Sound Judgment: Striving for Creative Excellence

A new perspective on impact, and wondering with Kelly Corrigan

Hi Storytellers — 

I was washing the dishes yesterday and listening to one of my longtime favorite podcasts, What Should I Read Next?, when I heard something and felt a sudden shift in understanding. The fragments of a poorly understood idea, like the glass in a kaleidoscope, suddenly slid together.   

Host Anne Bogel was interviewing historical novelist Ariel Lawhon (“The Frozen River”). “What do you think makes a book work?” Bogel asked. “What is it about a book that makes us just go, this is it?”

It’s the same question I’ve been asking since long before I founded Sound Judgment: What is creative excellence, exactly? Why is it easy to recognize compelling storytelling when we feel it — to say, “this is it” — but so hard to articulate what makes it so?

“It boils down to a single thing,” Lawhon answered. “Am I thinking about that book when I'm not reading it? Does it take up mental real estate during the entire time that I spend with it?” 

She then shifted her point of view from reader to…