"Writing has defined me.... It's the lens through which I examine my presence in the world," opens Story Telling: A Writing Life. Isabel Allende (The House of the Spirits; My Name Is Emilia del Valle) has written roughly 30 books in her career and is read in more than 40 languages, but Story Telling is a singular addition to her oeuvre. Both a memoir and meditation on her writing life, the 11-part work outlines how she approaches her novels, her techniques, and the lessons she has learned about writing as she has navigates it from start to finish.
Story Telling, importantly, is neither a how-to guide nor lessons on how to create a bestselling novel. Rather, Allende is considering the power of words in society and as connections between people. The work is split into 10 chapters and an epilogue, each introduced with a quote from another respected author. Every chapter reads like a master class on studying one aspect of her writing--if not the writing--process, demonstrating again and again the intimate care that goes into crafting a story. Wisdom on learning, on editing, and even on being willing to discard precious words abounds.
Story Telling is an impassioned defense of the labor and the art of writing, of recording the world as it could be as well as the horrors with it. Allende discusses how research underpins fiction, as it did over the course of writing about a slave revolt in Haiti for Island Beneath the Sea. She examines how words have connected her to her family in ways that eventually became woven into her novels, such as how correspondence with her mother has provided details and ideas for future stories. She also looks at how writing has made her an observer of the world and called her to scrutinize it closely from many angles.
As Allende contemplates the steps that make up her methods, she formulates from self-observation a philosophy on attention, research, plot, character development, and what it means to build the world anew through literary construction. She writes: "Stories play a fundamental role in our lives and in society. They shape our reality, they define us as individuals: who we are, what we do, how we relate to each other, the ideas we have of ourselves and that others have of us." --Michelle Anya Anjirbag, freelance reviewer
Shelf Talker: Globally renowned author Isabel Allende meditates on her writing life, and in doing so, dispenses advice for those who want to consider how and why they write.