Deconstructing a Story That Worked

It was a story about a dog.

From their comments, some readers expected that. And they read it anyway.

Why—for a good dog story? To enjoy being right? Both?

I can’t know for sure. What I do know is that this story about the first dog I adopted was my first one on Medium with meaningful data, so I’d be foolish not to dig into it. To deconstruct it into a list of ideas about what went right.

And then to share it with whoever’s interested.

Plenty of people would tell me I’m doing this wrong. That I should gate this behind an email list signup—you know, “join my newsletter for your boost checklist.” Or they’d do it as a Twitter giveaway: “reply with ‘boost me, baby;’ must be following me so I can DM you.”

I don’t want to do things that way.

So here’s what worked for me and for this story about Frankie. If you try any of these techniques, let me know how they work for you!

1: The Title

Titles are tough, but I got a few things right here:

• Curiosity: opens with a quick question.

• Emotion: love has universal appeal.

• Specificity: $500 is specific (AND curious; it’s not a small number for many people).

• Money: numbers are specific, money + a number even more so.

• Value: there’s a lesson suggested—”what it taught me”

Oddly, I didn’t overthink this one. Didn’t put it through an analyzer tool or debate it for a day. Like the moment I adopted Frankie, it just felt right from the start.

2: The Intro

I’ve read stories my whole life, but it’s only this year that I’ve started trying to understand what makes them tick. In the days before I decided to start drafting this story I’d read about the technique of “in medias res,” which means, roughly, “starting in the middle.”

I thought hey, I’ll start in the middle of something! But which thing?

One of my most vivid memories in the week before I got Frankie was my excitement to move into my first apartment—and the contortionist work I did to assemble my desk. And I wanted there to be tension: not just around why I wanted a dog, but around what the story was about. I wanted to delay the dog idea just a little.

As it happens I think the intro also worked because it was human, and relatable.

3: Tension

I’ve never written with an eye on tension before.

At least, not in this form. For years I wrote poetry, and in poetry you’re always thinking about where lines and stanzas end. About leading the reader forward. It works the same in longer form, though it can be more of a challenge since it’s not a matter of single words but of whole sentences and paragraphs.

I’m proud of this particular transition. It was a debate to put a section break here or not, and I think it worked well.

I also used the idea of “Chekhov’s gun,” which says that if you include a specific detail it needs to matter later on. While I’m not sure the length of this story makes my first mention of the dog with heartworms really stand out, it was a concept I’d never learned and it’s one that really gets me thinking.

4: Time—and a List

Frankie was with me for a decade.

How could I convey the scope of the memories from those years, without going on too long and losing the reader? I solved it out by accelerating time.

And using a list, which is a powerful tool I don’t see online writers talking about (or using) nearly enough.

In one paragraph, by listing life events I was able to both accelerate time and convey some of the fullness of the years we had together. And it helped me build quickly toward saying goodbye, which I needed to do here because the lesson is in the looking back.

In order to look back, I needed to accelerate up to the present.

5: The Payoff / Making It Universal

As much as I loved Frankie, this story was no good if it was just another dog story. There had to be something for the reader—even if the reader wasn’t a dog person.

I was able to solve the problem with one simple statement: “We all have those mysterious moments, you know.”

Shifting to “we” brought the story back up to a more universal altitude, and let me put the story and its memories in perspective. And it worked: this story got comments from all kinds of animal fans, alongside people with no pets at all.

Everyone can relate to “what if” and the sense they should have answered it better, or differently.

Or at all.

How often do you go back to your old writing? If your answer is

• never

• sometimes

• how often do I do what now?

maybe give it a thought. Your old writing is a valuable source of ideas and potential rewrites to improve on.

It’s a voice from the past, whispering “what if?”