A Letter from Chris Suarez
LIFE IS NOT A NOVEL
I spend a lot of time in the book store with my kids. Arguably its for me, but they have both fallen in love with reading and most Friday nights will find our family enjoying a “reading night” instead of a “move night”. I have spent countless hours in the “Young Reader” section with my daughters, and have notice that the biggest sellers, and most popular books on the shelves, include hundreds of “series”. The author releases a book, creates a strong following for the lead characters, and begins at times, a decades long and multi-book journey of writing and releasing. Some of the most popular book series have been going for 5, 10, or even 15 years. J.K Rowling wrote The Harry Potter series in 7 books over a decade of time. The Diary of a Wimpy Kid just released its 19th book. And many of us remember The Hardy Boys (66 books) or Nancy Drew (64 books).
As a child, I remember reading novels, and being taught to write stories. All stories and books had a main character, a setting, a theme, some conflict, and eventual resolution. Those characteristics of the story were then woven through the introduction, the plot, and ultimately the conclusion. The book had a beginning, a middle, and an end.
And perhaps because we were raised believing that there always was a beginning, a middle, and an end, we’ve begun to live our lives just like the books and stories that we read. We begin to put too much value or too much emphasis on every decision - so as to control our conclusion. We may feel as if we are running out of pages. We may feel as if we don’t have enough time to shift the plot or change directions in our story. We may feel like we have just enough time left to deal with the conflict in front of us, find some resolution, and wrap the story up.
That hesitation often leads to writing our own story with fear. We get too worried about how our story may end, that we avoid taking risks. We avoid making drastic changes in our lives because we think there are not enough pages in our book left to fill. We feel like we’ve come too far in our current book, that we couldn’t possibly introduce a new plot twist, a new character, a new adventure. So we just write out the expected, well played story running in our head. Our life reflects the novels we grew up with.
If we instead viewed our lives like a book series, we’d know that regardless of the way this chapter, or this specific volume in the series ends, there is always a book to add on. Regardless of the direction our story is headed right now, it can change substantially in the very next volume. We can change the plot in our story. We can adjust the setting our character finds itself in. And the next series - or phase of our life - can bring with it a drastically different conclusion.
This is reminiscent of the Choose Your Own Adventure series which debuted back in 1979. Edward Packard began a series that grew to over 184 original books and more than 400 spin offs, not even accounting for the various conclusions possible in every single book.
Our lives are no short story. Our lives are no novel. Stop worrying about your autobiography. Go ahead and choose your own adventure. We all have many more books to write in the series of our lives.
Chris