Yzabel / June 28, 2026

Trip to the Moon: Understanding the True Power Of Story by John Yorke
My rating: 4/5

Synopsis:

To command narrative is to control a sometimes frightening power. What is it that turbocharges some tales, and how is it possible to harness that potency?

Revealing the artful symmetry and underlying principles that connect Summer beach reads to Classical Chinese poetry, superhero flicks to Russian arthouse, and classical rhetoric to state propaganda, Yorke makes dazzling connections that show how stories have the power to transfigure the chaos of our existence into a new equilibrium, and make the world anew.

Review:

[I received a copy of this book through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.]

This is the first book I read by John Yorke—although I do own In the Woods, I haven’t read it yet at the time of writing this review. Trip to the Moon was an informative and interesting read for me, and while I’ve read my share of books about writing and at times they tend to overlap quite a little, I can say that this one definitely sparked a couple of discussions with my fellow aspiring authors.

First of all, the book does provide information about writing and storytelling. It’s not a “how to” guide, but over the years, as I’ve had to grapple with my own troubles with writing (and have at long last accepted that plot is clearly my weak point, and thus the one I need to focus on more intensely), I’ve also come to realise that there’s no 100% true method, and that each of us has to find what works for us individually. As part of this, a book like this one—which is more reflection about storytelling, about how stories come together—is a valuable tool: reflecting upon something tends to work better, in my opinion, than just blindly following what someone else advised to do. Especially with art: not every aspect can be codified. In order to write good stories, I need to understand how stories work first.

The book relies on several examples, not only in writing—Star Wars makes an appearance, too—and not only in fiction either, for that matter: the power of storytelling is just as well leveraged in politics, in crafting speeches for an audience, and so on. Another part also explores other forms of storytelling, different from what is seen, as the “Western structure” (think Hero’s journey, three-act structure, etc.), and asks the question: are they really that different? This sparked one of the discussions I mentioned earlier in my review: when considering Kishōtenketsu, and other forms of narrative that are said to “not contain conflict”, does it mean that they indeed don’t contain any? Or do they still? Or that conflict is not actually needed? What do we understand when we say, “conflict is what drives stories”? And this, this is the kind of thoughts and conversations this book can spark, and that I find extremely valuable.

I didn’t necessarily agree with absolutely everything Yorke brings in here, and I would’ve liked seeing certain parts more developed, going more in depth. That said, the more philosophical approach is, I suspect, something that will end up becoming more valuable to me in the long run, as such essays help me develop my own thinking about writing.