelling really sticks to these 10 principles.

Participate in helping me figure that out by reading the story yourself. Get a copy of TOFFY’S DIVIDE(Out: Oct 21, 2021).

After all, similar to design, storytelling is the ritual of a hopeful society.

A good friend of mine introduced my to Dieter Rams’ “10 Principles of Good Design”. As soon as I read it, I started thinking about how this applied to storytelling.

So I switched out “design” and replaced it with “storytelling”. You can read more about it here.

Here are my thoughts on whether my storytelling in Toffy’s Divide, my first novel (Published: Oct 21, 2021), is good storytelling.

1. Good storytelling is innovative

• I used all the tools available to me to finish this story. My laptop, phone, the internet, dictate-transcription apps, collaborative editing tools, and complementary media — music and visual art. If the means of production of the story is innovative, then the storytelling is innovative in itself.

2. Good storytelling makes the truth/expression useful.

• That’s my hope. Time will really tell. I’m looking forward to your Amazon reviews to roll in.

3. Good storytelling is aesthetic

• I tried my best to make the storytelling aesthetically-pleasing. With the use of prose, sprinkled in with some visual elements, and poetry. I hope it’s pleasing to look at and read, enough for the reader to keep turning the page, all the way to the end.

4. Good storytelling makes the truth understandable:* it clarifies the truth’s structure. Better still, it can make the truth clearly express its function by making use of the experiencer’s intuition. At best, it is self-explanatory.*

• So far the few people that have read the book talk about how the story makes them reflect on where we are now in society and where we could be headed. This feedback from my editors and beta-reading community gave me more confidence that the message was cutting across as I refined the manuscript. Although I was trying to play with how the story moved through time, the structure and the important messages that I wanted to get across seemed easily understandable. But I’ll also wait for more readers to give their feedback to know how well I did on this point. So I’m looking forward to those amazon reviews ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ 😉

5. Good storytelling is unobtrusive

• Although it’s a 408-page book, I cut down words sentence by sentence to make sure there wasn’t anything obtrusive in there that didn’t need to be there. This was challenging but was one of my main tasks towards the end.

6. Good storytelling is honest

• As long as I was sticking to the process and keeping it playful while I wrote it, then It’s my honest story. Although influenced by so many others — books, music, movies. The way it is combined is full expression of what I hope to convey without any superfluous distractions.

7. Good storytelling is long lasting

• We’ll see what people think about the book in 2049

8. Good storytelling is thorough down to the last detail.

• A lot of research went into the details in the book, especially understanding the advancements of an automated and tech-enabled world of the future. Beyond the research, my attention to detail went as far as tiny pixel edits on my cover design. I’m publicly apologizing to my cover designers for numerous iterations on the book cover. 🙏🏾

9. Good storytelling is environmentally friendly: storytelling makes an important contribution to the preservation of the environment.

• This is a question I don’t have a clear answer on. I want to believe that my storytelling isn’t wasteful. I focused on making every page as impactful as possible so there aren’t any unnecessary pages being printed. That being said, with print-on-demand technology and ebooks, I want to believe that we are not just wasting paper that sits in a warehouse. But that being said, I’m not sure of the energy utilized to print a single book every-time someone orders it and how much energy a server uses to store, replicate, and distribute my ebook/audiobook every time it’s purchased. The jury is still out on this one.

10. Good storytelling is as little storytelling as possible. Less, but better — because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the truth is not burdened with non-essential. Back to purity, back to simplicity.

• I tried to keep it simple y’all. I really did.

Only time will really tell whether my storytelling really sticks to these 10 principles.

Participate in helping me figure that out by reading the story yourself. Get a copy of TOFFY’S DIVIDE(Out: Oct 21, 2021).