Tolstoy’s Genius Storytelling Style (5 Tips)

Hi everyone, thank you for watching this. In this video, I'll tell you five writing tips and storytelling tips you can learn from Leo Tolstoy, the greatest Russian writer. I read and reviewed both of his masterpieces, Anna Karenina and War and Peace. Both considered the greatest novels of all time. When you read Tolstoy, the first thing you notice is that you believe he's telling the truth. His characters are real people. The dialogue sounds convincing. Something else too, Tolstoy didn't write for money. He was well off and he didn't have to write to make ends meet. He wrote because he couldn't do otherwise. In other words, he was a genuine artist who was open-minded enough to observe, understand and write about his time. Not only that, he knew how literature worked. In other words, literature tells the stories of disruption to the status quo. All Tolstoy's novels are about disruption. Wars, affairs, illnesses, revelations and death. Dostoevsky was another one. In fact, what makes Russian literature so popular around the world is that brutal Russian honesty. No sugarcoating or averting your gaze from the ugly. We all take different personas in our lives to the point of self-deception. Tolstoy peeled many layers to write what really saw and felt. Honesty gives your writing more depth and makes it live much longer because the deeper you dig into your soul, the more you get to the truth about human condition. Therefore, anyone can relate to you. Quote, one ought only to write when one leaves a piece of one's own flesh in the inkpot. Each time one dips one's pen. In other words, Tolstoy's characters are all Tip number two, body language. We all lie and so do Tolstoy's characters, but our body language speaks more honestly than words. I don't know who, but someone described Tolstoy as a poet of human body and Dostoevsky a poet of the human soul. Tolstoy's precise description of his characters plants the reader right in front of them. You hear their words, then watch their body language. Thus, you see through them as if they're real people. When Tolstoy writes dialogue, he does something else too. He shows us their body language, gestures, and facial expressions. Now you have a full view to observe them. Now you know them. So Tolstoy pairs every dialogue with some action. What characters do like smoke, chewing, gesture, and as reader, you observe them while listening to their words. That is Tolstoy's gift. There's also something else. Tolstoy was also a poet of silence. Silence can be louder than words. Once you master the gap between words, body language, and silence, your characters come to life. According to Simon Schama, the British historian, Tolstoy didn't write characters. He wrote people. Tip number three. People would consider Tolstoy a novelist of human drama. It is true. He wrote about human relationships. The reason for that is that we are social creatures. Even novels of loneliness are about relationships or lack of it. Our deepest happiness and sadness are often experienced in the presence of others. Human relationships are an endless source of beauty, comfort, and sadness and ugliness. I think the most successful novelists are those who can write human relationships well. And Tolstoy is one of them. We individuals are entangled in groups, our family, society, country, and the world. And how we navigate our relationship with our family, friends, and colleagues, compatriots, has puzzled humans from the beginning of time and will likely continue in the future. So read Tolstoy and write about human relationships. Tip number four. Get inspired. When Tolstoy met Victor Hugo in Paris in 1860s, who had published his masterpiece, La Miserable, he was so inspired to do the same thing. He returned to Russia and Ten years later, he wrote Anna Karenina, again perhaps in response to Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary. Of course, it would be naive to suggest that Tolstoy only wrote his novels to prove a point. Be inspired to write, but not for the wrong reason. Quote. a means of livelihood or of winning importance in people's eyes. Use other authors to motivate yourself or add to the fuel that is already in your tank. Tolstoy also warns you, quote. Tip number five. Write more, think less. In Anna Karenina, Levin, while cutting the grass, is so absorbed in the action that he loses the sense of time. But there's a crucial point. While not aware of his action, he's doing a better job. As soon as he starts thinking how to do a better job, he loses. In other words, being aware is the enemy of artistic ability. When writers lose the where their characters are real people and that's when you achieve that artistic flow. Of course, this comes with practice. The more you write, the easier it is to be in the flow. Tolstoy was famous for writing endless pages in his first draft. Quote. as it comes at length and then revise it and above all shorten it. In the business of writing, gold is only obtained, in my experience, by sifting. To achieve your writer's flow, enter the subconscious by writing more and thinking less. So these are the writing tips from Leo Tolstoy. Let me know what you think. I'll leave you with this quote. It's not enough not to lie. One should strive not to lie in the negative sense by remaining silent. Tolstoy wrote because he couldn't remain silent.