Yzabel / June 28, 2026

Review: Trip to the Moon

Trip to the Moon: Understanding the True Power Of StoryTrip 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?

John Yorke has revolutionised our understanding of story structure. In this new book he delves deeper – into how to put that structure to work in the world. Trip to the Moon takes us on a journey not just through drama and fiction but through politics, religion and non-western narrative, to seek out the role of story in all our lives, examining how to utilise its lessons to create life-changing tales – and, in a world aflame with conspiracy theories, to guard ourselves against their darker purpose too.

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.

Yzabel / July 13, 2019

Review: The Science of Storytelling

The Science of StorytellingThe Science of Storytelling by Will Storr
My rating:  [usr 3.5]

Blurb:

Who would we be without stories?

Stories mould who we are, from our character to our cultural identity. They drive us to act out our dreams and ambitions, and shape our politics and beliefs. We use them to construct our relationships, to keep order in our law courts, to interpret events in our newspapers and social media. Storytelling is an essential part of what makes us human.

There have been many attempts to understand what makes a good story – from Joseph Campbell’s well-worn theories about myth and archetype to recent attempts to crack the ‘Bestseller Code’. But few have used a scientific approach. This is curious, for if we are to truly understand storytelling in its grandest sense, we must first come to understand the ultimate storyteller – the human brain.

Review:

[I received a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

Pretty interesting both regarding the science part (how our brains work) and the writing part (how this translated into fiction, and more specifically creating compelling characters with a ‘fatal flaw’). The author illustrates those points with examples from a few well-known books, like ‘Lolita’ and ‘The Remains of the Day’, an approach that could easily be problematic. On the one hand, illustrating the theory with examples is always better. On the other hand, if one hasn’t read those books…spoilers! (I had read those in the past, so I was good here.) At any rates, these examples were good ones in my opinion, especially where ‘Lolita’ is concerned: Humbert Humbert is clearly not the kind of character one is supposed to root for, so for Nabokov to make him and the story compelling, specific techniques had to be used. And once analysed the way they are in “The Science of Storytelling”, they do make a lot of sense. (Please note that this has likely been explored in studies about ‘Lolita’ as well, but I haven’t read them, so I can’t tell whether there’s anything original in here, or not at all.)

Having plenty of examples, though, was perhaps a little overkill in places, in that it left less room to explore more in terms of neuroscience / how the human brain works. I chose to take this book as one I can go back to for ‘writing advice’, but I admit that I felt a little down regarding the science part (I expected more, in a more scientific way). So best is to approach this book as one about writing rather than as a bona fide ‘science’ book’.

(I also didn’t care much for the few moments when the author went more into political opinions. This I found jarring, and it pulled me out of my funk.)

Probably my favourite section was actually the last one (as in, the appendix), which gives good pointers into creating and fleshing out characters based on what the author developed throughout the book. In hindsight, it’s probably ‘logical’ advice, and I suppose that there are quite a few authors out there who’re doing that (consciously or not) as something that is completely obvious and/or logical to them; for me, it was definitely interesting, and I need to keep it in mind when developing my own characters. Which isn’t necessarily easy when you have more than one main character to focus on, but that’s a whole other conundrum.

Conclusion: 3.5 stars