Have you ever loved how a story made you feel and wondered — how did it do that?
How do the words of a story turn into delicious emotions in our own bodies, experiences that feel more heightened than reality when everything is working well?
Welcome to Lit in One Sentence, a weekly-ish newsletter dedicated to the study of emotional vibes in stories. Expect about 3 posts a month, give or take, arriving on weekends.
We explore vibe-iness by finding any story’s unique emotional superstructure, a literary term we coined right here on this Substack that refers to any story’s most powerful alignment of:
whose head we’re in
what they’re doing, and
why it matters to them
… captured in a single sentence of 30 words or fewer.
Something a little spooky and magical happens when we find a perfect superstructure sentence for any story, one that captures the biggest emotional promise that story has to offer. You can see how pretty much every smaller piece of the story — every subplot, chapter, character, bit of dialogue, scene, summary, and even sentence — is developing some element(s) mentioned in the superstructure.
You can gain unprecedented insight into how any story is achieving its unique emotional vibes. Even if you are the author of that story, going through this process can help you see your work and its structure in a new light, and more intentionally craft or communicate the emotional vibes of any story you’re working on or excited about.
If you’re not a story creator, glancing at the “emotional superstructure” sentence in each craft post will still give you a sense — in 30 seconds or less — of what a rich variety of contemporary and classic stories are really about. Reading on to the lesson will allow you to peer further into that story’s emotional depths and how they were crafted. You’ll learn to think like a story creator, and being able to tell powerful stories can be magical in so many areas of life.
What Will You Get in a Paid Plan?
A weekly-ish newsletter arriving in your inbox most weekends.
Many of these will contain:
the one-sentence superstructure of a contemporary or classic story that tells you how it achieves its overall emotional vibes in 30 words max
a lesson in emotional spell crafting that you can learn from as a story creator, even if you haven’t read or watched the work in question yet
a prompt connected to that story’s emotional vibes that you can share a response to in the comments, restack with your answer if you’re on Substack’s internal social network Notes (please tag me if you do!), or write or reflect on privately
my answer to the prompt, to get the conversation started
access to the private comments, where you can share how you are emotionally engaging with this story’s vibes, work out how the emotional crafting lessons apply to your own work, and chat and connect with fellow subscribers
Other posts may cover the “how and why” of emotional superstructure: the neuroscience behind it, evidence of how well this works from the front lines of Hollywood, how to find and use these as north stars for your own stories in progress, using superstructure to communicate a story’s emotional vibes to everyone else, and so much more.
You’ll be able to comment on all posts, and your comments will only be visible to other paying subscribers, not the rest of the internet.
Your energy and enthusiasm will shape the gathering.
What Will You Get in a Free Plan?
A weekly-ish newsletter arriving in your inbox most weekends.
Many of these will contain:
the one-sentence superstructure of a contemporary or classic story that tells you how it achieves its overall emotional vibes in 30 words max (these will always be available to free subscribers, and are a great way to learn about a vast sweep of literature with very little effort on your part!)
a preview of the lesson in emotional spell casting we’re drawing from that story; some lessons will be fully available to free subscribers
a prompt connected to that story’s emotional vibes that you can restack with your answer if you’re on Substack’s internal social network Notes (please tag me if you do!), or write or reflect on privately
Other posts may cover the “how and why” of emotional superstructure: the neuroscience behind it, evidence of how well this works from the front lines of Hollywood, how to find and use these as north stars for your own stories in progress, using superstructure to communicate a story’s emotional vibes to everyone else, and so much more. Generous previews and sometimes the full posts will be available to free subscribers.
My more personal answers to the prompt questions and the subscriber gathering in the comments will be mostly tucked behind the paywall. This is to keep it semi-protected rather than always on display for the internet as a whole.
